The Eviction Process in Portugal: Rules and the Special Procedure (PED)

The eviction of defaulting tenants in Portugal is viewed with a particular focus on labor rights, stability, and housing guarantees for both parties. To balance overwhelmed conventional courts, Portugal introduced, in the 2012 revision of the NRAU, the National Rental Counter (Balcão Nacional de Arrendamento - BNA) and the Special Eviction Procedure (Procedimento Especial de Despejo - PED).

Valid Grounds for Evicting Tenants

Under Portuguese rental law (NRAU), a residential property landlord can only unilaterally terminate the contract for the following types of reasons and circumstances:

1. Eviction for Non-Payment

If the tenant fails to make rent payments, contractually agreed condominium cost expenses, or utility bills for two or more months, the landlord can begin proceedings. There is also just cause for resolution if the lessee falls into arrears (delay of strictly more than 8 days) more than four times (in a calendar year).

2. Deep Remodeling Works

In the case of major works, upon projects approved by the local City Councils, the landlord may request the vacation of the property. There is strong regulation to protect vulnerable tenants, and this may require compensation, as well as an alternative housing period.

3. Own Use or Descendants' Use

The law allows landlords to request the property back at the annual termination, for their own residence, provided they do not own other houses in the same municipality and inform the lessee within an extended and justified period.

4. Extreme Breach of Rules

This can include unauthorized subletting, continuous deliberate damage inflicted on the property, or its abusive use for illegal behavior.

Providing Notice to Tenants (Types of Resolution Deadlines)

Landlords are prevented by law under the NRAU from opposing or refusing the renewal of leases in a locked period of the first 3 (three) years of the primary contract in permanent housing leases. However, once that contract duration mark is surpassed, the most normal timeframes are:

• For contracts with a duration basis of 6 or more years: the minimum period of Mutual Notice for opposition is 240 Days.
• For terms and validity between 1 and 6 years: Advance notice by the owner requires at least 120 Days.
• Leases of a more squeezed time of less than 1 Year have a 60-day obligation of explicit opposition before the end of the term.

The Special Eviction Procedure (PED)

To speed up cases in which the parties have already incurred an explicit end infraction (lack of obligations such as payment of already communicated rents), the PED is executed primarily through the BNA (National Rental Counter).

Usual Steps:

1. The Landlord demands through the National Counter the document to intimate the cessation of the debt or criminal activity (Communication);
2. Electronic presentation of the eviction request at the BNA;
3. The BNA peremptorily notifies the tenant, who has 15 days to provide opposition or deduct underlying funds that they dispute are to be collected;
4. If no response or suspensive legal action is taken, the Building vacation title is issued;
5. It is executed accompanied by enforcement agents with an effective order on the ground (and if necessary, forced intervention and cooperation with police support).

By keeping Landager in full use, all payments and deadlines are digitized as evidence for the BNA courts in Portugal, recording fundamental chronologies about when and how the cadence of defaults occurred.

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