Holiday country house for rent in Motril
Property id: 5308
Cortijo Azahar.
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The
Spanish Government is attempting to pass a bill that will affect
private owners who rent their properties out to holidaymakers, making as
little noise as possible.
The new law, whose content is ambiguous, means
that owners in this situation will be subject to the tourist
accommodation regulations in each region.
In the case of Andalusía this specific legislation is
still being drawn up and owners will have to wait until the end of the
year to find out what new requirements they may have to meet if they
want to continue to draw an income from holiday rentals.
The secretary general of Tourism at the Junta de
Andalucía, Vicente Granados, said on Wednesday that they were already
working on the conditions for private rentals in the light of the
central government’s new bill. He explained that they had been studying
the regulations in force in Cataluña as a reference.
He added, though, that they had still not had time to
establish key points such as the definition of the properties that would
be included or the procedure owners will have to go through in order to
continue to rent out to tourists.
What he was able to confirm was that private rentals
would have their own section within the new Tourist Apartments law
currently being drawn up.
Granados explained that the law in Cataluña requires
private owners who rent out their properties two or more times every
year to present an official application at their local town hall.
Granados pointed out that the Andalusian regulation will
include clauses that guarantee the tourist’s right to complain if the
rental conditions are not met. There will also be fines for properties
that fail to comply with the law.
Green light from Senate
Meanwhile, the central government has not wasted time
making the planned changes public. The bill, with the title ‘Medidas de
Flexibilización y Fomento del Mercado de Alquiler de Viviendas’, has
already been approved by the Senate and now has to go through Congress.
Controversial modifications introduced show the clear
influence of lobbying by the hotel industry. Hoteliers have been calling
for more regulations controlling holiday rentals for years, but until
now their demands have fallen on deaf ears.
Now this new bill has angered private owners, who are
more vulnerable than the other sectors involved, in the absence of a
solid organisational structure, as well as rental firms, who believe
that the law clearly violates the right of home owners to rent their
property on a temporary basis.
It is estimated that the changes could affect some
120,000 properties in Spain, of which 13,000 are registered in Andalucía
as being ‘de uso turístico’, that is, rented as holiday homes.
However
the rental industry points out that the figure could be between 100 and
150 per cent higher, taking into account the properties that are not
registered but operate under the protection of the current LAU urban
rentals law (Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos).
Confusion
The director of the holiday rentals portal Rentalia,
Almudena Ucha, regrets that the bill has already gone through the Senate
despite the number of objections. She complains that once this bill has
been approved, the sector will no longer be regulated by one single
law, the LAU, but by 17 different ones, depending on the Spanish region.
Each of these has its different obligations, some of them, said Ucha,
notably restrictive.
The most immediate consequence, she explained, would be a
reduction in the volume of business, which will in turn take its toll
on employment and on the incomes of bars, restaurants and shops that
benefit from renting holidaymakers.
Ucha also criticised the fact that the law has been given
the green light at a time when the possibility of renting to tourists
makes the thousands of property developments standing empty more
attractive to investors. Now they will think twice about buying.
The director of the Studies Office at Pisos.com, Manuel
Gamdarias, pointed out that Andalusía, the Balearics and the Canaries
are the regions with the greatest activity in holiday rentals, but
insisted that the sector should not be seen as competition for hotels
because they have a different clientele.
In Andalucía, the chief executive of Turismo Andaluz,
Francisco Artacho, said that the regulation has been pending for some
time. “We have to put limits on both sides.
On one hand rentals are
unfair competition for regulated tourist accommodation. Having said that
I believe that anything affecting tourism has to be done with caution,
with well thought-through measures and looking carefully at the
consequences of each step.”
Ambiguity
Critics have also complained that the bill approved by
the Senate is ambiguous. Not even the hoteliers are happy that their
demands have been met, even though it has been admitted that the
modifications are the result of the pressure from the industry.
The president of the Costa del Sol Hoteliers Association
(Aehcos), José Carlos Escribano, has defended the need for this
regulation to bring to light the accommodation that is operating as
clear unfair competition to the hotel industry.
The situation is by no means clear. If before, someone
with an apartment in Torre del Mar, for example, could rent it out to
tourists just with a habitation certificate or a first occupancy
licence, now the Andalusian regulations could introduce new conditions
or requirements, pointed out a spokesperson for Asotur, an association
for tourist accommodation managers, who also pointed out that the demand
for privately-rented self-catering accommodation was in fact growing.
Junta announces inspection next year
At a meeting in Cadiz on Wednesday the head of Tourism at
the Junta de Andalucía, Rafael Rodríguez, announced that an inspection
campaign would be launched next year to fight against tourist
accommodation and services operating in the black.
By then rental
properties will have to comply with the new regulations to be
established by the regional authority.
