Till death do us part? The assign of the tenancy upon the residential tenant’s death. Some reflections on the Portuguese case law

Maria Raquel Guimarães

Keywords

residential tenancy; tenant death; NRAU; Portuguese law; art. 1106.º; art. 57.

Abstract

The questions raised by the death of the tenant and the possibility of assigning the tenancy to those who were close to him are frequently discussed by the Portuguese higher courts. Often the cases that are judged today in our courts still refer to contracts celebrated in the first half of the 20th century, as a result of the death no longer of the initial tenant, nor of his spouse, nor of his children, but of his grandchildren... The successive interventions of the legislator over the years have affected the possibility of perpetuating the contract by several generations of tenants, establishing different rules depending on the year the contract was made.

With the case law of the Portuguese higher courts as a background, we want to address some of the issues that have most regularly been the subject of litigation when the residential tenant dyes and the assignment of the tenancy is claimed by a spouse, a cohabiting partner or a close relative.