The Mystery Program for More Housing in Portugal

This is a reflection about the Mysterious Program for more Housing proposed last month by the Portuguese Government.

There are many doubts about the package presented by the government a few days ago as a miracle solution to the problem of lack of housing in Portugal. It is a phenomenon that is not only Portuguese, because from Germany to France, the Netherlands, Belgium and 70% of the countries of the European Union faces with the same problem, only our Portuguese society is not informed or wants to ignore.

A majority of the measures were promoted in a populist way and almost as if it were the salvation of the homeland, which in this case would be the salvation of the current government by being in the crosshairs of the media by various political and personal slips of our rulers. But the problem is on the side of government policy in recent years, when instead of creating "The Simplex" was created "The Complicatex", because there are no regulatory and fiscal conditions to create conditions for increasing the supply of housing for sale or lease in Portugal.

However not everything that has been presented is bad, if the intention is that. As for example with regard to the provision of state land to increase housing supply, to my point of view would be a first step in the right direction, but for this the state have to first know what is part of its heritage and make available without major bureaucracies and partisan political influences. Because in the land of the state, it is necessary to define what they are. Military installations, old state workshops, old state company buildings and what are the criteria for location inside or outside urban perimeters?

It also seems to me a good initiative to simplify licensing processes and reduce the VAT rate to 6% and exemption from IMI or IMT for affordable rental projects. I also added the creation of new regulations of the "General Regulation of Urban Buildings" (RGUE) and the "Legal Regime of Urbanization and Building" (RJUE), as well as a Simplex program for municipal urban licensing and other government commissions that have influence in these urban licensing processes.?

Therefore, and following a little the above said, the delivery of responsibility to designers with the combination of interest for default for non-compliance by municipalities is not enough. Here there was not really a pre-analysis or evaluation by the rulers because they should not know what they are talking about. For this to be possible as presented by the government, it is inevitable to create faster processes and processes, standardize them at national and not only municipal level, clean up bureaucracy and indirect influence of urban decisions for compatibility or non-political compatibility with those in power.

Another relevant proposal was the rental of private homes. Here I also lack a little pre-study to this proposal, because in my view it does not make sense to rent houses but rather the rental of complete buildings or new or rehabilitated buildings, always with long-term contracts. But is it also the question that will pay for all this, when we do not have enough properties with these characteristics? In my view it is a utopia to imagine a positive result in this matter when owning scattered apartments, because then there is no localized quantity so that costs can be inspected and controlled and with whom if the Civil Service is already of an impressive ineffectiveness as it will be with more this burden.?

Since the proposal is not less contested, it seems to me to be unconstitutional at the very least. And to do so, our Prime Minister as a Lawyer should know that there is no normative retroactivity and the principles of proportionality that will make this proposal impossible to take away local accommodation permits (AL). Because this measure like others, seem to me to be more fiction than reality and only confirm once again that all these measures were made on top of the knee without prior consultation or studies. These policies of the take there today of here tomorrow, show where we arrive in Portugal with this government and its rulers. They lack full respect for the citizens and the assets of the people and entrepreneurs of this country. The same Entrepreneurs and Families who invested their money in this business that helped so much to rehabilitate our urban centers where none of us wanted to live.?The same who create Jobs for thousands of Portuguese and who made credits and who pay a significant amount every month to the Tax Authorities (AT). Many of them who due to AL have come out of the underground of untaxed holiday rentals in the light of legal contribution, will again be pushed to survive to another type of income to feed their families.

What I have lacked and continues to lack is a policy that encourages the creation of a rental market in Portugal as it has existed for dozens of years in other countries of the European Union. It is only necessary to read the rules of others and the tax policies to know how it could be done in Portugal, particularly with regard to the new construction for leasing. In most European cities billions of Euros are invested on a large scale in long-term lease building alone. Many pension funds and banks have this business model to guarantee the pensions of their employees, or even to serve as housing for them.?In 2021 alone, according to Eurostat data, more than 80 billion were invested in housing projects for rent in the European Union, with no UK. In Portugal this phenomenon had zero investment.

The Gold Visa had the days numbered when it appeared in 2012, because Portuguese had to call it the gold visa which in most European cultures means Visa against money. That is why this type of Visa has always been hotly contested by our central and northern European neighbor. But they knew that they all have an ARI Residence Permit Visa through Investment (ARI), only instead of 500,000 euros buying a house in other countries just deposit 1 million into a bank account.

In my view this program brought more good than evil to Portugal. Just look back is to see Lisbon in 2012 and Porto and look at them today. It was the AL and the ARI that changed the centers of the two largest Portuguese cities to what they are today and that made them reborn from the ashes and the return in which they were decades. This program required a redesign and adequacy to the situation of today's needs.

Imagine Real Estate Funds based on the Gold Visas (ARI), with the objective of creating long-term rental housing units. With this we should have a new and solid source to achieve our national goal of financing these funds so that there is affordable housing for our people and our younger generations.

Most of the measures were simply to derive attention from other events. But since there is public discussion about housing it can also be a starting point to solve the problem. But this will only be possible if our rulers hear what we have to say and do not tell us that we have to get used to what it is, as our prime minister said in a short time.