According to figures from the Ministry of Justice published in a report by newspaper Diário de Notícias, the National Rental Bureau has been contacted 10,333 times by proprietors seeking to have their tenants evicted.
But, reportedly, half of those requests were rejected.
Numbers from the Ministry of Justice show that by June this year, 929 eviction warnings had been issued by the National Rental Bureau; last year, overall, 1,868 were sent.
The majority of the warnings were issued for tenants living in big cities like Lisbon and Oporto.
Romão Lavadinho, of the Association for Lisbon Tenants, told Diário de Notícias: “As a general rule, rent is the last obligation that people stop paying, but unemployment is still the main reason for non-payment.”
He added that drops in income brought on by the crisis and situations of illness or old age have also contributed towards people being unable to pay rent in recent years.