Sorry to say, there isn’t a simple ‘Yes or No’ answer.
If you advertise your property online on a portal that advertises travel accommodation or services, regardless of whether there is online booking or not you must register. This is what we were told in the initial meeting with the Junta de Andalucía.
They actually stated that if you were advertised with just a Se Alquila sign, in an agent’s window, or via Whatsapp, you wouldn’t have to. But I find that very dubious, and do question that an owner would get away with it if reported to the authorities as renting to tourists.
The simple answer is YES. This is a good law to maintain standards of short term accommodation for holidaymakers. It’s very logical in a spanish sort of way. Simple form to fill in – no need to waste money on abogados as they will charge, know no more than you or I and will possibly screw up as happened to several of my friends.and take it in person to the nearest Junta de Andalucia office – servicio de turismo who will check it and send it for processing.
You will need to supply your NIE or NIF number and proof the
licencia de primera ocupacion
escritura
catastral details and a few other items – nothing onerous
In due course you will get your licence – two types VTAR if you are more than 1.5km from the coast and in a rural area with a population of less than 20,000 or a VFT if you are by the coast.
Then they will come to inspect; they will want to see your sign on the wall, fire extinguishers and measure the sizes of your rooms as there are criteria for how many beds in one room. You must display your licence number on online adverts and elsewhere. Currently various spanish comunidads are suing the like of Homeaway and Airbnb for allowing adverts without a licence number.
These are early days and very possibly they will start to charge an annual fee
All talk of whether you need a licence by not advertising online or with a se alquila sign is dangerous nonsense voiced by idiots. If you are caught it will be expensive or you will not be allowed to have a licence ever.
As I said easy to get the licence and then you can use the few effective [but very visible to the authorities] websites and cover your mortgage costs or whatever.
Any property advertised via web portals, estate agents, travel agents, in magazines, newspapers etc., for short term lets in Andalucía must be registered. It has nothing to do with online bookings facilities.
Great blog. We are luck in that we are legally registered under the new rental laws. My question is somehwat technical. One of the Air Conditioning (AC) companies quoting to install our AC say that door contacts (To shut dowm AC if left open too long) and /or motion/efficiency sensors are illegal–Any thoughts/opinions/insights.
I saw your inquiry last week but thought Raimundo may have replied. There is nothing that I saw in the rules to justify this statement. The bottom line is you are obliged to provide fixed ac units for VFT licence qualifying properties and for VTAR licence qualifying properties ensure that your guests can keep the temperature below 19’C with adequate fans or mobile ac units.
It makes perfect sense to avoid wasting your money to have systems in place to turn the ac off when the guests are not there or if they tend to leave doors open. The ultimate and what I am doing is to install solar pv panels and then it is somewhat irrelevant. We have solar panels in Surrey and even there save ourselves considerable sums. The pv systems in Spain seem a bit more primitive but still get the job done and will allow us to put in a pool heater for our autumn winter and spring guests.
It’s not quite as simple as some are suggesting, and furthermore, having got the Andalucian registration document with the appropriate reference number it is then required to go through a similar hoop jumping Exercise with your local police. Passport, escritura, registration document etc – no doubt they will charge?
This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by trotty110. Reason: typo
Well, having checked all my paperwork I downloaded the documents, filled them in [5 minutes] and drove into Cadiz. Just Luis waiting behind his desk in the atico of the Junta building in the servicio turismo. He checked the paperwork, made some corrections there and then, made copies and gave me a receipt. It was as simple as that.
As far as registering guests [just taking their passport details and arrival / departure dates and emailing them to the local guardia office] this is just the same as any hotel’s procedure but you need to register with them to go online. This law is to do with the movement of people and needs to be done with or without a short term lettings licence.
good luck . . . and don’t be put off as the penalties for not complying with this law [and again it is purely to ensure that tourists have adequate acommodation] can be severe in the six figures and lead to being banned from having a licence
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