Majority of Portuguese’s States 4,000 Vacant Properties Are Not Available to Rent

18 August 2018

14% of the buildings and 10% of the land owned by the Portuguese state are vacant, at a time when there is considerable pressure on the national rental market – and on housing sales.

The latest report by the Directorate General of the Treasury and Finance (DGTF) regarding the Portuguese state’s real estate information system revealed that a total of 3,891 state-owned buildings are currently unoccupied by public bodies.

1,458 of the buildings that appear in the inventory of public real estate assets are classified as “vacant” or “unoccupied”, in addition to the 2,433 buildings registered as “without occupants”, that is “without registered occupants, even if available or vacant,” according to the report.

The data released by the Ministry of Finance do not include information on which of these vacant properties are residential – houses or flats – or which buildings are for services – such as offices and others including administrative, school, cultural, health, safety, stores, warehouse, etc. About a third of the buildings registered in the state’s real estate information system are not even defined.

Of those properties owned by public services that have been left vacant on a temporary or permanent basis (possibly due to a state of degradation), the only information that is known is that the majority are owned by the State and not leased for private use.

In fact, at the end of 2016, the State had 1,366 vacant and 552 unoccupied buildings, not counting 269 vacant lots and 288 unused plots of land. In relative terms, these figures mean that 14% of the building and 10% of the land directly owned by the State was not completely, or even partially, occupied.

Ministries as Property Owners

The latest inventory published on the Treasury and Finance Directorate-General’s website also state which ministries have the largest real estate holdings.

By the end of 2016, the state’s real estate information system listed a total of 23,679 properties, of which 17,904 were buildings and 5,775 were plots of land.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Regional Development owns the lion’s share, accounting for more than 24% of the inventoried public real estate. It is followed by the Ministries for Internal Administration (14%), Health (12%), Planning and Infrastructure (9%), Finance (7%), National Defence (6%) and Education (6%).

Original Story: Expresso – Joana Nunes Mateus

Photo: João Carlos Santos

Translation: Richard Turner