These terms set out the rules for using arrendaquartos.pt. By creating an account or using the site you accept them; if you do not agree, please do not use the service. We have tried to write them as clearly as possible; if anything is unclear, get in touch. The Portuguese version prevails in case of doubt.
1. What arrendaquartos.pt is
arrendaquartos.pt is a website for room-to-rent listings in Portugal. It connects people who have a room available with people looking for one, through listings, search and a built-in chat.
We are not an agency or a real estate broker. We do not represent either party, we do not visit the rooms and we take no part in the contract, the payment of rent or deposit, or the handover of keys. Any rental agreement is made solely between the advertiser and the person interested.
2. Your account
You need an account to publish listings, contact advertisers or save favourites and searches. When you create one, you agree to:
be at least 18 years old;
use accurate details and an email address you have access to (we ask you to confirm it);
have a single account, in your own name, and not share it with anyone;
keep your password, and the links and codes we email you, to yourself; we recommend turning on two-step verification in your profile;
let us know if you suspect someone else is using your account.
To protect accounts, login is temporarily locked after several wrong passwords in a row.
You can delete your account from your profile at any time. Your personal data is deleted or anonymised and your listings are no longer shown. Messages you sent remain visible to the people who received them, labelled "Deleted user", and payment records are kept for the period required by tax law.
How we handle your personal data is explained in our Privacy Policy.
3. Publishing listings
Before your first listing you must confirm your mobile number by SMS. Each account can have up to 3 active listings (published or awaiting review) at the same time.
By publishing a listing, you confirm that:
the room exists, is available and matches the text and photos;
you are entitled to rent it out; if you are the tenant of the property, you have the landlord's permission to sublet;
the price and conditions stated (bills, deposit, minimum stay, house rules) are the ones you will apply;
the photos are yours or you have permission to use them, and they show the real room and home;
you comply with the legal and tax obligations of renting, such as a written contract and reporting rental income to the Portuguese Tax Authority.
Every listing is reviewed by our team before it appears in search, helped by an automatic filter that flags discriminatory wording. If you change the title or description of a published listing, it is reviewed again. When a listing is not approved, we email you the reason and you can fix it.
Photos you upload are processed to remove their metadata (such as the GPS location recorded by the camera). The address is used to show the room on the map.
4. What is not allowed
On the site, in listings and in the chat you may not:
exclude or treat people differently because of racial or ethnic origin, colour, nationality, ancestry, place of origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability (for example, "no foreigners"); legitimate preferences in a shared home, such as gender, smokers or pets, go in the dedicated form fields;
publish false, misleading or duplicate listings, or listings that are not rooms for rent;
ask for payments before the viewing and the contract, through hard-to-trace methods or to foreign accounts, or ask for documents and bank details to "reserve" a room;
send spam, unauthorised advertising, insults, threats or harassing messages;
use bots or software to copy listings, create accounts or send bulk messages, or try to get around the site's limits and security measures;
use someone else's account or create a new account to get around a block.
Discriminatory listings are rejected or blocked and, if it happens again, the account may be blocked.
5. Chat and safety
The chat is for asking questions and arranging viewings. When someone writes to you, you get an email notification. Messages are stored so the conversation stays available to both people.
If you create a tenant profile, it is shown to the advertisers you talk to, so they can get to know you. The profile is optional and you can delete it whenever you like.
Before agreeing to anything, view the room (in person or on a live video call), confirm who you are dealing with and do not pay a deposit, rent or "reservation fee" without a contract. We show safety tips in every conversation, but following them does not remove every risk: the decision to go ahead is always yours.
6. Reports
If a listing looks false, discriminatory or suspicious, report it from the listing page. We review reports and may remove the listing and block the account that published it. Repeated bad-faith reports are also a reason for blocking.
7. Favourites, saved searches and alerts
You can save listings to your favourites and save searches to receive an email digest of new matching rooms. Every alert email has a link to stop receiving them, and you can delete saved searches from your profile.
8. Paid services
Publishing and contacting are free. Advertisers can buy two optional services:
Featured listing: for the chosen period (for example, 7 or 30 days), the listing appears ahead of others in search, with the featured badge;
Hide address: the exact address is no longer shown and the map only shows an approximate area. It is a one-off payment that lasts as long as the listing exists. It does not hide what you write in the description or what can be seen in the photos.
Prices are shown in euros before payment. Payments are processed by Stripe (card, MB WAY or Multibanco); we never see your card details. There are no subscriptions or automatic renewals.
Services start as soon as payment is confirmed, because that is what you ask for when you buy. If you are a consumer, you have 14 days to cancel: for a featured listing, we refund the part corresponding to the days not yet used; hiding the address is fully provided at the moment of purchase, so it can no longer be cancelled after that.
If we cannot provide a paid service because of a fault on our side, we refund the amount or restore the missing period. If the listing is removed for breaching these terms, the amount paid is not refunded. Deleting or withdrawing the listing ends the related services.
9. Third-party advertising
Some pages show advertising from companies, always labelled "Advertising" or "Sponsored". Advertised products and services are the responsibility of the advertiser. When you click an ad or another external link, you leave arrendaquartos.pt and that site's terms apply.
10. Rights over content
The texts and photos you publish remain yours. By publishing them, you give us a free, non-exclusive permission to show them on the site, adapt them to the page format (for example, resizing photos) and include them in alert emails and search engine results, while the listing is active and for the time needed to remove it.
The arrendaquartos.pt name, logo, design, code and city guides belong to us or are used with permission. You may not copy them or systematically extract content from the site.
11. Liability
We do our best to keep the site working well and securely, but there may be interruptions, errors or maintenance periods. We review listings, but we cannot guarantee that all information published by others is true, or that a room will be rented.
Everyone is responsible for what they publish and the agreements they make. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for losses arising from agreements between users, false information published by others or the content of external sites. This does not exclude our liability for wilful misconduct or gross negligence, nor the rights the law gives consumers.
12. Blocking accounts and listings
We may remove listings and block accounts, temporarily or permanently, when these terms are not followed, when there are signs of fraud or when other people's safety is at risk. In serious cases we do so without prior notice. Whenever possible we explain why; if you think it was a mistake, contact us.
13. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms to reflect new features or changes in the law. The date at the top of the page shows the version in force. When a change is significant, we email registered users at least 15 days in advance; if you do not agree, you can delete your account before the change takes effect.
14. Governing law and disputes
These terms are governed by Portuguese law. For consumer disputes, you can use an alternative dispute resolution body, such as CNIACC – Centro Nacional de Informação e Arbitragem de Conflitos de Consumo (www.cniacc.pt) or the consumer arbitration centre for your area; the full list is on the Portal do Consumidor (www.consumidor.gov.pt). You can also file a complaint in the Livro de Reclamações Eletrónico (www.livroreclamacoes.pt).
Without prejudice to the rules that protect consumers, disputes are settled by the competent Portuguese courts under the law.
15. Who we are and contact
arrendaquartos.pt is an online platform for listings of rooms for rent in Portugal, available at https://arrendaquartos.pt.
For questions about these terms, reports, requests about your account or complaints, write to contacto@arrendaquartos.pt.
