Does this effect current real estate investors (I have a property in Evora)
Iām a bit confused by a lot of the reactions here. Maybe Iām missing something?
The messaging and analysis from all lawyers has been that there will be no retroactivity in any way. The law (mostly) reads that way, save some last minute ambiguity. There is no precedent for making retroactive changes that affect existing investors.
Have the wait times been ridiculous? Absolutely. I waited 16 months just for pre-approval. Is the new law unfortunate, especially given its ambiguity for existing real estate investments? Sure, and especially for real estate fund investors like me ā now the most ambiguous. Is there a risk that renewals will get bit by this new law, testing the retroactivity? Possibly, but Iād find that hard to believe given the amount of money and lawyers behind ensuring that doesnāt happen.
So with all that in mind, barring the last point which seems extremely premature, what is the big deal here? People pulling out of investments? Now that some visas will say the word āD2ā on them instead of āARIā, this whole thing is a scam? This all seems really overblownā¦ From all indications Iāve seen, everything will be fine.
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The final text has been published today, hereās an English translation:
Final Text EN.pdf (282.2 KB)
(See page 80 onwards for the parts relevant to GV)
I didnāt notice any major changes when skimming over it now, but itās possible I missed something.
The text will likely be sent to the Presidentās office early next week.
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Given all the bad press about ARI, I think I would much prefer my residence card to say something else at this point!
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Apparently, I also prefer D2 over ARI.
The only things that I donāt like is that 1) conversion is not a renewal, so automatic process is unlikely and 2) if we have to appoint SEF visit again, they may not open āvagasā again for as long as they want
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I would have preferred it said something else from the time I first got it 
Thank you Thomas for the information.
Last year, we bought a Touristic apartment in Lagos to qualify for the GV. I have not heard very much on this type of commercial purchase. Has anyone else on here done the same and have any insight? It seems we may be converted to the D2 as well, but I have no idea.
Can someone tell me if the āFinal Textā on page 94, Article 2, #2 is saying that anyone who owns a property in a Touristic Resort, is now going to be paying an additional CEAL tax (15%)? I hope I read that wrong because we already paid enormous taxes for purchasing ācommercial.ā We receive a flat 5% of our purchase price (minus the 28% rental tax/year). So, basically 4%/year. We do not receive a percentage of the rental income the touristic entity makes. Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.
FYI the Housing Bill was sent to the President this morning
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Thank you for reminding. Iām wondering if the president has already made any decisions on it or still waiting
Based on the prior comment, is this a serious question?
From various media reports I think itāll still take a while for the More Housing package to be either approved or vetoed by Marcelo.
- As @cj807 mentioned, the bill was only sent to the president yesterday
- Today there were already reports of him being on vacation in the Algarve (so letās assume he started them yesterday)
- In this clip from two days ago he states (if my limited Portuguese can be relied upon) that heāll be on holiday for 8 days (presumably business days) and then go to Poland on the 19th
- If my assumption is correct, then his last day off would be next Friday (Aug 18)
- Heās scheduled to be in Poland until the 25th
So itās looking likely that itāll still take a while before he has time to go through the law in detail (unless he does so during his Poland trip).
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Quite right. Even if there were no holidays involved, the President is allowed a minimum of 20 days to consider the content, before signing. He reads everything and this is one he will read very carefully -
- first, the PR is a lawyer
- second the subject matter of housing, alojamento local (AL), characterisation/definition of available/vacant housing that will/can be re-classified for tenancy is not entirely clear and how the law is/can be implemented (whose responsibility to re-classify and under what conditions) is not specified
- finally the AL/GV component may require the constitutional courtās review/advice.
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Would be good if it is delayed as much as possible, or at least to allow one more automatic renew for 4Q 
I was asking it because yesterday was the day after 20 days since the parliament has passed the bill. What Iāve known is that the president would have to response to it within 20days from the day the parliament passed it to the president. Well, it seems the 20 day deal is not from that day, as there were no updates yesterday.
He has 20 days from the day the bill was sent to him, which was yesterday.
Although it looks like heās still working while on vacation:
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Although if he wants to send it to the Constitutional Court, I think he only has until a week from today (Thu 17th)
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Thank you everyone for the useful informations! I appreciate it.
Yes, 8 days. So we should know soon if he says he has sent it there.
Does he have the ability to correct inconsistencies or is it a yes/no/constitutional court decision?
For example, could he fix the part about real estate investment renewals switching to a D2 visa with a 7 day/year stay as thatās clearly left over language from the original plan, that was scrapped, to cancel the GV program altogether.