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Spain is considering changes to taxation and mortgage law to limit holiday lets

By Kevin Fraser Park • Published: 20 Jan 2024 • 8:46

Photo: Isabel Rodríguez / fotobpb

The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, said that she is working with the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Economy and Finance to put a stop to the proliferation of tourist flats.

The reason for this is the tensions both in large cities and in small towns where residents have problems accessing housing. Rodríguez referred to the need to “guarantee the social function” of housing and explained that she will explore, “areas such as the Mortgage Law and taxation”.

In view of the problems that many tourist areas are suffering from with regard to holiday lets, the minister announced in December 2023 that she was creating a working group to “organise” tourist rentals.

The minister spoke to the press before her meeting with the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and welcomed the housing work of Barcelona’s government, which has just approved a decree that plans to reduce the number of tourist homes by 28,000. The new decree provides for town councils to draw up urban plans setting out how many tourist flats they can allow.

In his first six months in office, Mayor Jaume Collboni has been firm on illegal tourist flats (with record fines) and has also stated his intention to “substantially” reduce the supply in Barcelona. “When we have control the reduction in the city will be substantial”, said the mayor, who aims to, “promote affordable housing by all and any means”.

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Written by

Kevin Fraser Park

Kevin was born in Scotland and worked in marketing, running his own businesses in UK, Italy and, for the last 8 years, here in Spain. He moved to the Costa del Sol in 2016 working initially in real estate. He has a passion for literature and particularly the English language which is how he got into writing.

Comments

    • Mac

      22 January 2024 • 10:41

      This is typical Spain, make someone else pay for the usless governments mistakes. Why do the Spanish government not build more homes at their own cost instead of interfering in a free market. I do not rent any property but I feel the governments here in Spain and especialy the UK do little for housing their population but expect outhers to do it on their behalf and at their own cost. The squatters rights in Spain are disgusting and yet the government encourage people to break into others peoples properties and steal the power, water and gas and normally these squatters trash the properties as well. Wrong wrong wrong but politiciants live in a different world from normal people.

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