Government reveals “solution for blocked buildings”: What changes in inheritances

O Council of Ministers you approved last week, new rules to accelerate the sharing of undivided inheritances and increase the supply of homes on the market. The question is “a reform that wants to unlock the properties that are not available for lack of agreement between heirs”, according to the Executive.

In a shared publication on social networks, the government says it is a “solution for blocked buildings” and reveals what changes, with the approval of the succession law reform:

• Any heir may apply for the sale, market value, of immovable property of an undivided inheritance;
• Enhanced succession, sharing and arbitration planning mechanisms;
• Promote the unlocking of buildings, increasing the availability of houses.

The government passed a decree-law regulating the new rules to unlock the separation of undivided inheritances between heirs, President Antonio Leitão Amaro announced. The diploma seeks to respond to the “flagellation of undivided inheritances”, he said, at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting.

The decree-law follows the law passed in July in parliament by the PSD, CDS-PP, PS, IL and JPP, which authorized the executive of Luís Montenegro to create a special process of selling the indivisible properties and to change the Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedure.

“ When there is difficulty in accessing housing due to lack of houses, we have so many empty houses in condition to be inhabited because the inheritances are blocked is unacceptable ", said, specifying that Portugal has 485 thousand vacant houses, of which more than half “in good condition, say the censuses”, but without intention of sale or rental.

Leitão Amaro stressed that “many of these houses are trapped in inheritances, due to the disagreement of only one of several heirs, so often they cannot be placed on the market and cannot be inhabited by people who need houses”.

The minister also said that, in the rural world, the situation is no different, with 3.4 million rustic buildings in undivided inheritances, corresponding to land that is blocked, without anyone deciding and who cleans the land. Not being used, there is also the risk of forest fires, he said.

Before, said Leitão Amaro, a single heir could block the sharing and therefore the placing on the market of all inheritance, when, now, a single heir can demand the sale after two years without agreement.

“What before a block, today one has the power to unlock”, he summarized.

How do the new rules work?

This scheme, with the special selling process, ensures a sale to market values, based on independent valuations, sale by electronic auction, where the heirs have protection from the household home and have preference to keep the property, he said.

The heirs will have six months to try to reach an agreement or to make a private sale before the auction, he explained.

The new rules regulate the special cases of an urgent nature of the sale of real estate which are part of an undivided inheritance, in cases where there is no agreement between heirs in relation to an alienation.

The law preceding this decree provides that the new regime applies “to all open and unshared inheritances” on the date of entry into force of the law of 17 August.

The household is excluded from the special process of selling the properties, “unless express consent” of the widower or widower, and the guarantee is extended also to the de facto unions.

The inheritances “insolvency” are also not covered by the special sale procedure, and not only, as provided for in the original government proposal, the situations with “indivision convention” or where “the right to share” could not be exercised, according to the August diploma.

The law creates the figure of an executor with sharing powers, which allows the centralisation of a third power of administration, liquidation and sharing of the inheritance, with the aim of making the succession process faster by removing the impulse for sharing and defining the terms of sharing from the orbit of the heirs.