The final bill for Mais Habitação will be voted on this Wednesday, July 19, in Parliament, with the Socialist majority guaranteeing that the program is approved, but without managing to eliminate criticism and controversy over some of the planned measures.
The first steps towards implementing this package were taken on 16 February, when the Council of Ministers approved a set of measures aimed at responding to the increasing difficulties faced by families in accessing or maintaining housing, in a context of accelerated rise in housing rates. interest rates, as well as rises in rents and house prices.
Before sending the proposal to Parliament, the Government placed Mais Habitação in public consultation, having also chosen to isolate some of the measures that required a more urgent response and that could go ahead without having to be submitted to the discussion and approval of the Assembly of the Republic. .
This was the case with the new income support and subsidized interest rates. The two measures have in common the fact that they are aimed, respectively, at families whose rent or home loan payments absorb more than 35% of their disposable income.
The bulk of the measures, however, are contained in the bill that is voted on today by the plenary in a final global vote and which contains some of the measures that raised controversy as soon as they were known, in February, and which continue to be criticized by the opposition and sector agents. .
This includes forced leasing – which the Government has recalled has already been enshrined in law for several years –, the creation of an extraordinary contribution on local accommodation in areas with greater urban pressure and lack of housing, justified with the need to compensate for the negative impact that this activity ends up generating.
However, throughout the legislative process, this extraordinary contribution to local accommodation was attenuated: from the 35% with which it was initially designed, it fell back to 20% when the Government's proposal finally entered the Assembly of the Republic, and registered a new drop to 15% (this time by the hand of a proposal to change the PS).
Surrounded by criticism, especially from homeowners' associations, there has also been a measure that limits the rise in rents for new leases compared to the value that has been practiced by the owners of these homes.
With the majority of the PS guaranteeing the approval of Mais Habitação, landlord associations, such as Associação Lisbonenses Proprietários, are now waiting to see if the constitutionality of some of the measures (such as the limit on rising rents) will be raised.
The Mais Housing bill was generally approved on May 19, with the PS voting in favor, PAN and Livre abstaining, and the other parties voting against.
During the process of discussion and voting on the specialty, the PS's vote was decisive, both in approving the Government's proposal and in the amendments it presented and in rejecting the proposed amendments presented by the opposition.
The ratification of the votes by the housing working group was carried out this Tuesday by the parliamentary committee on the economy, almost a week after the date that was initially set, after a powerful request from the Liberal Initiative imposing the postponement of this ratification.
Comments