This is a website for buyers, owners, and sellers of property in Spain, offering reliable information and resources to help you get things done with confidence. It is run by Mark Stücklin, author of the Spanish Property Doctor Column in The Sunday Times (2005-2008), and the book ‘Need to Know: Buying Property in Spain’ published by Collins.
The majority of holiday lettings in The Canaries are illegal and the regional government is cracking down with swingeing fines
News has reached me from The Canaries (thanks to a helpful reader) that the regional government is cracking down hard on all unlicensed holiday lettings, which basically means most owners who rent out their homes to tourists from time to time. You can get more details from this article in Canarian Weekly.
The question of tourist rentals is a minefield of confusion and contradictions, as I pointed out in an article about rental licences and holiday lettings in Spain for The Sunday Times back in 2007.
In some areas you need a licence, in others you don’t. In those areas where you do need a licence, the law can be vague, contradictory, inconsistently implemented and arbitrarily enforced. On top of that promising start, most owners are blissfully unaware that such laws exist.
A powerful hotel lobby that sees holiday rentals as a threat is usually behind these laws, but given the glut of homes for sale, the state should be bending over backwards at all levels to encourage people to buy, which implies making tourist rentals as easy as possible.
But no. Instead they are issuing stunned owners with fines of up to €30,000 for renting out their holiday homes to tourists. If you engage in holiday lettings, you might want to bone up the relevant laws in your area.
I should add that so far I have only heard of problems in Mallorca, The Canaries, and parts of Barcelona, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be problems elsewhere.
G says:
So it makes good business sense to influence the government, good, that’s why we want it to be big.
Jerzy Boden says:
The authorities in Iznajar, Cordoba province are also cracking down on ‘illegal’ holiday lets (Mijas has also been targeted). It would appear that they have been interrogating the various overseas property-let web sites, which is a sign of ‘efficiency’ on their part, but it means that they are mainly targets the expat community. In this economic climate all potential revenue sources are welcome.
Rgds
JJ
Buster says:
On top of the Spanish property rental tax, the UK bump this rate up to 50%, making it near pointless renting a property out. However, in desperation some may try to do so without declaring it, setting themselves up for confiscatory fines by the predatory governments involved, who view the general population with contempt & as sheeple to be fleeced.
Andrew Spence says:
This has happened in the Balearics and it has now KILLED the winter season. This crackdown on supposedly illegal rentals (it is not apparently illegal according to European rulings) has been pushed by the hotel lobby to “protect” their trade. In Mallorca nearly all the hotels in winter are CLOSED. No one can stay anywhere because the hoteliers forced underground or out, holiday lets. Golf courses are empty, businesses shut… hardly any flights now come here in the winter.
Thank you hoteliers, good job!
Terence says:
Here is a link regarding fines/renting which sheds a lot of light on the situation and talks of a public meeting being held in Tenerife on the 15th December – anyway its a good read.
http://www.janetanscombe.com/news/inspectors-to-find-and-fine-owners-of-residential-apartments-who-let-commercially.html