'Bought a dwelling, living in tourist accommodation. Hundreds could lose the right to live in the house they bought.

Aldemento-tourist settlement in Palmela, funded by the former BES, now has 6,000 permanent residents. By law, the zone is supposed to be fully touristy, but tourism here is negligible. Many owners claim they have been cheated.

In a time of serious housing crisis, when so many people are looking for houses they can't find, an exclusive investigation by TVI (owned by the same concern as CNN Portugal) has uncovered a story that is a real paradox: a lot of homeowners are living a real "nightmare" in a huge residential complex built in the style of a protected village in Palmela. Palmela Village residents that TVI spoke to feel cheated: they bought the properties with permits for'' 'residential use', with official documents issued by the municipality, but in recent years they have realized that they are in fact living in an 'accommodation facility' intended for tourism. The difference in names may seem insignificant to those unfamiliar with urban planning law, but the practical implications are serious.

Hundreds of invalid licenses. No one can be banned from living in a tourist settlement, the official classification of Palmela Village, but living in such a settlement has several disadvantages. A home with a tourist license cannot be rented out for living and is generally worth less than a home with a residential license. In addition, the owners' attorneys argue that no one would be able to take out a home loan. On the other''side, tourist accommodation has to pay high fees to the private operating organization of the settlement and loses certain tax benefits, such as exemption from income taxes on the sale of permanent housing. Even more serious: the conclusion of two law professors from the University of Coimbra (Fernanda Paula Oliveira and Dulce Lopes) states that hundreds of accommodation licenses issued by the municipality are in fact invalid because they are contrary to the law.

"Empty" perspective. Within the conclusion commissioned by the operating organization of the tourist parts (which wants''ll present a solution, but he states that no one will be evicted because of the municipality, although he admits that selling any of the more than a thousand homes in the future will become difficult if the state does remove the tourist village status. The Palmela Village Owners Association is challenging the municipality's position, awaiting a proposal from the developer and owners, saying the municipality could and should have already done something legally to solve the problem, recognizing past mistakes. Hundreds are affected. The owners' association claims there are hundreds of victims who purchased homes without realizing what they were buying. Although they reject the most pessimistic scenario of eviction from the homes, the association emphasizes that they just want''Community organizations have recognized the obvious: "that Palmela Village is not what it never was", that is, a "tourist settlement". Francisco Ferreira, president of the environmental association Zero, agrees that the Palmela Village project has always been 'an urban planning lie disguised as a tourist one' and emphasizes the advantages that the developers of such projects have in proposing tourist facilities rather than conventional housing construction, in addition to the constraints of the Local Regulatory Plan (PDM). Exclusivo has spoken to dozens of owners who have purchased homes at various times over the past two decades, who claim that no one informed them of the tourist character of the house they were buying and report that they were deceived that, by''is considered by some to be a "fraud" that has gone on for years and has several culprits.

A hotel and camp center on paper. Aldeimento-tourist Palmela Village, a project with houses designed by architect Tomas Taveira, was always a "slightly megalomaniacal" tourism venture, as the current mayor of the municipality admits. It was never completed and did not have the hotel or camp center that was originally planned (and the golf course closed after years of operating without a license), but today 1,150 houses (or accommodation units, depending on the terminology used) have been built here, housing about 6,000 permanent residents. By law, in this area, originally intended for rural plots,''commercial prospectuses, and in the contracts-promises and public deeds of sale. The latter also explicitly referred to the founding document of the tourist settlement," Pelicano - Investimento Imobiliário assures, adding that the 'vast majority' of owners have no complaints and that the transactions went through lawyers, notaries and official bodies.