Housesitting in Portugal

Portugal criminalised cruelty to companion animals in 2014 (Código Penal arts. 387–388, strengthened by Lei 39/2020): mistreatment causing pain can mean up to a year's imprisonment or a fine, killing an animal six months to two years, abandonment up to six months — and a court can ban the offender from keeping animals for up to six years (art. 388-A). The drama: between 2021 and 2023 several Constitutional Court panels disapplied art. 387 as too vague and disproportionate (Acórdão 867/2021, Acórdão 9/2023), producing acquittals — until the full court, in Acórdão 70/2024 (23 January 2024), ruled the crime constitutional and refused to strike it down. So it firmly stands; an isolated acquittal on vagueness grounds remains theoretically possible, but the offence is live law. As the person in charge during the sit, the sitter carries this front-line — neglect on your watch is your own exposure.

Alojamento Local is a regulated category of short-term tourist accommodation provided 'mediante remuneração' — for payment (Decreto-Lei 128/2014, art. 2.º) — and running one needs prior registration (the RNAL number) through the Balcão Único. An unpaid, private, time-limited housesit is none of those things: no payment, no tourists, no service offered to the public, so no AL registration is owed and there is no unlicensed-AL fine to fear. The line to watch runs the other way — the moment money changes hands for the stay, it can start to look like the paid accommodation the AL rules are built for.

A housesit with no rent is a comodato — a gratuitous loan of the home (Código Civil art. 1129.º) — not a lease, which by definition needs payment (art. 1022.º), so the NRAU tenancy protections that make tenants hard to evict simply don't apply to a sitter. But Portuguese law allows no self-help eviction: cutting off utilities or forcing a lock can itself be unlawful, and recovering possession from someone who won't leave means a court action. A clear, dated, written, rent-free arrangement is what keeps a sit unmistakably a comodato — which is why documenting it matters more than any 'rights' either side imagines.

Portugal's blood-alcohol limit is 0.5 g/L — below England's 0.8 — and for anyone in their first three years on a licence it drops to 0.2 g/L, effectively zero (Código da Estrada art. 81.º). One glass can put a smaller person over. Between 0.5 and 1.19 g/L it is an administrative offence (a fine and a driving ban, escalating with the reading); at 1.2 g/L or more it becomes a crime — condução em estado de embriaguez — carrying up to a year's imprisonment or a fine plus a court-ordered ban (Código Penal art. 292.º). A modest single glass might keep a larger adult under the line, but the margin is thin, and a novice driver has essentially none.

Secretly filming someone in a private space, or recording their spoken words without consent, are criminal offences in Portugal — devassa da vida privada (Código Penal art. 192.º) and gravações ilícitas (art. 199.º) — each carrying up to a year's imprisonment or a fine, more if the footage is shared. The recording-a-conversation point is the sharp one: even audio picked up by a home camera is generally off-limits unless the space is closed or the data regulator (CNPD) has cleared it. A camera disclosed in writing and trained on the dog's bowl is fine; one hidden and pointed at the sitter is not. The same law protects the homeowner too — a sitter can't secretly record the household either.

Money isn't the test. Across legal systems, what makes an arrangement binding is that two people genuinely agreed to it and meant it to count — not whether cash changed hands or anything was signed, and it can be spoken or shown by conduct rather than written down. (Some systems look for something given on each side — here, James's care for Sarah's keys and a roof; others ask only that the promise was seriously meant. A housesit clears either bar.) So 'no cash, nothing signed' is the wrong line everywhere. The subtler, equally universal catch: a purely social favour can fall short of an intended legal commitment, and even a binding deal is painful to prove once memories differ. Agreeing clear terms up front helps with both, which is the point of agreeing them.

In most systems an agreement can be oral or formed by conduct; a signature and a formal document aren't what make it binding. What's hard about an informal deal isn't its validity — it's proving what was actually agreed once memories differ. Writing the terms down doesn't create the obligation; it records it, so nobody has to argue about it later.