EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE
The most accessible way into a NEAR villa — full turnkey restoration, structure to furniture, with a private cascading pool as the centrepiece of your garden. One contract, one handover date. €6M+ delivered. 11 ruins completed.
Buy the ruin, not the finished villa — save tens of thousands in transfer tax.
Long lunches. Empty beaches in October. Mornings that don't start with a commute. This is the part that doesn't need a contract to sell itself.
Slow mornings, outdoor living, year-round — not just July and August.
Non-stop flights to London, Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin and more.
Private care and daily costs that go further than back home.
Decades of people who came for a season and stayed for good.
"Not a renovation. A pace of life you get to keep."NEAR EXPERIENCE, ALGARVE
Most restoration projects don't fail on the ruin. They fail on everything around it.
Contractors who disappear mid-project
Permits that run a year over the promise
A renovation that quietly becomes a second mortgage
Managing it all from another country, in a language you don't speak
Some of these walls have stood for over 80 years — through decades empty, through roofs that gave way to rain and weeds that grew through the floor. We don't just renovate them. We decide, one by one, which ones deserve a new life.
Saying yes to the wrong ruin is how projects go over budget and over schedule. We'd rather say no early — of everything that crosses our desk, only a fraction ever becomes one of our 11 completed builds.
You're not choosing NEAR for a tax break. But once you've fallen for the villa, these are what make the numbers work even better.
Transfer tax (IMT) applies to the ruin's price, not the finished villa's — often tens of thousands of euros less.
See how it works →Ruins inside an Urban Rehabilitation Area can qualify for reduced VAT on the construction contract itself.
See how it works →The ruin is registered in your name before we lay a single stone — never the other way around.
See the guarantee →Staged payments tied to real progress — never the full amount upfront, never money sitting in limbo.
See how it works →Since the 2026 reform, reconstructing a ruin without changing its exterior no longer requires a building license — even in heritage-protected areas. We only take on ruins that qualify.
See how it works →Lived somewhere your whole life, in a house you never wanted to leave? We can recreate what made it feel like yours — a room's layout, a favourite window, the garden you knew by heart — inside and out, on any of our three models, within what local licensing allows. We've already done this for a client who didn't want a new house. They wanted their old one, near the sea.
Every model is delivered fully turnkey, structure to furniture, always. Final price depends on your ruin's size and plot — this is your starting point.
A quick simulation — not a final quote. No email required.
The more flexible your budget, the faster we find your ruin.
Based on 11 ruins delivered to date. This is a simulation, not a quote — confirmed once we've evaluated real ruins matching your budget.
This is a prospection deposit, not a fee. It puts us to work finding your ruin — and every outcome is covered.
No matching ruin found within 12 weeks — full refund, no conditions.
We find your ruin, and the €1,000 comes straight off your build contract.
A defined window, not an open-ended wait.
Every stage — the search, the deposit, the build — is set out in a written contract, drafted and reviewed with independent lawyers. Nothing verbal, nothing assumed.
The ruin is registered in your name before we lay a single stone. You're never handing over your dream and hoping — we build on what's already yours, never the other way around.
The price you sign is the price you pay. No mid-project surprises, no "unexpected" costs added once the work is underway.
Every payment is tied to a completed, verified stage of construction — never released in advance, never a lump sum sitting with no work behind it.
You pay as each phase of the build is completed — never before it starts.
Each stage is checked on site before the next payment is ever due.
The €1,000 prospection deposit is never money lost to fees — it's credited straight into your first stage.
Buy an already-finished €500,000 villa, and property transfer tax (IMT) is calculated on that full €500,000 — often around €25,000. Buy the ruin in your own name instead, and IMT applies only to the ruin's price. The construction that follows isn't a taxable transfer. On a typical project, that difference can mean tens of thousands of euros saved before you've laid a single brick.
There's a second advantage on top of that. Ruins inside an Urban Rehabilitation Area (ARU) — many of ours are — can qualify for a reduced 6% VAT rate on the construction contract itself, instead of the standard 23%. On a €400,000 build, that's the difference between roughly €92,000 and €24,000 in VAT.
Illustrative only — your exact IMT bracket and VAT eligibility depend on the property, its ARU status, and your situation. We're builders, not tax advisors, but we can put you in touch with a specialist.
A track record you can check, not just a promise. Here's what we've actually completed and handed over.
240m² villa on 50,000m² of land, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Completed and sold.
140m² restored farmhouse on 6,000m² of land. Full ecological rehabilitation, completed and sold.
Full renovation with modern country-style kitchen, custom joinery throughout. Completed and sold.
Want to see what's realistic for your budget? Ask us on WhatsApp.
One owner who'd already bought a home through us came back for a second — this time buying the ruin himself and letting us run everything else, start to finish. Our most recent sale went further still: the client bought both the ruin and the build, arranged through estate agents. Different paths, same result — proof this model holds up on repeat, not just on paper.
They handled licensing we didn't know existed. We just picked finishes.
One contract, one date, no surprises. Ready the week they promised.
We never saw the ruin in person before buying. Now we summer in it.
The pool inauguration alone was worth it. I loved it.
I liked working with them so much on my first home that I hired them again to build a second, from scratch.
Tell us your budget and taste. We search the Algarve for the ruin that fits — plot, licensing, and location checked before you commit.
You buy the ruin directly, in your name. The land is yours from day one — no shared ownership, no middleman markup.
One turnkey contract covers structure, systems, interiors and furniture. One handover date — not a hundred invoices.
I've walked into ruins weeks from collapsing — roofs gone, one winter from falling, houses that would have simply disappeared. NEAR Experience exists to give places like that a new life, not just a fresh coat of paint. The refundable deposit, payments tied to real progress, one point of contact — all come from lessons learned watching good people lose months to permits and contractors who vanish. We won't get every ruin right, but we'll always tell you the truth about a property before you commit — even when it's "don't buy this one."
Tell us what you're looking for. We'll come back with real options — not a sales call. Submitting opens WhatsApp with your details, ready to send.
Carried over from your estimate — feel free to adjust below.