Luis Montenegro has gone further than was foreseen in the government program and announced the repeal of the suspension of licenses in Local Accommodation. The special contribution will also be abolished and the rule prohibiting the transfer of licenses will end.
The government is going ahead with an end to the suspension of licenses for local accommodation, the Prime Minister said this Thursday in Parliament. The measure is in addition to the already announced elimination of the special contribution on local accommodation (CEAL), which was included in the government’s program. In addition, the current ban on transferring licenses will also be removed.
“We need to give confidence and stability to those who invest in Portugal also in the real estate and tourism sector, we will revoke the serious penalties that the previous government imposed on the Portuguese who invested in local accommodation, including the elimination of the additional contribution, the suspension of licenses and the prohibition of transfers,” said Luís Montenegro during his speech presenting the government program,
The Mais Habitação package, it should be remembered, suspended the issuing of new registrations for local accommodation establishments “in the form of apartments and lodging establishments integrated in an autonomous fraction of a building” (thus excluding villas) throughout the country, with the exception of the inland territories identified by ordinance.
The idea is that the municipalities can, in their municipal housing charters, make an assessment of the territory and have room for maneuver there, in order to lift the suspension, for example, in parishes where they consider that there is no housing shortage.
This law will now have to be changed, but the Prime Minister didn’t specify. CEAL was due to start being paid this year, in June, which is no longer likely to happen, and it will also be possible to transfer the license when the property in which it exists is sold – currently, with the sale, the license is extinguished, which is linked to the holder and not to the property itself.
