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Two of Spain’s busiest tourist areas Barcelona and the Balearic Islands impose new restrictions on property owners rent to holidaymakers.
Residents of the two areas have complained that it has become impossible for local people to find homes to rent at affordable prices, so the two areas have acted upon this but choose different ways to get to solve the problem of the illegal rentals.
In Barcelona, there is a highly visible campaign to get tourists to think twice before reserving a non-approved holiday rentals. Naming it Fair Tourism Barcelona, a website has been set up as part of the initiative where people can report unauthorised properties and check to see if what they are booking is legal or not, and over the first six months of this year over 2,000 properties have been identified as being offered to tourists without a licence.
The Balearic Islands, regional parliament has approved tougher rules to rent out holiday homes, with one of them being that owners of apartments can only rent out beds in their homes up to sixty days a year if the property is their normal place of residence. In addition there will be a freeze on granting new licences for a year while the different councils on the islands work out where permission can be granted and which areas are saturated.