Rents could rise by 6.94% next year. This is the inflation value of the past twelve months, excluding housing, and serves as the basis for the annual update coefficient for rents. Deco – Consumer Defense Association is “deeply concerned” about a possible rise in this order and warns of the “distressing situation” in which many families find themselves. Tenants are demanding rent freezes, while landlords are demanding compliance with the law. The government says it will assess whether action should be taken or not.
It should be remembered that last year, faced with the prospect of an update of rents in 2023 at 5.43%, the executive introduced a brake rule limiting the increase to a maximum of 2%. In 2022, the increase was 0.43%, after there was no update in 2021 because inflation was negative. When questioned by journalists on the sidelines of a visit she made to Fundão, the Minister of Housing said firmly: “We are at a stage where it is necessary to evaluate the different options we have on the table”. It is now time to “follow the rental market and find more structural and more cyclical solutions in it”, says Marina Gonçalves, emphasizing the need to “evaluate what is the next step”, in the certainty that the rent alone but will be adjusted. in 2024.
For landlords, the possibility that the government again blocks the adjustment of rents is something unthinkable. “If it happens, it will be very bad for the rental market. In the repayments of mortgage loans, the increases are 60%, so 10 times more than this increase. There is therefore no point in penalizing the lease in this way if there is no intervention in the home loan,” says Luís Menezes Leitão, Vice President of the Association of Home Owners of Lisbon.
António Frias Marques, president of the National Association of Homeowners, recalls that the legislation “has been around for 41 years and has always been enforced” regardless of whether inflation was low, negative or high. “Last year there was the audacity to camouflage inflation and it would be very bad if they tried to do that again,” he says, emphasizing that the landlord may or may not apply the relevant coefficient. What “makes no sense”, he argues, is that “the burden not placed on the supermarkets should be placed on the landlords, most of whom are small owners, when we know that most of the inflation is not included in the rents.” of the house, it is in the butcher shop, fishmonger, transport, etc.”.
Tenants disagree. António Machado, secretary general of the Lisbon Tenants’ Association, says rents are already “at a speculative level” and that a 6.94% increase would “exacerbate the disaster situation” already unfolding today, noting that with an income of 500 euros, it would be almost 35 euros more per month. “There should be no increase. What is needed is strong government intervention to make more housing available and to lower rents,” he argues. José Maria Silva, Vice-President of the Association of Tenants and Owners of the North, said, as communicated to the government in the context of the More Housing Package, that “rents should be frozen while inflation remains high”.
Natalia Nunes, coordinator of Deco’s Financial Protection Office, is concerned about this possible increase, as “rents already take up a large part of the family budget”. The support created by the government does not reach everyone who could apparently benefit from it, he guarantees, underlining: “If they already have problems paying the rent, these kinds of increases will put them in a dire situation”.
Ilídia Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
