Spain to crack down on holiday rentals to address housing crisis
World
Spain to crack down on holiday rentals to address housing crisis
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's government announced a crackdown on Wednesday on short-term and seasonal holiday lettings amid rising anger from locals who feel priced out of the housing market.
The government will investigate listings on platforms such as Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab and Booking.com (BKNG.O), opens new tab to verify if they have licences, consumer rights minister Pablo Bustinduy said.
"If a house doesn't have a license for tourism, advertising it on internet platforms should be illegal and thus punished," Bustinduy said in an interview with state broadcaster TVE.
Spain is struggling to balance promoting tourism, a key driver of its economy, and addressing its citizens' concerns over unaffordably high rents due to gentrification and as landlords shift to more lucrative tourist rentals.
Rents rose by an average of 13% in June from a year earlier and by 18% in tourist cities such as Barcelona and Madrid, according to the property website Idealista.
Barcelona's mayor, Jaume Collboni, announced plan to phase out all short-term lets in the city by 2028.
Apartur, the association of tourism apartment owners, said the measure amounted to expropriation while Spain's Constitutional Court is deliberating whether the move is legal.
Residents of Barcelona, the Canary Islands and Malaga have staged protests in recent weeks against the rise in tourist rentals. Seasonal hospitality workers struggle to find accommodation in these tourism hot spots, with many resorting to sleeping in caravans or even their cars.
