Compensation for old rents: almost 3000 requests from landlords

With the introduction of the «Mais Habitação» (More Housing) Package, the majority of housing leases prior to the RAU (which came into force on November 18, 1990) are now, in practice, for life. Until Law no. 56/2023, of October 6, it was possible for landlords to cause the transition of rental contracts (even if subject to a transitional rent freeze period) where the tenants were in one of the following situations:

• age 65 or over;
• a disability of 60% or more;
• a corrected gross annual household income of less than 5 minimum wages.

With the aforementioned law, leases with tenants in one of these situations were frozen for life and could only be subject to annual updating based on the coefficients published by the INE, nor could the rents be updated based on the property's VPT. Following this lifetime freeze, Decree-Law no. 132/2023 of December 27 was published, establishing compensation for landlords, in the sense that the IHRU will pay them directly the amount corresponding to the difference between the updated value based on the property's VPT and the actual rent paid by the tenant.

To give an example, if a property has a VPT of €90,000, the monthly amount up to which the rent could be updated before the “Mais Habitação” Package (with a few exceptions) was €500. So, assuming that the current rent actually paid is €150, the landlord will be entitled to monthly compensation of €350.

The IHRU said that 2,900 requests for compensation were made, with an average value of €215.76, and the compensation will begin to be paid in October, backdated to the date of the request (the measure took effect on July 1). This measure is valid for 12 months from the request, renewable for equal periods.