Anyone who walks around Lisbon often comes across the image of closed windows, dilapidated shutters and entire buildings where no one has lived for years.
These are not ancient ruins.
These are houses that were trapped in family processes, undivided inheritances and legal obstacles that the system was never able to resolve.
Meanwhile, Lisbon discusses the lack of housing every day.
The paradox is evident: the city needs houses, but there are thousands that no one can use.
According to various estimates, there are around 47,000 empty homes in the city, around 15% of the housing stock.
And this is where one of the silent problems of housing in Lisbon begins.
For decades, the Portuguese legal system produced a perverse result: it was too easy to block a property and too difficult to put it on the market.
For too long, when a tenant stopped paying rent, the eviction process could drag on for years. Between courts, appeals and administrative procedures, many owners ended up enduring long periods without receiving income while continuing to pay taxes, property maintenance and legal costs.
The effect of this reality was predictable: many owners preferred not to rent and left their houses closed.
An urban heritage that does not serve the market, does not serve the owners and does not serve public policy.
It is in this context that two measures recently proposed by the Government must be read: accelerating evictions due to non-compliance and allowing a single heir to unblock the sale of a property in undivided inheritance.
Accelerating eviction processes in case of default is not a measure against tenants.
It is above all a measure of confidence in the functioning of the rental market.
None of these measures alone will solve Lisbon’s housing crisis, but they can do something important that has long been ignored: remove legal blocks that have prevented homes from returning to the market.
Some properties will be sold and others will be rehabilitated, and some will certainly finally hit the rental market.
Above all, many will no longer be abandoned.
For too long we have discussed housing only from two extremes: either build more, or control the market.
However, in the midst of this ideological debate, thousands of houses simply remained blocked, off the market, outside of public policies and outside of city life.
Therefore, before promising more programs, more legislation or more strategic plans, it is necessary to end the schizophrenia of blocking the dynamics of cities.
It is necessary to ensure that the houses that already exist can finally be used again.
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