Risk losing licences if they cannnot access eportugal site before midnight
Technical problems with the eportugal online portal are driving AL owners (people running short term holiday lets) to despair today. They have only until midnight to ‘prove their activity’, and if they can’t log on, they risk losing their licences.
The problem has been highlighted by ALEP, the country’s AL association, whose representative Adelaide Cruz has been describing the “successive system failures” dogging increasingly desperate property owners.
As reports explain, this new requirement to ‘prove activity’ by midnight tonight follows the controversial Mais Habitação law, which came into force in October. It introduced the necessity for ‘proving activity to keep businesses operational’. But, it took three weeks before the requisite form was made available, thus people really haven’t had much time to comply.
Add the fact that the portal ‘keeps crashing’, and one can appreciate the last minute scramble ruining a lot of people’s day today.
As Adelaide Cruz explains, the new requirement involves owners submitting their last periodic VAT declaration, or tax declaration for IRS/ IRC purposes.
“It is all taking a long time, and people are getting apprehensive”, she told Diário de Notícias this morning.
The Mais Habitação legislation has been widely criticised for the fact that it allows for AL licences to be summarily suspended, even withdrawn, depending on the housing situation in their particular area.
Right now, it seems that 50% of AL owners in Porto have already submitted their proof of ownership/ business, but in Lisbon, less than half have completed the process. “As for the Algarve, where the largest proportion of ÃL establishments in the country are concentrated, she has no data”, says DN, “but points out that many owners of these properties are foreigners and may still be unaware of this obligation… “
Portugal currently has more than 120,000 AL rental licences, adds the online, while Dinheiro Vivo says it has tried to clarify the reasons for eportugal’s technical problems “but AMA, the Agency for Administrative Modernisation, which manages the portal, had not provided any information by the time this edition closed”.
AMA has since stressed that there has been “some instability in the platform (…) due to the high demand associated with this service” but the system is now “fully operational”.
“Technical teams are working to ensure the stability needed for the service to be used properly”, adds AMA, suggesting a subtle twist on the meaning of the words ‘fully operational’.
Source material: Diário de Notícias
