Portugal’s government approved a decree-law today setting out new rules designed to resolve a situation that sees almost half a million homes lying idle, almost half of them ready for people to move in to.
Minister for the presidency, António Leitão Amaro, stressed the legislation seeks to address the “challenge of undivided estates”.
“There is probably not a single Portuguese person who, looking down a city street or along a country lane, does not see either an abandoned house or a plot of land awaiting clearance that forms part of an undivided estate.”
This new decree-law “is a measure with great potential to resolve a very big problem, which is access to housing”, he said-
It follows the law passed in July in parliament, which authorised the government to establish a special procedure for selling undivided properties and to amend the Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedure.
“We must make the most of the many empty homes fit for habitation that currently remain tied up in estates,” Leitão Amaro stressed, pointing out that Portugal has 485,000 vacant homes, more than half of which are “in good condition, according to the censuses”, but with no impetus to be sold or let.
“Many of these homes are tied up in inheritance disputes, due to disagreement from just one of several heirs; all too often, they cannot be put on the market and cannot be occupied by people who need them…”
In rural areas, the situation is similar, with 3.4 million rural properties in undivided estates, corresponding to land that is tied up, awaiting decisions and clearing.
Because people are not using these properties, there is also a risk of forest fires.
As the minister explained, in the past, a single heir could block the estate’s division and, consequently, the sale of the entire estate – whereas now a single heir can demand the sale after two years if no agreement is reached with his co-heirs.
“What one person used to be able to block, one person now has the power to unblock,” he summarised.
This system, with its special sale procedure, ensures a sale at market value, based on independent valuations, and by electronic auction, while protecting the heirs’ rights to the family home and giving them the right of first refusal to retain the property.
The heirs will have six months to reach an agreement or arrange a private sale before the auction.
The new rules govern special, urgent procedures for selling properties that form part of an undivided estate when heirs do not agree on the sale.
The law preceding this decree stipulates that the new regime applies “to all estates that are open and undivided” as at the date the law came into force, August 17.
The family home is excluded from the special property sale procedure, “unless the surviving spouse gives their express consent”, and this safeguard also extends to civil partnerships.
Estates “in a state of insolvency” are also outside the scope of the special sale procedure, and the August legislation extends this exclusion beyond situations involving an “agreement of undivided ownership” or where “the right to partition” could not be exercised, as provided for in the Government’s original proposal.
The law creates the role of an executor with powers of distribution, which allows the powers of administration, liquidation and distribution of the estate to be centralised in a third party, with the aim of speeding up the succession process by removing from the heirs’ remit the responsibility for initiating the distribution and defining the terms thereof, adds Lusa.
Source: LUSA