The new Legal Regime for Urbanization and Building (RJUE) comes into force this Thursday, October 1, 2026, and promises less bureaucracy and new rules for building, rehabilitating, and selling properties in a simpler and faster way. With the new law, the Government wants to simplify licensing and reduce deadlines, with the main objective of increasing supply and solving the problem of the housing shortage in Portugal. But, after all, what changes from today?

The legislation brings the biggest revision of the urban planning licensing regime in decades, and one of these changes directly affects those who buy and sell houses: the contract must now state whether or not the property has an urban planning title, and the omission may put the transaction at risk. In other words, there is a reinforcement of the mandatory information to be included in the documents that formalize legal transactions for the transfer of real estate.

In practice, it is no longer essential to present the urban planning title at the time of the deed or authentication of the contract for the transfer of the property to proceed. Still, the deal will have to include an explicit reference to the existence or absence of this document. The change aims to make the information available to the buyer clearer, ensuring that they know, before closing the deal, the urban planning situation of the house and any risks associated with the lack or non-presentation of the title. In this quick guide we explain everything about the topic.

But there are more relevant changes, namely in terms of reformulation of the prior notification. In this article with 10 essential questions clarified by lawyers, legal experts explain that the new RJUE is a kind of "instruction manual" for those who want to carry out works. The State, in this case, through the municipalities, now concentrates its control role in two key moments: licensing (prior control, when required) and subsequent inspection (post-construction control).

In the prior notification, the municipality no longer carries out a formal verification before the start of the works: the interested party submits the notification and can proceed, assuming responsibility for compliance with the regulations. The municipal analysis will now take place at a single later stage, focusing on the formal and material validity of the urban operation as a whole. This means that the risks fall primarily on the developers, the authors of the projects, and the construction managers, who now assume an increased responsibility.
According to the decree, the following are completely exempt from licensing and prior notification: conservation works; alteration works inside buildings that do not affect the exterior or stability; works of minor urbanistic relevance (small constructions up to 10 m2, walls up to 1.8 m, greenhouses up to 20 m2, solar panels, etc.); reconstruction works without an increase in volume or area, for example.

Urban Planning Simplification Brings (Many) Challenges and Risks
It should be recalled that the Government decided to postpone the entry into force of the new simplified legislation until October to give municipalities more time "to adapt and parameterize their respective IT platforms and to implement the complementary regulations foreseen". This is because the success of the new rules largely depends on their execution.

The Order of Architects (AO) has already called for "prudence", namely because the new RJUE (Legal Regime for Urban Planning and Building) implies "new rules, new deadlines, new procedures and new document models that may generate technical and operational failures, especially during the transition period", even advocating the creation of a "permanent and real-time monitoring committee, involving the different stakeholders in the process of implementing the new law".

In an article prepared for idealista/news, Ana Cristina Borges, Lawyer, Partner at Grant Thornton, also points out that the legislation simplifies, but does not reduce the control of legality, since it transfers a significant part of the risk to developers and technicians.

“A procedure can be simpler and, at the same time, require greater sophistication from those who benefit from it. The legislator did not eliminate the complexity of territorial instruments and technical standards. They only limited prior intervention by the Administration. The benefits depend on everyone: the Administration must decide within the legal deadlines; the developers must invest in prior analysis; and the technicians must assume responsibility that is no longer transferable to municipal control,” the expert points out.

And that is why, for Joana Resende, CEO of the CENTURY 21 Arquitectos Group, we may be facing an administrative paradox, since the regime brings new weaknesses to light. She warns of a perverse effect of the simplification of licensing with Decree-Law No. 108/2026: instead of reducing bureaucracy, the new regime may be pushing it to an earlier stage of the process. In the view of this official, by attempting to mitigate accountability, agents in the sector end up transferring the bureaucratic congestion from the construction phase to the prior consultation phase, creating new pressure on municipal services.

“By significantly reducing the prior intervention of municipalities without unequivocally defining their respective supervisory duties and the limits of private responsibility, the legislator has created a zone of uncertainty that only jurisprudence and administrative practice will be able to clarify over time,” she argues.

Rafael Ascenso, Founder & Partner of Porta da Frente Christie´s, has no doubt that the revision of the RJUE (Legal Regime for Urban Planning and Building) represents an important step in simplifying urban planning processes, but considers that the effectiveness of this new model will depend on the capacity for subsequent supervision and summarizes what he considers to be some fundamental points:
Shorter deadlines in city councils: the reduction of deadlines will only have an impact if the municipalities have the technical and human resources to meet them.

Greater responsibility of the private sector: developers, architects, engineers, and builders will assume greater responsibility for complying with the rules, but it is up to public entities to subsequently verify whether these rules are, in fact, being followed.

Municipal oversight: with fewer prior validations, it will be essential to strengthen the subsequent oversight of works by municipalities.
External entities: bodies such as E-Redes, CCDR, and water supply companies will also have to comply with the new deadlines; otherwise, delays may simply be transferred to this phase.
Usage licenses: it is necessary to clarify whether banks will continue to require this document to grant financing or execute deeds, even when it ceases to be mandatory in the urban planning context.
Arbitration tribunal: the creation of this mechanism could accelerate the resolution of conflicts between prosecutors and public entities and unlock stalled projects.

SOURCE: IDEALISTA