The “Mais Habitação” Program has undergone several legal changes that are continually refined, either to ensure the rights of landlords or to safeguard the well-being of the tenants. The latest amendment specifically aims to reinforce the guarantees for tenants facing financial hardship.
What is at stake?
The recent Article 15º-LA of the NRAU outlines the cases in which the State assumes responsibility for paying the rents owed by the tenant after the expiration of the opposition period to the special eviction procedure motivated by non-payment of rents. There is a special rule for cases where the tenant is in a situation of financial hardship.
What is understood by “financial hardship” for this purpose?
The financial hardship situation is assessed according to Portaria n.º 50/2024, of February 15, published following Law no. 56/2023 of October 6. Beneficiaries in this situation are considered to be tenants receiving:
a) Unemployment benefit;
b) Family allowance and childcare support;
c) Old-age social pension;
d) Disability social pension under the special disability protection regime;
e) Elderly Social Support Allowance;
f) Social inclusion benefit;
g) Informal caregiver support subsidy;
h) Social insertion income.
What does the tenant have to do to demonstrate this situation?
They don’t have to do anything, as Tenant and Landlord Service Centre (BAS), where the eviction procedure takes place, will verify this after receiving the initial request by consulting the social security databases.
What are the effects of financial hardship on the eviction procedure?
Once it is demonstrated that the tenant benefits from any of the mentioned supports, the BAS forwards the information to the competent municipality to trigger the necessary support for families in situations of effective housing need.
In the notification of the start of the special eviction procedure sent by the BAS to the tenant, the public services to which they can turn to are also indicated, in case they do not have alternative housing, including the social support service of the municipality of their residence area, as well as the possibility of requesting the suspension and deferment of the vacating of the leased property for a period of up to 5 months.
In the latter case, the payment of rents to the landlord during the deferment period will be borne by the Social Relief Fund of the Social Security and Financial Management Institute.
Conclusion
This amendment, within the framework of the “Mais Habitação” Program, fulfills two of the objectives mentioned by program managers and government officials: on the one hand, automating processes and ensuring the smooth operation of counters such as BAS (Tenant and Landlord service centre), and on the other hand, taking into account inflation in Portugal and presenting solutions to address the financial hardship of tenants in the context of the housing crisis.
