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Portugal: Portugal’s Constitutional Court has rejected a potential referendum on the future of short-term holiday rentals [alojamento local] in residential blocks in Lisbon.
The court ruled against the proposal for a referendum in the Portuguese capital as it “did not consider the legality” of the initiative to be verified, due to the absence of “effective control of the signatures” required.
A session was held in Lisbon’s Municipal Assembly on 3 December 2024 to discuss the proposal, however the ruling has only recently been made public after a 25-day period for preventive verification of constitutionality and legality by the constitutional body came to a close.
Speaking to Jornal Económico, ALEP president Eduardo Miranda backed the court’s decision, saying that the proposal was “contrary to the law and contains irremediable defects”.
On the other hand, the Housing Referendum Movement [MRH – Movimento Referendo pela Habitação] called the Constitutional Court’s decision “a hard blow against participatory democracy” and promised to reformulate its proposal to have a referendum in Lisbon reevaluated by the court.
The MRH had claimed to have secured 11,000 signatures from locals on a petition that it then presented to municipal authorities. The group said that the petition reflected the housing issues in Lisbon being experienced by more than 6,000 residents and that some 4,400 residents had been forced out of their homes due to the cost of living crisis.
Despite not wanting to eliminate holiday rentals entirely in Lisbon, the housing movement believes that a ban on short-term rentals in residential buildings would contribute to addressing the city’s housing crisis and help more residents to stay in their homes.
In November, the Portuguese Government announced that it was revoking restrictions that were brought in by the previous Socialist regime on a national level, as its decree-law 76/2024 officially came into effect. The decree-law specifically revokes mandatory short-term rental licence renewals and restrictions on new registrations, while the power to make decisions on licences and registrations is being restored to municipal councils.
In addition, the decree-law undoes the automatic expiry of inactive licences and the planned re-evaluation of existing licences in 2030, while condominiums will no longer have the “absolute power” to approve, cancel or deny licences without justification.
