Two out of every three local accommodation units (know in Portugal as AL) in Lisbon correspond to "ghost licences", as only a third of them are currently active and performing any sort of tourist activity, according to data from a report on the sector released by the City Council at the end of February.
According to the municipality, the Local Accommodation Characterisation and Monitoring Report also shows that the period of greatest expansion of licences was between 2014 and 2019 and that the Municipal Local Accommodation Regulation to regulate and contain this market came in 2019 "too late to avoid a phase of huge expansion in several neighbourhoods of the historic centre".
The report also indicates that the announcement, at the end of 2021, of the municipality's intention to suspend the issuing of new AL titles generated a rush for licences, but "these requests are made preventively and a large part never comes to be used for effective exploitation".
"We speak, therefore, of 'ghost licences'. Only about 36 per cent of licensed local accommodation is active, which means that practically two out of every three licensed accommodations have no active operation," the municipality highlighted.
The report's conclusions were used as a basis for the proposed revision of the Municipal Regulation of Local Accommodation, the instrument that establishes the rules for the local accommodation market in Lisbon, and both documents will be presented this week by the town planning councillor, Joana Almeida, to the local councillors. The proposed revision of the Regulation will be presented soon at a meeting of the Lisbon City Council.
According to the data, rental accommodation "is a very relevant source of income for thousands of families", since 73.6% of license holders in this sector are individuals and almost 70% of license holders have only one rental unit.
The period of greatest growth in the local accommodation market occurred between 2014 and 2019, "a space of five years in which 91.1% of the AL units that exist today in Lisbon appeared", which will be around 20,140. In this period an average of 3,670 new local accommodation titles were issued per year, it is highlighted
The importance of beginning the inspections for new titles in 2022 was "demonstrated", which verified that, "on average, only one in every 10 units met the conditions to enter into activity", stresses the local authority.
In relation to the complaints about noise, rubbish or illegal works received by the Lisbon Municipality and forwarded to the Commercial Urbanism and Local Lodging Office (GUCAL-CML), "it is verified that, after inspection, only one in every 10 complaints relate to situations related to Residential Lodging", with the remaining being associated to another activity installed in the rental housing fraction.
The Local Accommodation Characterisation and Monitoring Report will be made available for consultation after the presentation meetings to the councillors.
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