The Portuguese Consumer Protection Association (DECO) has issued a warning to anyone renting a holiday home in Portugal, beware of crime, especially on the Internet.
"Every year in the summer, we receive dozens of complaints about holiday home rental scams," said Ingride Pereira, a lawyer for Deco's consumer support office.
According to Pereira, most of the complaints received by Deco are related to the fact that the consumer pay to rent a house that does not exist or is nothing like it appeared in the online listing.
Deco offers some advice to anyone who is thinking of renting a vacation home:
- mistrust ads on social networks or websites that are not well known
- distrust very low prices
- always do a search on several websites: "sometimes the same house appears on various platforms with various prices", explains the lawyer
- find out if it is a private individual or a company that is renting the house: "if there is a problem the company has more obligations"
- in case of doubt, ask the owner for details about the property, such as the land registration certificate
- before making any payment, look on the internet to see if there are any testimonies related to that property
- where possible, contact the condominium to make sure that the person you spoke or contacted is the owner of the property
Another safety guard is to check on the Turismo de Portugal website to check that the property has an Alojamento Local licence which shows the government and local council have approved the property for rental purposes.*
Owners that do not have an Alojamento Local licence may be less likely to be helpful when problems arise and the fact the property was not authorised for letting will stand neither party in good stead should matters need judicial intervention. Renters also will receive a proper receipt for their expenditure, seldom the case for unlicensed rentals.
Check the insurance category applicable to the property as owners should at minimum have cover for accidents in their properties. What about theft of valuables, are you covered?
Another scam is for renters to be asked to transfer a large deposit of full payment to a bank account outside the country and/or in a different name to that of the property owner.
Criminals can hack into email accounts, assume the personality of the legitimate owner and ask for money to be transferred to accounts outside of Portugal.
If potential renters are asked to transfer payments to other countries, they should ask themselves - is this a scam? If it the legitimate owner insisting on an overseas transfer, why should renters get involved in possible tax evasion?
There is good safety advice for renters when in Portugal on the Safe Communities Portugal website
For property owners looking to go legitimate, contact the National Association of Local Lodging Establishments at www.nalle.pt and ask afpop for information.
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* (and see readers comments) Obviously with only a 20% registration rate to the AL scheme, the government is allowing the vast majority to trade illegally, thus penalising those who follow the often complex laws.
If the market was limited to 20% of the available rental property stock, tourism would drop, tourism spending would sharply decline and the government then might actually introduce a workable scheme, not the current botch that successive tourism minister and Secretaries of State try and persuade us is 'fit for purpose'