Each day in Portugal, an average of 27 families are forced to hand their homes back to their mortgage lenders as they no longer can afford the payments.
According to latest data from the Bank of Portugal, the number of unable to continue paying their mortgage has been increasing year after year.
One in 20 families no longer are able to pay their mortgages as parliament today votes to limit bank foreclosures on homes values at under €500,000.
In the past two years, 5,900 families have been left homeless by the Tax Authority which has evicted them for non-payment of debts.
The Socialist Party wants to stop foreclosures and the sale of homes for tax and social security debts but the Communist Party and the Left Bloc want to go a step further and protect those that cannot afford their mortgages from repossession by the Portugal’s banks.
Years of repossession activity rather than switching to rental or deferred payment plans has left Portugal's banks as the country's largest landlords yet they are unwilling to release property onto the open market due to the predicable downward pressure on prices.
Selling off banks' property stocks also will cristalise losses on assets that remain on the banks' books at unrealistic pre-recession prices.
In the Algarve, consumer watchdog Deco has highlighted a steep rise in of the financial fragility of Algarve families over the past year.
According to data collected by Deco, there are over a hundred homeless and about 5,000 people with economic needs in the region.
These figures show "a deterioration of the situation since 2014," and it now is the middle and upper middle classes that are being hit.
"Most of the number usually consists of people of working age who currently are unemployed. It should be noted that the 2015 increase, quite high and sudden, has been from the older population mainly due to the support they have been trying to provide for their children who are unemployed and in debt. Parents have been providing financial support, housing and debts guarantees.”
Each day 27 families are forced to hand their homes back to their mortgage lenders as they no longer can afford the payments.
According to latest data from the Bank of Portugal, the number of unable to continue paying their mortgage has been increasing year after year.
