José Sena Goulão / Lusa
Miguel Pinto Luz, Minister of Infrastructure and Housing
The measures contradict IMF and EU recommendations to Portugal and are being criticized by tenants’ associations, who consider them an incentive for speculation that will aggravate the housing crisis.
The government is preparing a package of dwelling measures that aims to simplify the evictions. According to the advance, the plan should also include the end of the 2% limit for the rise of income In new contracts related to real estate that were in the market in the previous five years.
It denotes that the plan will have been approved at the head of the Council of Ministers this Thursday and which also includes measures that will have a longer effect in the long run, as tax incentives and construction supportas well as the reversal of more measures of the most housing package approved by the previous socialist government.
This is not the first time that the government of the democratic alliance has marched the provisions of the most housing, having last year already reversed the coercive lease of vacant properties and the suspension of the issuance of new local accommodation licenses.
The housing crisis has been one of the biggest problems in Portugal and in many other countries in recent years. Over the past five years, lace in Portugal more than 70% rosewith a 10% increase in the last year alone. The rampant rise of rent and prices of houses is also not being accompanied by the increase in salaries, leaving many Portuguese without capacity to lease or buy home.
At the press conference on departure from the Council of Ministers, the infrastructure minister confirmed that the government is planning to move the law. “We want to address topics such as tax, lease law, process simplification and government model in the housing sector,” said Miguel Pinto Luz.
If government proposals are approved, they will go against international recommendations. At the end of last year, the housing crisis, noting that Portugal is among the countries with Worst OECD Housing Accessibility ratio And it is one of the few that does not impose limits on the prices of houses, with a risk of bubble.
This year, the housing policies applied in Portugal in recent years, considering that measures such as income for income and tax incentives for purchase for young people “They are not systemic solutions”Brussels censured the successive delays in the construction of public housing, as well as the Legislative Retrocess of the Government of Montenegro with the cancellation of the measures of the most housing. The EU also recommended that Portugal advances with limits to short -term tourist accommodation in pressure, lace ceilings and the use of empty properties.
“This is feeding a fire”
The answer to news about government plans did not delay, with disgruntled tenants and owners applauding. Pedro Ventura, president of the Association of Lisbonenses tenants, argues that the measures only benefit the “speculating owners”. “It seems evident that it will lead to an increase in evictions as the owners will be able to charge much more for rent in new contracts,” he considers, in statements to.
“This is feeding a fire,” he adds, stressing that the measure will be particularly punitive to “families with financial difficulties.” “It is an ultra -liberal measure And it goes completely in counterciclo with what the European Union recommendations are, ”he says to.
Luís Menezes Leitão, president of the Lisbonan owners’ association, sees the plan as a “positive measure”. “It will have a clearly positive impact, because Removes a limit that was absurd And that generated a gigantic bureaucracy, ”he argues.
Menezes Leitão also does not believe that these changes lead to an increase in evictions, noting that the landlord cannot oppose the first renewal before the contract completed three years. “What can happen is the opposite, is more houses in the lease market,” he anticipates.
The representative of the landlords also considers that the government of Montenegro must go further and that it is “I need reverse all measures of the most housing“.
