Ancient property law under review
The ancient waterfront property law that we’ve talked a few times earlier is going to be reviewed and hopefully simplified.
This ancient law threatens to transfer the ownership of many waterfront properties to the Portuguese State unless it can be prove in court that the land has been in private hands for at least 150 years.
The implementation of the law was postponed until July 1 2014 in order to allow for the complex legislation to be reviewed because otherwise it was due to be implemented on January 1 2014, which causes a wave of panic among affected property owners who struggled to collect the required documentation to prove that their properties had been in private hands since before 1864.
Thankfully the deadline for owners to present documentation in court was extended by six months and the law will also be reviewed. The properties affected are those located on land within 50 metres from the sea or clifftop edge and within 30 metres in the case of riverbanks.
This move is a glimmer of hope as alteration to the law could mean a much simpler process of obtaining recognition of their property as private land.
MP Carlos Abreu Amorim, who is a member of the Commission for the Environment, Land Planning and Local government as well as vice-president of the PSD parliamentary group, believes that this approved revision of the law is more or less only ‘delaying the problem’, even if the end goal is to find a legal solution that will ensure a ‘convergence’ of public and private interests.
In relation to this law we have talked earlier about a group of property owners from Ericeira, north of Lisbon, who has been contesting the controversial ruling since 2006. With the support of a lawyer and historians, they have been attempting to collect the required paperwork to serve as evidence in court, but even in this organized form they have found the task impossible to accomplish as they have already spent more than 10,000 Euro ‘in photocopies alone’.
