Tax authorities and IMPIC will exchange data to detect ‘clandestine’ real estate agents

The Tax Authorities will start communicating real estate transactions that are carried out in the country to the Institute of Public Markets, Real Estate and Construction (IMPIC). The objective is twofold: to reduce the amount of information that mediators are required to fill out quarterly, but also to detect cases of 'clandestine' mediators who are operating without a license. The project is called “IMPIC once”, it is included in Simplex and comes into force until the end of the year, Fernando Batista, president of IMPIC, tells Expresso.

“It’s good news for those who follow the rules, and bad news for everyone who is in the market without a license”

“We signed a protocol and are working on systems interoperability until the end of the year”, says the president of IMPIC. When it is ready, it will be good news for those who comply with the rules, and “bad news for everyone who is in the market without a license”. With it, “we hope to capture the entire group of people who are dedicated to real estate transactions, who do business, but who are outside our radar”, says the same person in charge.

NUMBER OF MEDIATORS SHOOTS UP
The number of real estate agents in Portugal took a big leap with the pandemic and continues to grow.

At the end of last year, IMPIC granted 1791 real estate licenses and closed 1130. “Every year we have unofficial control. The license is granted for an indefinite period, but every year the mediator company has to demonstrate that it meets the requirements it had at the time of issuance”. The requirements include valid liability insurance and payment of the regulatory fee, and “some do not comply”.

Unlike construction, where licenses are more stable (increased 25% in five years), in mediation “agents spend less time on the market”. “For many people, they are temporary occupations”, explains Fernando Batista, who recalls that “it is often a refuge for those who do not have a job”.

Despite the volatility, in cumulative terms the number of mediators is growing. At the end of 2023 there were 9777 licenses, 7% more than a year before, and 56% more than five years earlier, in 2018.

Even so, IMPIC suspects that there are more professionals practicing the activity without being registered, in the same way that there are mediators who, despite being registered, do not communicate all the operations they mediate.

SIMPLIFY AND CONTROL
“We know that there are many transactions that are not declared because when our inspectors carry out inspections of mediators, in some cases – it is not the rule – they detect some unreported transactions”, says Fernando Batista. Another example is “people who create a company with a family member, and do not know the rules”, and, although they comply with tax obligations, they do not notify IMPIC. “Most of the time there is negligence, not fraud”, but IMPIC wants to have more complete control of the market.

If this is bad news for these professionals, for those who act according to the rules there is a good consequence. Professionals are obliged to report every three months the operations they have intermediated. Now, “when they have to go to the IMPIC portal to register transactions, instead of filling in from scratch, they have part of the data pre-filled”.

“IMPIC once will guarantee more data reliability, and will allow us to have a bigger radar”, summarizes the person in charge, enthusiastic about the potential of artificial intelligence for a regulator that has been complaining about a lack of resources for years.

Source: Expresso