Portugal's rent bill now waits on Chega (and the minister insists evictions don't get easier)
Housing minister Miguel Pinto Luz said on 2 November that bill 103/XVII creates 'no new grounds' for eviction. What changes is the timing: two months of unpaid rent instead of three. The bill passed its first vote on 30 September only because Chega abstained, and is now in committee.
Portugal’s housing minister used Monday’s budget hearing to push back on the charge that has followed the rental reform since July. Miguel Pinto Luz said the new law creates “no new grounds” for eviction and that no one is evicted without a court ruling. In the same session he asked Chega to come and finish the text with the government.
Those two remarks belong together. Without Chega, the bill dies.
Where the vote stands
The parliamentary record for bill 103/XVII shows how the first-reading vote went on 30 September. PSD, IL and CDS voted for it. PS, Livre, PCP, BE, PAN and JPP voted against. Chega abstained, which is the only reason the bill moved on to the infrastructure, mobility and housing committee, where it is now being worked through clause by clause.
That afternoon PSD and Chega signed a deal to make four changes in committee: limits on deposits and rent paid up front, protection for older tenants on pre-1990 leases (with compensation for landlords), more support for tenants, and a line between people who stop paying deliberately and repeatedly and people who simply can’t. Pinto Luz said on Monday the government agrees with “all four”. Chega has still not said how it will vote at the end.
So do evictions get easier or not?
The timetable changes, the list of reasons doesn’t. A landlord could end the contract after two months of arrears instead of three, and paying eight or more days late more than three times in a year (or four times in 18 months) would also count. Tenants keep the right to clear the debt and stop the termination, and the existing routes to contest or delay an eviction stay in place.
Strictly speaking, the minister is right that nothing new is added. The critics are right too: the same ground arrives sooner.
The rest of the reform
If you are about to sign a new lease, the bigger shifts are elsewhere. The 2% cap on the starting rent for homes let within the last five years goes, deposits lose their legal ceiling, and rent paid in advance goes from two months to three. Two of those three sit squarely inside the Chega deal, which tells you where the text is most likely to move.
The one-year minimum term, automatic renewal and the protection for over-65s and tenants with a 60% disability on old leases all stay. The government’s own summary of the reform also adds a housing emergency fund that decides on support within ten days.
We went through the full proposal when it left cabinet, in our piece on the two months of arrears that would cost you your home. There is no date yet for the final vote.
Illustration: Tugadaily