Today in the Council of Ministers, the government approved the package of measures contained in the “More Housing” programme, which aims to combat the shortage of affordable housing. On the table are some of the plan’s most controversial proposals, such as the forced renting out of vacant homes, from the ceiling to the increase in new rents and the end of new local housing permits, a sector that will also face a tax hike in areas of greater urban pressure.
Measures strongly opposed and already targeted by the President of the Republic, who in recent weeks has led the tone of criticism, in particular the possibility of forced rental of vacant housing. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has already expressed doubts about the constitutionality, has already said the measure should be “reconsidered” and admitted not to implement it. The question now is whether the Executive – which has guaranteed to take into account the contributions made in the context of the public consultation of the diploma, including those of the President of the Republic – will back down. SIC Notícias announced yesterday that the government will maintain all measures. But hopefully with adjustments and, as a source from the Socialist Bank referred to DN, with “room for changes in the specialty work”, in the parliamentary seat, where the Socialists will try to fit in some contributions from the PSD projects . The leader of the socialist bank, Eurico Brilhante Dias, has urged opening the dialogue of the absolute socialist majority, on this particular issue, pointing as an example to the feasibility (by abstention) of several opposition proposals, about two weeks ago . On Tuesday, at the end of the PS Parliamentary Days, the Prime Minister himself guaranteed a “spirit of openness”. “Not only around our initiatives, but also the initiatives of the opposition parties,” said António Costa, emphasizing that in the matters that fall under parliamentary competence “everything that needs to change will change through the debate and the approval that will be made in the Assembly of the Republic”.
Promoting affordable renting
The forced letting of vacant houses offers the state the possibility of renting out the houses against payment of rent to the owner. To prevent this scenario, the owner is given 100 days to start using the house before it is forced to rent out. Excluded from this equation are properties that are vacant because they are holiday homes or emigrants, where the owner resides in a nursing home or provides permanent care as a family caregiver, or where the owners are displaced for occupational, health or educational reasons.
Another proposal that has been at the center of controversy is the limitation of rent increases in new contracts. – for houses that have been on the rental market for the last five years, the increase cannot exceed 2% (a value to which the automatic update coefficients of the previous three years and the level of inflation can be added).
One of the main lines of action of the government-designed program is to create incentives, in a variety of ways, for affordable renting. To that end, the Executive is trying to bet on increasing the state’s housing stock, namely granting IRS exemption on capital gains obtained from property sales to the state or municipalities. With the same aim, another measure that will be taken today provides for the state to rent houses to private individuals and then sublet them at affordable prices, with a maximum effort of 35% for the tenant. On the other hand, and to give landlords more confidence, the “More Housing” plan also provides for the state to replace the tenant when paying rent, after three months of non-compliance – it is then up to the public services to determine the reasons for non-payment, mobilize social security resources if there is a need for support, or proceed to collection.
Another measure to increase the number of available homes on the market concerns creating incentives for homes currently allocated to local accommodation to move to traditional tenancy, so enjoy an IRS exemption on renting until the end of 2030.
“Definitely disproportionate” measures
This is the only measure, of several affecting local housing, that has not earned an outcry from the industry. Still, Eduardo Miranda, President of the Local Accommodation Association in Portugal (ALEP), does not stop talking about “blackmail” as this is an “incentive accompanied by a very severe punishment” – the extraordinary contribution that will be levied on buildings located in an urban pressure zone, which will result from the application of a coefficient with different indicators, with a rate applicable to the taxable base of 35%. Eduardo Miranda says that in the various simulations already carried out “there are cases where the contribution is higher than the invoice” – “It’s unbelievable”. In addition to the various protests of the sector in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve – and which are repeated again today – ALEP has met in recent weeks with the guardianship (the economy), the Minister of Housing and various parliamentary groups, nthe effort to reverse this measure, as well as the possibility that more than half of a condominium could cancel local lodging in a fraction of a building. A proposal that “will create a climate of conflict” between tenants, argues Eduardo Miranda.
The sector is also committed to withdrawing new local housing permits (with the exception of the domestic sector) and the expiry of current registrations in 2030, after which the permits are renewed every five years. “These measures will not only kill local accommodation, but also local economies and will not bring anything new in terms of housing,” says the ALEP leader, who claims that there are 55,000 families living off local accommodation and thousands of people living for this sector work. “We were not given any expectations, but we want to believe that some of these measures will be reviewed”says Eduardo Miranda, speaking of a series of “absolutely disproportionate” proposals.
Source: DN
