The new rules that the Government wants to introduce as part of the “More housing” package provide that local accommodation that already exists in a building can be closed if that is the decision of “more than half of the building’s permage”.
According to the article of the proposed law that is since this Friday in public consultation (until now it was just a kind of power point with the main ideas), “in the event that the local accommodation activity is carried out in an autonomous fraction of a building or part of an urban building susceptible of independent use, the joint owners’ assembly, by deliberation of more than half of the permil of the building, may oppose – to carry out the activity of local accommodation in the aforementioned fraction, except when the constitutive title expressly provides for the use of the fraction for the purposes of local accommodation or there has been an express resolution of the assembly of owners to authorize the use of the fraction for that purpose”.
In what will be the fifth amendment to Decree-Law n.º 128/2014, of August 29, dedicated to local accommodation (AL), the executive also wants to stipulate that the registration number of the local accommodation establishment becomes “personal and non-transferable, even if in the ownership or property of a legal person”. These changes, says the Government, will serve as an “incentive to the transfer of dwellings in local accommodation to housing lease”.
Existing ALs expire at the end of 2030
If the proposed amendments to the law go ahead as they are – after the public consultation that is taking place until the 10th, the changes, which go far beyond the AL, will still have to pass in Parliament -, the issuance of new registrations will be suspended until 31 December 2030, “with the exception of areas for rural accommodation, under terms to be defined by order of the members of the Government responsible for the areas of economy, housing and territorial cohesion”.
The 31st of December will also be when “local accommodation registrations issued on the date of entry into force of this law expire”.
Then, says the proposal, the registration of establishment of AL will have “the duration of five years from the date of prior communication”, and the holder of the registration must “request its renewal up to 120 days before its expiry, under penalty of forfeiture of the same”, and “express authorization from the territorially competent municipal council” will be required.
The exception goes to “local accommodation establishments that constitute a real guarantee of loan agreements entered into on a date prior to the entry into force of this law, which have not yet been fully settled on December 31, 2030, and whose validity may be extended until the date of full amortization”.
Extraordinary contribution will be 35% of the tax base
The proposed law now released gives more details on the creation of the extraordinary contribution on local accommodation establishments (CEAL). This will focus “on the allocation of housing properties, located in an urban pressure zone, to local accommodation, on December 31 of each calendar year”.
“For the purposes of this regime, residential properties are considered to be urban buildings, their fractions and their parts or divisions susceptible of independent use of a residential nature under the terms of paragraph 2 of article 6 of the Municipal Tax Code on Real Estate”, explains the executive.
“CEAL’s taxable base is constituted by the application of the economic coefficient of local accommodation and the urban pressure coefficient to the area of housing properties”, and the data of these two coefficients will be published every year by ordinance of the Ministry of Finance. The rate applicable to the tax base, says the Government, “is 35%”.
The revenue obtained from this measure will be delivered to the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU), “in view of the programs defined by the Government for the areas of housing, housing leases and urban rehabilitation, in conjunction with regional policies and dwelling places”.
Several organizations with connections to the AL business have already commented negatively on the measures presented by the Government, with the sector association, Alep, stating that the executive “intends to put an end to local accommodation” and, “not wanting to do it now, postponed it its end by 2030”.
“We were surprised by all these very serious measures without ever having been heard about them by any representative of the Government”, said the president of Alep, Eduardo Miranda, in a statement issued on February 20, highlighting that the sector “contributes with more than 40 % of domestic tourism accommodation”.