The Ministry of Housing is preparing a single national platform on tourist rental housing with the aim of addressing the situation in all autonomous communities and combating fraud. The portal will be ready next year, the head of the department, Isabel Rodríguez, announced this Friday, before meeting with those responsible for the autonomous communities and a few hours after withdrawing her first major project from the legislature, the reform of the Land Law, so as not to lose the vote in the Congress of Deputies.
The initiative is included within the European regulation that came into force on May 20 and regulates the phenomenon of platforms that offer tourist accommodation. Spain, if the deadlines set by the Government are met, would be one of the first European countries to have it launched, although the countries of the community club have a period of two years to launch this platform.
The minister has pointed out that with this portal on tourist apartments it will be possible to carry out a better diagnosis, the implementation of tools and the prosecution of fraud in a sector in which she has recognized that there is a lot of “illegality.” The uncontrolled proliferation of rental housing for tourists and the reduction in the supply of traditional rentals is one of the main concerns of the different administrations.
The state platform will reflect an image of the situation of tourist accommodation, temporary accommodation of less than a year and room accommodation, as long as it is formalized through the platforms created for this purpose, such as Airbnb. This initiative aims to achieve data uniformity among all member states and be able to go further, with the help of Artificial Intelligence, to prosecute illegalities.
“Residential will always take precedence over any other use. When administrations feel threatened by the abuse of other uses, we have to act to provide answers,” the Minister of Housing stated this Friday before meeting with the autonomous communities. She has offered the information that between 2010 and 2018, tourist accommodation skyrocketed by 80%.
For Isabel Rodríguez, the key is to offer transparency and security to these formulas and make them compatible with access to housing without forgetting that the tourism sector, sustainable and seasonally adjusted, is extremely important.
