International Journal of Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Law we find an activity that materially falls into the provision of a temporary accommodation service, usually for tourism purposes, which implies the exercise of a business activity and not a merely residential purpose. This issue has been much debated in the various legal systems, as a means of finding how this activity may be explored, in which properties and under what conditions, namely what material and legal requirements, the property must have to be considered suitable for access to the activity. In this regard, it is important to know which authorizations are required to carry out a use of this nature and the requirements such use imply. This is of fundamental importance when we are talking about buildings set up as horizontal property and in neighbours’ rights protection. The case of Portugal 1. Sources of law Portugal, like most countries, especially in Southern Europe, has had to deal with the expansion of Local accommodation by adopting legislation to regulate and contain it. Portugal addresses the phenomenon of the widespread of the Local Accommodation in 2008, by adopting the Decreto-Lei no. 39/2008, of 7 March, which created the legal concept of local accommodation as per the provision of temporary accommodation services in establishments that did not meet the legal requirements for specifically named tourist establishments. The only requirement to start was to register the business at the Municipality. Decreto-Lei no. 39/2008 was revoked and replaced by Decreto-Lei no. 128/2014, of 29 August, amended in April 2015 (Decreto-Lei no. 63/2015), in August and December 2018 (Lei no. 62/2018 and Lei no. 71/2018) and in January 2021 (Decreto-Lei no. 9/2021), which approves the legal rules for the operation of local accommodation establishments (RJAL). It is the legal regulation now in force. The activity of local accommodation turned into an autonomous category of accommodation, defined as the exploration of a local accommodation establishment directed to the exercise of an activity of delivering accommodation services by a natural or legal person. The registration of the establishment is the responsibility of the Municipality, by means of a prior conditional
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