Dubbed ‘Devolutos’, the application allows users to identify vacant houses and buildings “and add them to a map,” aiming to “construct the most accurate picture possible of the national disgrace of having city centers depleted and uninhabited while there are calls for more construction,” said Nelson Vassalo, a member of the activist collective, to Lusa agency.
According to this collective—which includes designers and programmers—Portugal has “a housing stock that is underutilized or abandoned,” a situation the new tool aims to expose, initially focusing on Lisbon and later expanding across the country.
Nelson Vassalo noted that census data indicates “around 48,000 empty homes just in Lisbon.” The objective is to “make all these houses visible in the application” and contribute to resolving the housing crisis since “cities have the capacity to meet the housing needs of the population.”
The application ‘Devolutos’, which aims to “pressure the recovery of abandoned properties,” is accessible to anyone who can “photograph a vacant property and associate it with its geographic location.” The app is available for free on Android and iOS devices and in web version.
What seems simple to the collective is considered “illegal” by the National Association of Property Owners, as “no one can photograph (…), advertise or publicize” private properties “without the owner’s consent,” said its president, António Frias Marques, to Lusa.
Hinting at “filing a lawsuit against the authors,” the representative of the owners warned: “This can’t be solved through voluntarism” and “those who have to resolve the housing issue are not individuals.”
António Frias Marques emphasized that many vacant homes “stem from long-term contracts, where tenants stayed in the house for many years paying very low rents,” many requiring refurbishment before they can be re-entered into the rental market.
For that, “thousands and thousands of euros are needed,” as he exemplified, “for a 100-square-meter house in Lisbon, the average cost of rehabilitation is 40,000 euros.”
The association’s president also cautioned that the app might include “photographs of medium and large buildings, already with approved projects to be transformed into hotels” and are only vacant “while waiting for construction to start.”
The app’s founders and property owners also diverge regarding inheritance processes.
“We need legislation to expedite and unblock these processes,” stated Nelson Vassalo, arguing it’s not feasible to have “properties sitting idle for 10, 20, 30 years while inheritances are debated.”
Vassalo believes fiscal reform and incentives are necessary to ensure inheritance processes do not become “a hindrance” to the use of these properties, proposing that “houses in good condition could be rented out compulsorily,” with “rent proceeds always reverting to the inheritance treasury.”
António Frias Marques pointed out that “there is already legislation” and that houses “can be rented out while the inheritance process is ongoing,” but disagreed that such leasing could be conducted compulsorily, which would be “another attack on owners of vacant houses who pay ten times more” than the Municipal Property Tax (IMI) applicable to other buildings.
The app’s promoters estimate its expansion in the coming months to the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, and subsequently to the Algarve and the rest of the national territory.
The property owners warn that they may proceed “concerning public buildings” but not private ones.
“If the situation worsens, the legal department of the National Association of Property Owners will file a lawsuit to cancel this site because this doesn’t solve any problem,” said António Frias Marques.
