Leasing in Cape Verde

Good day all, I work for a relocations company and we need some information in regards to renting in Cape Verde. I need the following details:
does the lease need to be registered, and how often?
how much is the usual deposit, equal to how many months rental amount?
what are the estate agents fees, and who pays this the tenant or landlord?
what is the standard lease period?
how often is the rent paid, monthly/quarterly/annually?
is the utilities included in the rental amount?
what is the lease language, can it be bilingual?
for a diplomatic/early termination clause, what is the notice period?
is there somewhere to rent furniture or does it need to be purchased?
I look forward to your input. Thanks.
Nicolette
-@niccivdb

Hi Nicollette,

My answers below refers to what is most comnonly found in leases in CV:

• does the lease need to be registered, and how often?

The lease does not need to be registered unless you need to present the lease for official purposes, for example, when applying for a residency visa, and even then, you register the lease only once (it must be authenticated at the civil registry....basically the lessee and lessor simply have their signatures witnessed). However, if you have a business entity that leases commercial space, the lease is required to be registered (only once) with the ministry of finance in order to obtain certain licenses such as an import license.

• how much is the usual deposit, equal to how many months rental amount?

The depositi is usually one month of rent, but in some cases may be two months (for example, when someone without a job is leasing an apartment).

• what are the estate agents fees, and who pays this the tenant or landlord?

Estate agents' fees can vary but in anayevent, it is paid by the landlord.

• what is the standard lease period?

The standard lease period can be 6 months or 1 year, and is automatically renewable. It is up to the tenant.

• how often is the rent paid, monthly/quarterly/annually?

Monthly

• is the utilities included in the rental amount?

Usually, utilities are not included. In some cases of small private landlords, they may include utilities in the rent, but this usually ends in disaster as the tenant may use utilities excessively and the landlord then shuts off the utility while demending that the tenant pay an extra rental fee to have the utility turned back on. I always recommnd to my own clients that they never accept a lease agreement that includes utilities. This way you can negotiate the rental amount down while offering to pay the utilities separately upon the presentation of the monthly utility bill.

• what is the lease language, can it be bilingual?

The officail language of Cape Verde is Portuguese. So it is the language required for official contracts. The tenant is always free to do their own translation into another language but the landlord will only sign a Portuguese language contract as no ther language is acceptable in local courts.

• for a diplomatic/early termination clause, what is the notice period?

Typically 30 days.

• is there somewhere to rent furniture or does it need to be purchased?

No. Furniture can be purchased. There are many apartments which are leased already furnished, but the rent of course will be commensurately higher. I usually recommend unfurnished apartments. Furnising an apartment in Cape Verde is cheap (as the options are cheap imports with not very high qualify but usually acceptable for living, plus used furniture is easily and quickly sold when it is time to go). The local population can barely afford brand new furniture or appliances. Most locals buy used furniture and appliances. There is a robust local market for second hand items. So much so that a tenant could easily furnsh an apartment themselves with used furniture and appliances, and sell those when it is time to leave.

One other point to note is that the island of Sal is unlike all the other islands of Cape Verde. Sal attracts 80% of the tourists coming to Cape Verde. There are a few large property managers who control the entire rental market there as most units are owned by foreigners as second homes or as investment properties, in which they do not actually reside long-term. So such properties are managed by these estate agents and they make the rules that goven the marketplace in Sal. Thus, leases in Sal may not meet the typical characteristics that I noted above. You would have to ask these questions of one of those property management companies directly.

Best regards,

Angelo