Tenants warn government about unsustainable rent increases

The association representing tenants in the Lisbon metropolitan area warned the government this Friday about the unsustainability of rent increases and defended the need to “accelerate” the implementation of the measures included in the “More Housing” package.

The warnings were conveyed this afternoon by the Tenants’ Association of Lisbon (AIL) to Housing Minister Marina Gonçalves during a meeting also attended by the Association of Tenants and Condominium Owners of Northern Portugal (AICNP).

At the end of the meeting, in a statement to Lusa, AIL Secretary General António Machado said the main issue brought to the attention of the housing minister was the “unsustainability” for tenants of “an even greater increase in costs.” “rent.

“The housing market is now completely unaffordable for most families, and therefore price increases are out of the question. Tenants can no longer tolerate price increases because what they are already paying, in terms of effort, is already 40, 50 or 60% when it will no longer be there,” he said.

In this sense, the head of AIL, who believes that “real estate was on the side of the housing problem, not the solution”, admits that the state can create a “support line for private landlords”, thereby preventing prices from rising. from lace.

On the other hand, tenants also defended the need for the government to speed up the implementation of some of the measures included in the More Housing package to respond to the country’s housing problem with “more urgency”.

“There are things that will take longer than originally expected, such as building an additional 26,000 homes. There are problems with the mobilization of free state land. So everything happens very slowly. This is then reflected in the market, with a lack of supply and high prices. Either the government accelerates measures or the situation gets worse,” he warned.

Parliament returned this Friday to approve without changes the Mais Habitação program, only with a positive vote of the PS, in a review following the veto of the President of the Republic.

The approval of Decree 81/XV, which approves measures in the field of housing construction, introducing a number of legislative changes, was made possible thanks to the absolute majority of the PS, with votes against the PSD, Chega, the Liberal Initiative, the PCP and the Bloc de Esquerda. (BE) and abstention from the Freedom and People-Animals-Nature (PAN) parties, repeating the final global vote on the program in July.

The diploma, approved in a final global vote in July and now confirmed, had some changes from the first version proposed by the government, which did not prevent opposition from the opposition and housing-related business and civil society associations.

The most controversial and controversial measures include the suspension of registration of new local housing outside low-density areas and emergency contributions to this, the forced rental of houses that have been empty for more than two years, and the introduction of a cap on the value of new leases of houses that are already in On the market.

The package also includes a capital gains tax exemption for owners selling homes to the government, an end to the new golden visas, an increase in the family IMI dependent deduction, changes to the stand-alone property income rate, and a tax exemption for owners who rent their homes from local housing by the end of 2024.