Bloco de Esquerda has introduced a bill to ban the sale of real estate to citizens or companies headquartered or permanently resident abroad as a way to combat rising real estate prices.
On the day he organizes a housing session in Lisbon entitled “Where will we live?”, the Esquerda Bloc (BE) announced the introduction of a bill in Parliament aimed at banning “the sale of real estate in the national territory to individuals or collectives with their own permanent residence or headquarters abroad.”
The measure, which was loosely passed recently in Canada, is aimed at “fighting rising house prices,” the party said.
However, in the articles of this diploma, the BE specifies that this prohibition does not apply to “Portuguese citizens permanently residing outside Portugal”, as well as asylum seekers or immigrants with a permanent residence permit.
It will also exclude “property transactions in low-density areas” as well as “foreign nationals who acquire property in common ownership with their spouse or de facto partner.”
In an explanatory note to the bill, the party led by Katarina Martins argues that “in Portugal, the basic right to a house has not yet been realized.”
Bloco de Esquerda is ahead of statistics that between 2010 and 2022, house prices “increased by 80% and rents by 28%”, causing Portuguese residents to spend “a brutal percentage of their income on home”.
While recognizing that “the housing crisis is not a feature of Portugal”, BE believes, however, that “Portuguese governments have only exacerbated this trend with their policies of privilege and inequality”.
According to the party, “the process of gentrification and financialization of housing has prompted the mobilization of citizens and local authorities in several European cities”, causing legislative changes at the international level.
Among the examples cited in this bill, BE specifically mentions that “in Canada, the Liberal Party government banned the sale of residential buildings to foreigners, a measure that has already been implemented in New Zealand and which will also become a reality in the islands of Ibiza, Majorca and Menorca in recent times” .
“Defenders of these measures, which are hampered by the strength of real estate interests, make the same argument: competition from financial capital makes housing prices unaffordable to local residents,” the bill says.
For BE, “if this is a reality in Canada, the Netherlands, Germany or Catalonia, it is more so in Portugal, where salaries do not compete with either the financial power of investment funds or personal income attracted by “gold”. visa regimes, tax breaks for non-permanent residents, or cryptocurrency speculators.”
The party also adds that this international experience shows that “the process of real estate inflation requires exceptional measures aimed at protecting the right to housing.”
In this sense, “in addition to lifting measures to attract foreign capital to Portuguese real estate, BE proposes to prohibit the purchase of real estate intended for housing by non-residents if they are located in urban areas.” document.
BE argues that “this measure, recently adopted in various versions by the governments of the Netherlands and Canada, is justified by the recognition of the situation as a serious violation of the constitutional right to housing in the interests of short-term financial interests.”
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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