The Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors (APPII) said today that the President of the Republic’s veto of Mais Habitação is the “last chance” to create measures to bring more houses onto the market.
In a statement, the APPII said it was not surprised by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s veto of the government’s package of measures for the housing sector, considering that it “generally does not offer an effective response to the need to create more housing for the Portuguese, neither for the sales market nor for the rental market”.
“Basically, what is needed is to quickly create more supply at all levels and also to give confidence to the 350,000 owners who, not trusting the rental market, prefer to have thousands of abandoned and empty houses rather than give them some income,” the association pointed out.
The APPII considered that “only the reversal of the brutal increase in the tax burden that this package entails, the reversal of a new rent freeze and the creation of concrete measures that increase the supply of homes in Portugal will help to reduce house prices and make it easier for families to access a home of their own”.
The President of the Republic today vetoed the decree that brought together the main changes to housing legislation – with changes to rents, licensing and local accommodation – approved on July 19 in parliament by the PS, which has already announced that it will confirm it at the start of the next legislative session.
In the message accompanying the return of the diploma to parliament, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa expressed a “serene negative judgment” on the measures and criticized the lack of party consensus.
“It’s not easy to see where the promised supply of housing will come from effectively and quickly,” he said, adding that “it’s not credible enough” in terms of short-term implementation or mobilization.
In Poland, where he is on an official visit, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stressed that it was a political veto and not a constitutional one, expressing his disagreement with the government’s and the PS majority’s choices in this process, and maintained that the law “did not represent the national support base that was needed”.