The Long View: Judging an Overseas Property by the Decade Ahead

A viewing abroad is usually a pleasant hour spent looking at light, views and room sizes. The decisions that cause difficulty later are rarely about any of those things. They concern the six steps from the pavement to the front door, the width of the bathroom door, and whether the lift in a small apartment block has a maintenance contract or merely a handwritten note taped inside the cabin.

None of this requires a morbid outlook. It requires a long one. A property bought at sixty-five may need to serve until eighty-five, and the interval between those two ages is not a single condition but a series of gradual changes. The sensible approach is to judge a house on how easily it can be adapted, and to know in advance what that adaptation would cost.

Begin with the route from the street to the bed

Before examining the kitchen, walk the full journey a tired person would make at the end of the day: gate, path, steps, front door, hallway, stairs, bedroom. Count every change of level. Note whether handrails exist on both sides, whether the path is paved or loose gravel, and whether the entrance is lit by a motion sensor or by a single bulb above a door two metres away.

Ask the agent to let you walk the route again carrying two heavy suitcases. It is a crude test, but it reveals awkward turns, narrow gates and thresholds that would be hazardous with a walking stick. If the property is on a steep hillside, consider the gradient of the drive in wet weather and the distance from the nearest point where a vehicle could park. Ambulance access is not a morbid consideration either; it is a practical one in rural areas where the nearest hospital may be twenty minutes away on a good road.

Lifts: read the paperwork before the cabin

In a flat, the lift is the single most important piece of infrastructure. A cabin that opens smoothly on the day of the viewing tells you very little. Ask the seller or managing agent for the maintenance contract, the date of the last inspection, the age of the installation and the availability of spare parts. In older buildings, particularly in southern Europe, a lift may be a later addition fitted into a converted stairwell, with a cabin too small for a wheelchair or a stretcher and doors that are difficult to hold open.

Establish which levels the lift serves. A lift that reaches the apartment but not the garage, the pool terrace or the storage room leaves a flight of outdoor steps in daily use. Ask about the building's sinking fund and whether a replacement lift has been discussed at the condominium meetings. A service charge that looks modest today may rise sharply when machinery reaches the end of its working life. Finally, ask what residents do when the lift fails, since it will fail at some point, and note which floor the flat is on.

The bathroom decides more than any other room

If only one room can be examined in detail, make it the bathroom. Measure the clear width of the doorway; 80cm is workable, 90cm is better. Note whether the shower is over a bath, whether there is a step into the shower tray, and whether there is space beside the WC for a frame or a helper. Check the wall construction, because grab rails need solid fixing, and many Mediterranean bathrooms are finished in tile over hollow block.

A wet room conversion is often the first major adaptation. In a concrete-framed building the floor may need to be channelled to create a fall to the drain, and the soil pipes may be embedded in the slab. Costs vary widely, but a realistic range for a small bathroom is €6,000 to €15,000, with more if the layout must change. Ask a local builder rather than relying on UK estimates, which rarely translate.

Doorways, corridors and quiet hazards

Walk the apartment with a tape measure. Interior doors in older European homes are frequently 70cm wide, which is tight for a frame and impossible for a wheelchair. Corridors may be shortened by built-in cupboards. Watch for raised thresholds between rooms, polished marble floors that become treacherous when wet, and rugs that slide on tile.

Lighting deserves more attention than it usually receives. Switches placed at the conventional height are fine for most people, but sockets near floor level require bending. If the property has a balcony, examine the threshold and the height of the railing. These are small observations that accumulate into a picture of how demanding the house will be on an ordinary Tuesday in ten years' time.

Kitchens, laundry and the daily strain

A kitchen that works well today may not work later if the oven is under the worktop and the crockery is stored in high cupboards. Consider whether there is space to introduce a pull-out shelf or a deeper worktop with knee space. The laundry is often the greater issue abroad: washing machines are commonly placed on a roof terrace, in an outdoor utility room or in a basement. Carrying a basket up and down stairs is a task that becomes harder quietly and without warning.

Gardens, pools and outside space

Terracing is one of the pleasures of living abroad, but it is also a series of level changes. Count the steps to the pool and check whether there is a handrail. A pool with a Roman step entry is easier to manage than one with a ladder. If the garden is large, consider who will maintain it and at what cost, since gardening help may be less available in rural areas than in towns.

The trades you will need, and the ones you may not find

Adaptation depends on local labour. Ask who maintains the building, who installed the current bathroom and whether there is a local builder who works in older properties. In rural parts of Spain, Portugal, Italy and France, skilled tradesmen may be booked months ahead, and materials may need to be ordered from a provincial capital. An English-speaking builder is not automatically a good one; ask for references from other foreign owners and inspect previous work.

Structural changes in stone or rubble walls are specialist work. Widening a doorway in a load-bearing wall may require a lintel and, in a conservation area, planning consent. In an apartment, external alterations and even some internal ones require approval from the condominium. These permissions take time and are best investigated before exchange of contracts rather than after.

Care at home: the part most buyers overlook

If the plan is to remain in the house for as long as possible, the availability of domiciliary care matters as much as the width of the doors. Provision varies enormously. In some regions, local authority assessments are available to residents regardless of nationality; in others, private agencies dominate and costs are higher in coastal areas during the season. Ask about hourly rates, minimum visits, the languages spoken by carers and whether live-in care is permitted in the property.

It is also worth understanding that care is not funded in the same way as in the UK. There is no direct equivalent of a Disabled Facilities Grant in most countries, and adaptations are usually paid for privately. Long-term care insurance, where it exists, should be examined carefully with a professional adviser. This is not a reason to avoid a move; it is a reason to plan for it with clear information.

What adaptation realistically costs

For an older Mediterranean or rural house, the following ranges are indicative only and should be replaced with local quotes: widening a doorway, €800 to €2,500; a wet room conversion, €6,000 to €15,000; an external ramp, €3,000 to €8,000; a stairlift, €3,000 to €6,000 where the staircase allows one; a through-floor lift, €15,000 to €30,000; and a small home lift, €25,000 to €45,000, with significant additional cost in a stone building where a shaft must be created. Add planning fees, condominium consent and the possibility of structural work.

An afternoon audit

Take a notebook and record: the number of steps from the street to the front door; the width of every interior door; the bathroom door width, shower type and WC space; the lift's cabin and door dimensions; the location of the laundry; the number of steps to the garden and pool; the nearest pharmacy, GP surgery and hospital; and the distance to a shop that delivers.

Ask the seller how long the property has been in use as a permanent home, whether any adaptations have already been made, and what the service charges and sinking fund have covered in recent years. If the answers are vague, treat that as information in itself.

A house does not need to be perfect at the point of purchase. It needs to offer options. The purpose of this audit is not to rule out characterful old properties, but to ensure that the decision to buy one is made with a clear understanding of what the next twenty years may require.