At least a dozen court cases later, the rules over paying rates for properties in officially designated historic areas are still not clear with home owners claiming exemption and the State saying that private owners should pay up.
The Greens this week asked the Minister of Finance to explain why, since 2010, the rules are still subject to different interpretations.
Minister, Mario Centeno, in response to The Greens, said that the collection of municipal taxes (IMI) from individual owners of buildings in historic areas will go ahead.
The exemption should cover property in historic and UNESCO areas but the latter causes a large funding problem in the Alto Douro area where 24,600 hectares come under the UNESCO categorisation and properties within the boundaries should be exempt.
This areas lies in 13 council areas and the automatic exemption, claims the minister, "undermines a significant part of the tax revenue for all these municipalities."
The residents want to be exempt as publically owned buildings and monuments in historic areas pay zero rates, but the government disagrees on cost grounds despite what the courts might rule.
Mario Centeno said that "a general exemption for the buildings in designated historic areas would lead to significant practical difficulties" but locals claim a different interpretation of the law.
This has been dragging on since 2010 but if the minister is unable to accept court rulings that he is wrong and the householders are right, it may take another six years clogging up the court system before either the decree law is changed or the minister accepts that the law is the law, however inconvenient it may be for him.
