Properties purchased for resale must be sold within one year to be exempt from IMT. A post-More Housing rule.
Real estate developers who before October 7, 2023 – when the Government's Mais Habitação program came into force – purchased properties and then sold them again continue to benefit from a period of three years to carry out the sale without having to pay the respective Municipal tax on Onerous Property Transfers (IMT). At issue is an understanding by the Tax Authority (AT) that arises following requests for binding information made by taxpayers and which have now begun to be responded to.
Mais Habitação stipulates a change to the IMT code: properties acquired for resale that, for this very reason, do not pay IMT at the time of acquisition, will lose the right to this benefit if they are not sold within one year. This period was previously longer, at three years, recalls Jornal de Negócios. What is certain is that the new rule, limiting IMT exemption, only applies, after all, to properties acquired after October 7th of last year.
In binding information published on the Finance Portal, AT considers that the changes to the law “constitute a major change in one of the essential assumptions (the deadline) of the regime for purchasing buildings for resale, severely limiting it”. “[We are] in the presence of standards of a material nature, of a substantive nature”, he adds.
According to the Tax Authorities, the new rule, “in the part that stipulates a shorter period for resale”, is of “prospective application, applying only to purchases for resale, made from October 7th inclusive”. This means that if the sales of these properties take place “within three years from the respective acquisition dates, there will be no place for IMT assessments to be issued based on the expiry of the exemptions”.
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Source: Jornal de Negócios.
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