Why I started PIDS

A new chapter in Portugal

Two years ago, my husband and I left Dubai for Portugal. We were ready for a slower pace, a more family-friendly rhythm, green landscapes, and the kind of sunny weather you can build a life around. Portugal offered all of it.

Then we tried to buy a home

That is where the story shifted. Every time we found a property we liked and asked for an inspection, we ran into the same three problems: inspectors were difficult to find, the ones we did reach often took days to reply, schedules were booked weeks out, and the reports we eventually received listed defect after defect without ever explaining what any of it actually meant.

For two people preparing to spend hundreds of thousands of euros on a home in a country we had only just begun to call ours, that gap was not a small inconvenience. It was the difference between a confident decision and a leap of faith.

What I knew could be different

I am a civil engineer. I knew property inspection in Portugal could be done at a much higher standard, especially for expats trying to evaluate a home in a second language and a construction system they had not grown up with. Three months after arriving, I started PIDS.

Building the team

I built the website, sourced our first local inspector, and spent months networking across the country. Over time, I assembled a team of senior Portuguese architects and civil engineers, professionals with deep experience in local building standards and the realities of Portuguese property construction. They know what each defect means, what is urgent, what can wait, and what is simply normal for a building of a given age and region. That context is what most reports leave out, and it is exactly what buyers need.

Hands-on, end-to-end

Behind every PIDS inspection is a single playbook: a protocol of more than one hundred checkpoints, clear severity ratings, photo evidence, and side-by-side bilingual reporting. Our inspectors work inside a property inspection app built specifically for our process. This ensures every report maintains the same depth of detail and standard, regardless of the inspector or the property's region. At the same time, every property is unique, and our inspections are tailored to each one, shaped by its age, location, construction type, and the specific concerns that matter for that home.

From the inquiry to the on-site visit to the final report delivery, I personally oversee quality control. That is what makes PIDS a single, consistent service rather than a directory of independent inspectors.

Today

Today, PIDS covers every region of Portugal, from Lisbon, Porto, Braga, and the Algarve to Madeira and the cities of the north. Wherever an expat is buying, a senior local architect or civil engineer from our team is close by. And we do not stop at delivering a report. We walk our clients through what it means, so they have the full picture of the property before they sign.