The Parliament of the Balearics will discuss modifying the standard of tourist rentals
The Balearic parliament will urgently discuss a bill to regulate tourist rentals on the islands and ensure access to residential housing.
The government of the Balearic Islands admitted to processing on April 7 a bill to regulate tourist rentals in the region with the intention of prioritizing access to residential housing, which amends the current Law 8/2012 of July 19 Of Tourism of the Balearic Islands.
The so-called Tourist Rental Bill, which will be debated in the regional parliament and is expected to be approved in September 2017, has as a new feature the delegation in municipalities, consells and communities of owners the decision to allow or Not the rental of real estate for tourist use, according to the Diario de Ibiza.
There is division of opinions on this proposal of autonomic law. For Mark Stücklin of Spanish Property Insight, this initiative is “sensible” and “positive” if it serves to “allow tourist rental in areas where there is little demand for the primary housing market” and ends with the “current situation” of ” Absolute prohibition, which is largely ignored, “while from idealista.com argue that this decision” does not seem the way to go “because” limits the redistribution of tourism revenues, “and opting to” regularize the market by opening the concession of Licenses “and” ensuring quality requirements “.
But what are the measures that would introduce this bill if it was approved? Firstly, homeowners’ communities will be able to decide, by a simple majority, whether they allow rental of dwellings in their buildings for tourism purposes.
Secondly, the properties intended for tourist rental must have independent counters of water and electricity, in addition to having an energy certification to obtain the license.
The third measure is to prohibit tourist rental in homes of less than 5 years (the current limit is 10 years) and at that time the use must be only residential private, demonstrable with a declaration of new work, as they point out from the Web preferente.com.
In the case of multi-family dwellings, fourthly, this period will also be five years but renewable and will be considered tourist rental any lease less than one month, according to the Daily of Ibiza and El Mundo.
As a fifth measure, this law grants municipalities and concells the power to delimit urban areas for use of tourist rental or not within eight months and only real estate registered in Tourism (which will be governed by Balearic law) can be rented. The unregistered properties, which were governed by Law 29/1994 of November 24 of Urban Leases (LAU), will be illegal, although until the rule is approved and the zones are completely delimited, this ambivalence will continue to exist, which the Government Qualifies as “coladero”, as the LAU does allow short rentals.
In the case of these delimited areas, the municipality of Palma de Mallorca has already announced that it will prohibit these rentals. In the metropolitan area of this city, a total of 3,191 homes are destined to tourist rent: 21,216 places of accommodation that suppose 68.9% of their tourist offer.
Finally, this law tightens the sanctioning system and stipulates fines of between 20,000 and 40,000 euros for owners, operators and traders who fail to comply. These sanctions will be imposed by the regional, insular and local administration.
At Del Canto Chambers we specialize in the tax and commercial aspects of property management. You can contact us at clerk@delcantochambers.com.
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