The new extraordinary regime of support to families for the payment of rent and installment and credit agreement, known as ‘More Housing’, was published this Wednesday in the official newspaper, to come into force on Thursday.
The measures aim to help families with more financial difficulties to cope with the rise in interest rates on housing loans with a variable rate indexed to Euribor, in addition to measures to support renting.
“The Government, aware of the current geopolitical and geoeconomic context, which has resulted in the highest inflation rate in recent years and, consequently, in the cost of living, approves a new set of more immediate responses that aim to face the economic impacts referred to with direct effects on household income and access to housing”, justifies the Government in the diploma.
As for these, the new regime provides that tenants with taxable income of up to 38,632 euros (6th IRS scale) and an effort rate equal to or greater than 35% are now entitled to a monthly support of up to 200 euros, paid by the day 20 of each month, with retroactive effect to the 1st of January and which will remain for five years, until the end of 2028.
As for credit, the executive explains that the measures are intended to “mitigate the risk of default” arising from the impact of the increase in reference indexes in credit contracts, namely by virtue of the effort rate, establishing the regime published this Wednesday a set of procedures for monitoring, evaluating and, subject to certain conditions, for presenting customer proposals.
In this context, support is created for borrowers of credit contracts for the acquisition or construction of permanent housing, in the form of a temporary interest subsidy when the index exceeds a certain threshold.
Finally, the regime determines that, when the credit agreement is intended for the acquisition or construction of permanent housing, the bank must allow the consumer to opt for a variable, fixed or mixed interest rate modality.
“Through these measures, with the concrete objective of protecting families and increasing their disposable income, the national goal of guaranteeing decent housing for all is deepened”, argues the executive.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who promulgated this diploma on Tuesday, the day before, during a visit to the premises of the CMTVargued that the Government’s housing package, in global terms, “as it is designed, right from the start, is inoperable, both at the point of departure and at the point of arrival”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa equated the package of measures announced by the Government with the “so-called poster laws”, which “appear to proclaim certain more pamphleteer programmatic principles, but the idea is not exactly that they pass into practice, no, it is that they remain poster laws”.
