Coercive lease law leaves bank houses in limbo (with Regina Santos Pereira)

"I don't think [bank properties] are excluded. In other words, there is that risk" of being subject to forced lease, Regina Santos Pereira, a partner at SRS Legal and specialist in real estate law, tells JE. This is because this situation does not fit into any of the exceptions referred to in the bill published last Friday, she points out, nor into those indicated in the decree-laws to which the proposal also refers.

(...)
There is a further exception to forced leasing, namely real estate acquired for resale by natural or legal persons. But the real estate assets of banks do not seem to fit in this situation either. "This is the case, for example, with property funds, or even other companies whose purpose is the purchase and sale of property", says Regina Santos Pereira, explaining that the "resale has to be part of the corporate object in order to be exempt in terms of IMT", which is not the case with banks, and "I think the same applies here". "Resale, legally, is not the second sale of the house. It was a legal term that arose from the tax point of view," stresses the specialist in Real Estate Law issues at SRS, pointing to the act of the bill referring to decree-law 159/2006, of 8 August, which relates the resale to the Municipal Tax on Property Transfers.
"The Government may even come to clarify that, after all, resale is a second sale of the house," he said, waiting at the moment for further clarification on this proposal. "There are 88 sheets of doubts", he summarised. Doubts that end up also dividing specialists on the subject.

(...)

The sector sources heard considered, therefore, that these properties do not integrate the concept of vacant property foreseen in the Government's programme. A position with which some specialists disagree. "Being for sale is not the same thing as resale", says Regina Santos Pereira, partner at SRS Legal, in which case they would be excluded from the measure, as mentioned above.