REITs or SIGIs: an alternative for investment in real estate assets in Portugal

Ever since the legal regime for the Portuguese REITs (Sociedades de Gestão e Investimento Imobiliário - SIGI’s) came into force back in 2019, for the third consecutive year Garrigues Portugal has the honor of collaborating with the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA), contributing with the Portuguese chapter of the EPRA Global REIT Survey 2021.

The annual EPRA Global REIT Survey stands out as the reference guide for REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) around the world. The 2021 edition describes in detail the REIT regimes in force covering 43 jurisdictions.  REIT structures vary from country to country, and although they are constantly evolving worldwide, since the creation of this vehicle in Portugal, in 2019, the legal regime has only suffered one amendment in response to several comments made by the market players following the enactment of the decree-law that created SIGIs. New changes should be discussed in order to make SIGIs a more attractive type of investment in the real estate market than they have proved to be so far.

Although SIGIs are subject to the tax regime applicable to real estate investment companies, including contractual and corporate funds, there are several features of the legal regime of the SIGIs that must be taken into consideration when choosing this type of investment vehicle. In this survey we describe in great detail the main characteristics of the legal regime of the SIGIs which may be compared with REITs in other jurisdictions, including in Spain where the corresponding REITs – SOCIMIs – have attained a great success.

Hopefully this type of vehicle may constitute an attractive alternative to real estate investors willing to invest in the Portuguese markets in the upcoming economy recovery following the COVID-19 crisis.

In this light, we hope this survey will be useful and the contacts of the authors are included so that you can contact the same for further information.