A group is dedicated to renting the typical apartments of about one hundred square meters in the Dreta del Eixample to convert them into clandestine pensions, to fill them with double beds, divide them into a lot of rooms with plasterboard walls and then rent them to tourists for days and days. illegally through advertisements on digital platforms. The ringleaders of this scheme deceive the homeowners by posing as expats, using false documentation, presenting themselves as ideal tenants. In addition, they have people in charge of receiving their guests, others who take care of cleaning and even a handyman who goes from one floor to another on an electric scooter to attend to maintenance.
The clandestine pension mafias try to pretend that they work like any tourist accommodation manager. But Barcelona City Council inspectors are already on the trail of this organization. The thing is that they are very slippery. These multi-infringers post decoy advertisements on digital platforms in order to hide their steps. Neighborhood collaboration is essential for administrations to tighten their grip on them. At this moment, municipal inspectors are investigating the relationship of this plot with up to 17 apartments in the city, all of them rented in a very suspicious way with the same name. “This group is dedicated to renting apartments to owners in good faith – City Hall sources detail – operating in an organized manner and using false documentation.”
An owner who lives far from Barcelona says that at the end of the year she rented her home of about one hundred square meters on the block of Roger de Llúria Street, which is just above Diagonal Avenue, to whom she looked like a Russian executive who had recently been promoted and transferred to Catalunya, a charming man with the most convincing references, exquisite manners and a succulent payroll. But shortly after, the doorman phoned the owner very concerned to inform her that some very strange people were bringing half a dozen double mattresses and a few plasterboard walls up to the apartment.
“Then the tourists arrived,” continues the owner. And our tenant didn’t pay attention to us… So we started investigating, found the ad on Booking and booked one night. The advertisement they posted says that the apartment is in the building that is right next to ours, but we recognized our apartment from the photos posted. What they do is meet guests in front of the building next door, on the street, and then take them to ours. The person we sent also verified that they had put locks in the rooms and that the living room had been divided with plasterboard into a couple of rooms. They set up a boarding house. Guests share the two bathrooms.” Thus began a strange relationship with the tenant, who, although he does not respond to any of the owner’s accusations, pays the rent punctually and attends to any issues related to a lease. He does not want to be evicted in any way.
“We sent him a burofax to inform him of the termination of the tourist sublease contract,” adds the owner, “but he did not respond. And then we took the corresponding legal actions to recover the apartment. But since he pays the rent on time, our lawyer already told me that the matter could take a long time, at least a year. We estimate that in the meantime these people get about 90 euros a day from each room. It’s a big business. And we called Booking fifteen times to remove the ad, but the process is cumbersome and frustrating. There’s no way they’ll pay attention to you. We also called the company our tenant was supposed to work for, and they told us he had just been laid off. Wasn’t he supposed to have been promoted and assigned to Catalonia? We also saw that the company in question even had an email address. I felt very naive, to say the least.”
The president of the community of neighbors of this property details that fortunately, this clandestine pension is mainly attended by couples, who, since the rooms are rented separately, do not usually come with groups of friends willing to spend a few days partying around the city. “The rush of guests on the landings, stairs and elevator is continuous, and on top of that they get the intercom every now and then, and this, apart from inconvenience, causes a lot of concern. Nobody likes this coming and going of strangers. Also, the elevators are old and stay open. The truth is that all this caught us off guard. At first we didn’t know what we had to do. But we already explained to the City Council what is happening. We hope they take action very soon. These people are super organized. They are professionals. Not long ago the doorman realized that they had also rented an apartment in the building next door, not the one where they put the ads, but the one on the other side.”
And the president of the community of neighbors of this other neighboring property explains that the clandestine boarding house that they set up there has been in operation more or less since Easter. “It seemed like a foreign couple with a small child was coming to live, but they immediately brought a bunch of double beds and plasterboard walls. They made five rooms out of three bedrooms and a living room. They also rent them through an advertisement with another nearby address. That’s how they hide. Once a guest let a neighbor in… they even put little numbers on the doors! We are going to change the lock on the portal, to annoy them a little. Airbnb was very good and as soon as we told them what was happening they removed the listing they had. We have also put some signs in English on the portal, so that guests give them bad reviews on the networks… There is no doubt that they are the ones from the building next door. The same cleaners and those in charge of receiving guests come. Some of them told us, half crying, that they don’t have papers, that most of them all live together in an apartment on the outskirts, that they have no other choice… But those in charge have very bad characters. We have argued on occasion. And the handyman is also the same, the one with the scooter! and it seems that they want to take more apartments. The other day one of our properties became vacant, another one of about a hundred square meters, and our doorman recognized the Russian among those who came to see him. How many apartments does one rent on the same block?”
Municipal sources insist that City Hall inspectors are already on the trail of this network. “The identification and location of these apartments is usually very complex – the Consistory sources abound – since this type of professional offender uses techniques to avoid being identified on marketing platforms. The collaboration of neighbors, as has happened in this case, is key. “We are investigating 17 rented apartments with the same name and their relationship with nine advertisements on the platforms.” The City Council has already started the corresponding administrative procedures in one of the properties, where the supposed expats settled for Easter. The thing is that the inspectors were previously investigating the building of the decoy advertisement and this delayed the matter somewhat. “Now, based on information from neighbors, we are investigating the two properties in question. “We also now ask Booking to deactivate all the ads in this scheme once and for all.”
