Tag: inspection

Barcelona’s Town Hall Closes 615 Illegal Tourist Flats

22 September 2016 – Inmodiario

The first two months of the shock action plan carried out by the Town Hall of Barcelona to fight against the problem of illegal apartments continues to bear fruit, with the cessation of activity at 615 illegal apartments and the opening of 1,290 new files as a result of the inspector’s work.

The objective is to minimise the black market supply of tourist accommodation, which is particularly high in some of the more central districts of the city. The aim is also to restrict such properties from taking up roots in the city, given that they are economically unsustainable and disrespectful of the governing legislation; moreover, critics argue that they lead to the eviction of neighbours from the most affected neighbourhoods.

One of the new features of the plan is the team of twenty people that is responsible for checking in situ whether illegal activity is being undertaken in specific tourist flats. The team also interviews tourists and neighbours with the aim of obtaining the addresses of possible tourist flats operating without a licence. In the last two months, 1,222 online searches have been performed for tourist flats without a licence number, and as a result 1,045 street visits have been undertaken, which have allowed the team to identify 766 illegal homes.

The Town Hall has already issued cessation orders and sanction files (€30,000) to 418 of those apartments operating without a licence, and in terms of the others, the corresponding administrative checks are being performed to be able to open the files.

Meanwhile, the new municipal website, which visitors can use to find out whether a tourist home is legal or not, has received 825 reports.

In the field of inspection, the Town Hall works not only to detect the illegal supply of homes being let out without any kind of licence, but also works with other types of unusual tourist accommodation published online.

In this sense, 32 establishments have been identified to be operating as B&Bs without the corresponding licence. Soon, all of these places will receive the corresponding disciplinary procedures – in the form of an order to cease activity and a sanction file.

Original story: Inmodiario

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colau Announces Fines Of Up To €600K For Unlicensed Tourist Flats

29 June 2016 – Expansión

Yesterday, the Town Hall of Barcelona announced that it will impose tougher fines in its attempt to eradicate illegal tourist apartments. The sanctions will amount to €30,000 in the case of individual apartment owners and up to €600,000, in the case of virtual platforms promoting unlicensed apartments against which legal proceedings have already been started. The fines will not affect individuals who rent out a room in their homes, but will apply to those who rent out entire homes and do not have the necessary tourist licences, issued by the Generalitat.

Legal proceedings were launched against Airbnb last year and yesterday, that company issued a strong statement against the municipal regulations, which it described as “disappointing” and “archaic”, given that, in its opinion, “they protect traditional companies and leave no room for individual (entrepreneurs)”.

The main trade association in the sector, Apartur, predicted that the plan “will not work at all”, given that (for it to be successful) it would have to be accompanied by the lifting of the veto that prevents the legalisation of new tourist apartments. Apartur represents 210 companies, which own 7,000 of the 9,600 legal tourist apartments in the city.

The fight against illegal tourist apartments is one of the battle horses that Ada Colau set herself when she was elected mayoress of Barcelona, just over a year ago. The Town Hall said yesterday that in the last year and a half, it has performed 2,505 inspections, of which 2,701 have concluded with the opening of disciplinary proceedings. It also confirmed that it hired more inspectors on Monday.

Last year, Ada Colau opened the first legal proceedings against Airbnb and Homeaway, and following the continuation of the new requirements, nine online portals have stopped advertising unlicensed tourist homes, including Fotocasa, Tripadvisor and Rent4days.

Original story: Expansión (by David Casals)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Anti-Eviction Law: Public Bodies Denounce Bank Breaches

22 July 2015 – El Economista

The monitoring of the measures adopted by the Government to alleviate the hardship of families doomed to eviction is not proving to be as orderly as had been expected. Yesterday, the Bank of Spain revealed, in its Monitoring Report for 2014, that complaints had been received from “several public bodies” about “various credit entities” regarding the implementation of the so-called Code of Good Practice.

The aforementioned code was introduced in 2012 to force the restructuring of debt owed by underprivileged households, to grant them more favourable conditions, including significant discounts, “daciones in pago” and even, letting families stay in their homes in return for the payment of minimal rents to avoid forcing them out onto the street. The adoption of the code is voluntary, but once adhered to, its application becomes obligatory. The financial institutions signed up on mass, more than anything to avoid public embarrassment, given that the list of members is made public.

Yesterday, sources in the sector acknowledged that certain local and regional authorities have filed complaints about the monitoring process.

Local and regional governments

This represents a leap, albeit not in terms of scale, but maybe in terms of the focus of the conflict. The adoption of good practices and consumer protection measures are still major unfinished projects for the sector, whose reputation was seriously damaged during the crisis, due to the poor marketing of products such as preference shares, the scandalous retirements of managers from rescued entities and even, the sale of mortgages with floor clauses.

Conscious of the extent of the damage, numerous bankers publicly admitted their mistakes and sought to make amends. Last year, the supervisory body itself bolstered its schemes to ensure the proper marketing of products and the rapid resolution of disputes, through the creation of the Department for Market Conduct and Complaints, which took on a strengthened version of the role previously performed by the former Director General of Supervision and complaints service. The Department was launched on 1 October and in just three months (to 31 December), it opened 18 investigations and one inspection in situ.

The Department directs its efforts on the basis of alerts logged by other units of the Bank of Spain, by public and private institutions and above all, by customer complaints. One of its operations last year involved the aforementioned analysis of complaints regarding the use of the Code of Good Practices; and another also verified that the granting of consumer credit to certain firms complied with the necessary conditions regarding transparency and customer protection. According to the supervisory body, that most recent investigation was activated as a result of a complaint “from a public body, which filed a complaint against a number of lenders”. (…).

In 2014, the Bank of Spain forced the withdrawal or rewording of 132 adverts published in the press and online. The most positive piece of data to result from the year is that customer complaints decreased for the first time since 2011, by 15%, to 29,500. Nevertheless, that still represents a near-record volume compared with the 10,000 or 15,000 claims that were typically processed in the years leading up to the outbreak of the floor clause conflict.

Original story: El Economista (by Eva Contreras)

Translation: Carmel Drake