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The general unrest over the spiralling number of tourist apartments versus long-term housing across Spain has reached boiling point and the Supreme Court has just weighed in, ruling that locals will now have the right to veto holiday lets in their building, but only if the community statutes explicitly prohibit them.

 

The number of tourist rentals has grown by almost 17% in the past year to nearly 400,000; meanwhile, long-time residents are finding it increasingly difficult to secure a lease as landlords opt for the more lucrative seasonal contracts.

 

This week, the court's decision has given the government ammunition to tackle the issue. The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, has announced yet more plans to reform the Horizontal Property Law to give neighbours more power to prohibit tourist apartments.

 

Crucially though, tourism licences can only be blocked if the entire community or urbanisation prohibits them, but this veto power also extends to the use of homes for business purposes.

 

These new rules will come into force on April 3.

 

The rise of tourist apartments has become a major concern, especially in large cities where housing is already scarce. Many of these apartments operate without licenses, with estimates suggesting that up to 14,000 illegal rentals exist in Madrid alone.

 

The government has launched a controversial digital platform to register short-term rentals, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the problem.

 

The Horizontal Property Law update is just one of several measures the government is employing to crack down on short-term holiday lets. In January, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced his intention to raise the VAT on tourist accommodation so that they are taxed “as what they are: a business.”

 

President Sánchez has declared “less Airbnb and more housing” as a key goal, but it remains to be seen whether the measures will be effective.

 

According to INE data, between August 2023 and the same month in 2024, the number of tourist apartments in Spain grew by 16.6% in just one year. In total, there are 396,883 homes for this use, of which half are concentrated in Andalucía (88,435), the Valencian Community (71,186) and Catalonia (58,708).

 

While finding a home to rent or buy is becoming increasingly difficult, especially in large cities, this type of holiday accommodation continues to proliferate in the heat of the tourism boom.

 

In order to pursue holiday rentals that operate without a license, the Government launched the Digital Single Window platform at the beginning of the year, which invites property owners to register their rentals and obtain an identification number.

 

However, with only 5,300 properties registered so far, it's clear that there's still a long way to go.

 

 

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