Business Brief: Casas do Barlavento - luxury villas in Portugal

Do you fancy heading to Portugal's beautiful Algarve? Casas do Barlavento can help find you somewhere to rent for a holiday - or to buy.

Company name: Casas do Barlavento Lda

Interviewee: Paul Cotterell

What is your biggest-selling product? Resort Properties on the Real estate side of the company and luxury villas and apartments on the Holiday rentals side of the company.

What is your coolest product? 5* luxury resort in Praia da Luz that has all the facilities that you could ever think of in a Resort and is also just meters from the sea and beach. It is called the Estrela da Luz Resort..

How did your company get started? The company was founded by Dr Luis Ledo who was in Hotel Management and tourism trade. He worked at the Resort Parque da Floresta for many years as a Resort Director and thought at the time it made perfect sense to offer to the public a taste of the Algarve and offer all the experiences in one. A little like a “One Stop Shop” I suppose.

What's the nicest thing a customer has ever said about your company? This is what one customer said about us: "The professionalism that was taken and given to the us when we were buying and selling was fantastic and now we have sold they do a great job of looking after the property for us and getting rentals for us."

If your company was a car, what would it be and why? It would be a Range rover car because not just having the look of class the car takes care of everything we need it to do. It’s strong and reliable and when asked to give its best performance it steps up to the plate.

What keeps you awake at night? The knowledge that all of our customers and clients are happy and enjoying their properties or their holidays..

If I call up or visit your company's office, will your staff be able to speak with me in English? If you were to go to any of our office locations the staff are all multilingual in many languages including English, Portuguese, German, French and Spanish. A big effort is made to communicate as in real estate that’s what’s important.

What's the strangest request you have ever had? We had a potential client call and ask if there was anyone that wanted to give their property for free in the summer, so that at least someone was using it and keeping it clean!

What are the other advantages of your offering?
Living in Portugal is great if you are a pensioner claiming a foreign pension - in many cases you won't have to pay any income tax on it at all. If you are tax resident under Portuguese domestic legislation, but have not have been taxed as a Portuguese resident in the five years prior to taking up residence in Portugal you can be classed as a 'non-habitual resident'. If you have this status you pay no income tax on a foreign-sourced pension for ten years. We've got more information about this in our brochure, which you can get by contacting us.

For further information email or call 00351 282 780 870 and ask for Paul Cotterell – Sales Director.

Article sponsored by Casas do Barlavento.