Recalling the history of 100 years of freezing rents in Portugal, where “everything went up in price while housing remained at ridiculous values”, the president of the Lisbon Association of Owners (ALP), Luís Menezes Leitão, said that the application of rent control would “once again worsen the supply”.


Speaking to Lusa, Leitão said that the situation in Lisbon was “incomparable” with that of other cities - such as Berlin, where a rent freeze was approved for five years to halt the rise in housing prices - and reduced the impact of “tourism pressure” on the housing market in the Portuguese capital.


“When I see that people want to compare Lisbon to Berlin, Barcelona, Paris or Amsterdam, in regard to the tourism pressures in these cities, I have to say that while we now have a level of tourism never experienced before, it has nothing to do with these numbers,” said Luís Menezes Leitão, who places the responsibility for rising prices and decreasing the supply of houses in the rental market squarely down to the Government, due to the taxes imposed on them, including the creation of the Municipal Property Tax (IMI).


The president of the Lisbon Tenants Association (AIL), Romão Lavadinho, takes a similar stance towards the situation and has refused to apply rent-price caps, arguing that “private property has the right, according to existing laws - the law from of the New Urban Leasing Regime, from 1990 - to lease property at the owners chosen price”.


“We do not agree with this limitation. We think this is completely going back to a past we don’t want, so rent limitation should not be in place,” he said, pointing to the “possible solution” to the housing crisis could be an increase in public ownership.


Such an increase in public housing supply, he underlined, may help combat speculative prices and also lead to lower rent prices in the private market.