The Regional Secretary for Social Solidarity signed today 11 sublease contracts for 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom and 3-bedrooms apartments in the village of Santa Luzia in Angra do Heroísmo. Under this measure, families have the opportunity to later purchase the dwellings. The amount of the rents already paid by families will be deducted from the price to be paid for the apartment.

These 11 dwellings are part of a set of apartments leased by the Government of the Azores to the Institute for Housing and Urban Rehabilitation that are now put to tender, like other tender that were previous launched, including 33 dwellings in S. Pedro Neighbourhood, village of Maia, 17 apartments located in Edifício da Rotunda in Ribeira Seca and 60 apartments in Neighbourhood of Quinta do Castanheiro.

Andreia Cardoso stressed that the conditions of these contracts "represent monthly savings" for households, since it does not involve the payment of expenses like home insurance or Municipal Property Taxes. Moreover, families will benefit from a subsidy that will vary between 15% and 35% of the lease amount, reaching an average of 33%.

In her speech, the Regional Secretary stressed that the Regional Government has implemented this initiative to address difficulties in accessing bank credit, seeing that banks "began to introduce more demanding criteria in the access to loans." This meant that "several households in the Azores and the rest of the country "had difficulty in the access to housing loans.

In this context, the government official announced the opening of a new tender for the transfer, also in sublease scheme with purchase option, of 38 apartments located in the same neighbourhood: one 1-bedroom apartment, 31 2-bedroom apartments and six 3-bedroom apartments.
Andreia Cardoso also informed that the access requirements, the selection criteria and the lease benefits will be maintained in the new tender.

Next week, the Government will publish in the Official Journal the opening notice and the rules of the tender, whose application period will run from June 8 to 30.

Applications may be submitted at the Regional Directorate for Housing, the Housing services of each island and the RIAC (Citizen Support Integrated Network) offices. They can be also sent by mail or submitted via the email address listed in the tender rules.

The tender is open to all citizens residing in the Azores for at least three years, who are 18 years or over and are not property owners. Applicants are also required to have economic and financial capacity to support the monthly lease in accordance the effort rates stipulated in the rules.