Habitação própria e permanente (own permanent home)
Habitação própria e permanente Own permanent home HPP
An own permanent home is the property where the owner and their household habitually live — it is where their tax domicile is registered. The IMT Code does not define the phrase in a provision of its own: it uses it as a condition for the exemption and for the more favourable table, and this first sentence is our reading of that use. The use declared at purchase decides which IMT table applies.
In practice
It is the condition behind several benefits at once: the free first band, IMT Jovem, the stamp duty deduction and the IMI safeguard clause. That is why the use declared in the deed is not a formality.
If the property never gets that use, or has it and then loses it within the period the IMT Code sets, the benefit can lapse and the tax becomes due from the date of acquisition, with interest. Changes in the household — marriage, a civil partnership, a separation, another dependant — and selling the property have their own exceptions in the same Code.