Called “Devolutos”, the app allows you to identify vacant homes and buildings “and add them to a map”, aiming to “build the most accurate portrait possible of the national shame of having urban centers which are dilapidated and without people living there while there is a call for more construction”, Nelson Vassalo, a member of the activist group, told Lusa news agency.
For this group – which includes designers and programmers – that created the app, Portugal has “an underutilized or abandoned housing stock”, a situation that the new resource aims to denounce, initially in Lisbon and, later, in the rest of the country.
According to Nelson Vassalo, the census points to “around 48 thousand empty houses in Lisbon alone”. The goal is to “make all these houses visible in the app” and contribute to solving the housing crisis, since “cities are able to absorb the housing needs of the population”.
The Devolutos app, which aims to “put pressure on the recovery of abandoned properties”, is accessible to anyone who “can photograph a vacant property and associate it with its geographic location”. The app is available free of charge for Android and iOS devices and in a web version, on the website www.devolutos.com .
“Illegal”
What seems simple to the group, for the National Association of Property Owners, the application is “illegal”, since “no one can photograph (…), advertise or publicize” private properties “without the owner’s consent”, its president, António Frias Marques, told Lusa.
Admitting to “taking legal action against the perpetrators”, the representative of the property owners warned: “this will not happen with voluntarism” and “it is not the individuals who have to solve the housing problem”.
António Frias Marques highlighted that many of the vacant houses “are under long-term contracts, in which the tenants stayed in the house for many years paying very low rents”, many of which need renovations to be put back on the rental market.
To do this, “thousands and thousands of euros are needed”, since, for example, “for a house with 100 square meters, in Lisbon, the average price to renovate is 40 thousand euros”.
The president of the association also warned that the app may contain “photographs of medium and large buildings, already with approved projects to be transformed into hotels” and that they are only vacant “until construction begins”.
Inheritance
The founders of the app and the owners also disagree on the inheritance processes.
“We need legislation that speeds up and unfreezes the processes”, argued Nelson Vassalo, claiming that it is not possible to have “properties that are idle for 10, 20, 30 years while inheritances are being discussed”.
For Vassalo, tax reform and incentives are necessary so that inheritance processes do not become “an impediment” to the use of these properties, proposing that “houses that are in good condition can be rented out by force”, and “the rental values always go to the inheritance treasury”.
António Frias Marques pointed out that “legislation already exists” and that houses “can be rented while the inheritance process is ongoing”, but he disagreed that this rental could be done coercively, which would be “another attack on the owners of vacant houses who pay 10 times more” than the Municipal Property Tax (IMI) applied to other buildings.
The promoters of the application estimate that it could be extended in the coming months to the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto and, later, to the Algarve and the rest of the country.
The owners are warned that they can do so “with regard to public buildings”, but not with regard to private ones.
“If the situation worsens, the legal department of the National Association of Property Owners will file a lawsuit to have this ‘site’ closed, because this does not solve any problem”, said Antônio Frias Marques.
Brilliant pro-active action. A shame of so many properties left to rot. The government needs to step up and stop being so lethargic.
By Rudolph Eksteen from Porto on 27 Jun 2025, 14:47
Well done. It has been long time since state and local governments do something about the rampant property specullation. Citizen activism apparently has to show them the way. Congratulations
By Joao from Beiras on 27 Jun 2025, 19:04
This app is an excellent way for criminals to research which houses they can go rob more easily! I bought a total ruin in a village that nobody wanted. A house left to rot and fall apart for 50 years. It was rebuilt using community labour and businesses. Why should it be allowed that any person can advertise it is not permanently occupied without knowing the circumstances?
By Rob from Other on 28 Jun 2025, 04:35
Just take selfie from the street with the house in the background. That is not illegal! Great app!
By Duarte Ribeirinho from Lisbon on 28 Jun 2025, 09:50
Unbelievable. Communism is really coming back in a strong way. I hope that the people who applaud this will never have their properties "inhabited" by these model citizens.
By Edmund from Lisbon on 28 Jun 2025, 09:54
While I understand the concerns of the National Association of Property Owners, it's worth noting that most properties in Portugal are already visible from public streets and can be freely photographed or viewed on platforms like Google Street View. If Google is allowed to publish such images, it seems inconsistent to claim that citizens photographing and mapping visibly vacant buildings from public spaces are violating privacy. The Devolutos app doesn’t appear to share private information—just what’s already observable in the public domain. Rather than dismissing it as illegal, perhaps it should be seen as a civic initiative calling attention to a very real and visible housing issue.
By Fernando Cordeiro from UK on 28 Jun 2025, 19:16
"António Frias Marques highlighted that many of the vacant houses “are under long-term contracts, in which the tenants stayed in the house for many years paying very low rents”, many of which need renovations to be put back on the rental market."
oh boo hoo, lobbyist boi - it is called the price of owning property.
By Mark from Other on 29 Jun 2025, 08:25
it was not considered ilegal, that's just an alegation, not a fact, your title is misleading. Of course, the thing that should be ilegal is that the city is full of buildings closed and left to rot.
By Ines Meneses from Lisbon on 29 Jun 2025, 17:59
Gee. Let me see if I understand this. So these thousands of unoccupied housing units, in Lisbon, but also across the country, have artificially raised the supply vs. demand and now the Portuguese are getting their feelings hurt because someone wants to take a picture of their rotten house? I guess it isn't the immigrants that are causing the housing crisis after all. Who knew? Also, if you've got a derelict house that isn't being cared for, and I'm betting isn't paying property taxes, its the person taking a picture of it that is at fault. Ok. Brilliant. No doubt you're storing the crown jewels in there.
By Nicola from Lisbon on 30 Jun 2025, 20:20
How about an app for someone that has been waiting over 3 yrs for the city to allow me to renovate one of these dilapidated houses so my family of 4 can live I. A house we want to live in!
By Jimmy from Lisbon on 01 Jul 2025, 13:00