Crackdown on Airbnb short lets to protect housing for locals
SOON after Maria Rosa Sanchez reported her neighbour for renting her building’s rooftop in Tenerife as a campsite on Airbnb, police officers carried out a raid and local authorities opened an investigation.
The closure of the campsite, which offered tents for €12 (R243) a night, is a foretaste of a new hard line towards illegal short-lets on Spain’s Canary Islands, where listings on Airbnb and Booking.com have soared.
A draft law expected to pass this year toughening the rules on short lets follows complaints from locals priced out of the housing market and from hotels facing taxes skirted by companies investing in short term rentals.
Authorities worldwide are grappling with similar issues: Canada, Australia and Italy are among many countries that have tightened the rules around short-term rentals to protect local communities.
Canaries tourism head Jessica de Leon said enforcement support for the islands’ 35 inspectors is the key to success of the new rules.
“We are empowering (the police) so that they can act when fraudulent behaviour is detected in homes,” she said.
New-build properties will be barred from the short-let market, and property owners with a permit will have five years to comply with requirements that include authorisation from neighbours, according to a draft of the bill.
“The first step is to contain the growth, the second is to clean up (existing listings),” said Canaries director of tourism, Miguel Rodríguez.
Other parts of Spain – Brcelona and Madrid – have already passed similar laws, but without such an emphasis on law enforcement.
Of 17000 short-term rental apartments in Madrid, only 600 were inspected between January and November 2023 and just one was sanctioned. Another 835 hosts stopped renting before being sanctioned.
“Mass inspections are needed,” said Madrid lawmaker Pablo Padilla, who favours the Canary Island formula.
The Canary Islands decided to toughen its rules after the number of short lets exploded in recent years.
El Cotillo, a former fishing village on Fuerteventura, has as many holiday home beds as residents. “In a few years’ time, there may be practically no people living there,” said researcher Raul Hernandez from La Laguna university, who co-authored a study showing more than a quarter of short-let premises belong to companies.
The archipelago’s seven islands had a record 220 000 short-let beds in March, a 40% increase from 2022.
The local holiday homeowners association, Ascav, said the stringency of the proposed rules would eliminate 90% of short-term listings and are unconstitutional. It proposed a tax for all holiday accommodation providers to solve the housing problem.
It also said 200 000 homes were sitting empty on the islands, blaming rent caps to protect long-term tenants from inflation.
Foreign tourists staying in holiday homes spent €131 a day versus €247 spent by those in hotels in the first quarter of 2024, according to Exceltur, Spain’s main tourism lobby.
Exceltur said it backs regulations such as those in the Canary Islands to curb the growth of tourist flats , having risen by 25% in Spain’s 25 biggest cities in the year to Mrch.
The islands’ authorities prosecuted the foreign owner in Maria Rosa Sanchez’s building and she faces a fine of €30 000. The flat is now rented to a long-term tenant.