News: Up to 40,000 euros fine for who rent a flat to tourists in the Balearics.

The owners of flats in any area of the Balearic Islands that rent them to tourists face from Tuesday to fines ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 euros, according to the new law on holiday rentals in the Balearic Islands, which takes effect on that day .In the case of real estate, tourist intermediaries or digital platforms that advertise, such as Airbnb or HomeAway, the sanction can reach 400,000 euros.

The Government of the PP of José Ramón Bauzá already banned in the last legislature, in 2012, the rental of flats to tourists, although hardly pursued this activity.

Now the executive led by the socialist Francina Armengol and the economists of MÉS wants to enforce this rule with instruments and sanctions before an activity that is creating residents and workers who come to the islands serious difficulties to find a place to live at reasonable prices .

The new law leaves the possibility to the insular consells of each island - Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera - and to the City council of Palma to decide if they allow the tourist rent in apartments, how much time and in what zones. These institutions have a year to agree on what they do, although they are expected to mostly keep the ban.
A platform for citizens to report to owners

In order to prosecute illegal rental in apartments, the Ministry of Tourism will put into operation an electronic platform for citizens to denounce the owners who rent them. In no case the complaints can be anonymous and will only serve for the inspectors to start their work.

For practical purposes, the owner who has a tourist in his apartment less than 30 days from now, without a lease and without the visitor has paid a bond, is acting illegally and is exposed to a fine.In addition, the documentation proving that the activity is legal must be provided by the owner, which is a substantial change so far that greatly facilitates the work of the 15 current inspectors, a figure that the Govern will increase.To help tourists, the conselleria will create a specific mobile application to check if the house that is intended to rent is legal or not. To this day in Mallorca there are 15.000 homes with authorization to rent.The law allows tourists in the Balearic Islands to rent if they are isolated houses (chalets) or rustic, townhouses or village medians, as long as they have the corresponding license of the Conselleria de Turismo, an indispensable requirement.

In the same line of curbing real estate speculation, the Government has approved this week the project of the first Housing Law of the Balearic Islands. The text obliges the "big owners" of housing - companies and companies, not individuals - to cede them if they have been vacant for two years in order to face an "objective need for difficulty" of access to it, as explained by Minister of Territory, Energy and Mobility.