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It is easy to think that a ban on tourist rentals will put a brake on the registration of properties in the Junta de Andalucía's tourism register. However, the effect can be quite different. Motivated by 'just in case' factors and the continuous changes in legislation concerning the ban on tourist dwellings, more and more owners are opting to register their properties in order to have the code that would allow them to market them, even though if that is not the final intention. This surge in registrations, which does not reflect the actual market situation, is one of the issues the regional Junta de Andalucía government plans to regulate soon.
Arturo Bernal, regional minister for tourism, has stated that, while the average of homes that are registered but not put on the market for Andalusian municipalities is around 20%, in Malaga city that average reaches 40% of the 13,308 registered properties. This statistic highlights the issue despite the fact that the city has already banned this activity in 43 areas. "We have a very high number of properties that are empty, that are registered but are not used for tourist purposes," he said, giving 'ad cautelam' (just in case) as the main reason. Bernal stated that the owners of these flats do it in case the requirements are tightened or the community of owners agree that there can be no activities of economic nature in the flats. "If I already have it registered, there is no retroactive effect," he explained.
However, there is another great motivator: to revalue the property before a possible sale, as having the authorisation to be marketed on holiday rental platforms raises its price, especially when the limitations are increasingly greater. "There are owners who say 'I have my house, I am going to register it as a tourist property, even though I am occupying it myself, but the day I sell it it will be worth more because it has this authorisation'," said the head of tourism.
Remy Dubois is the founding CEO, owner and general manager of the Rems group, which specialises in high-end tourist homes and is the runner-up in volume of properties and first in Airbnb sales in Malaga. When the city council began to take the first steps towards this regulation, he warned that the current inflation in registrations would be a consequence of the new ban. He said that "it will also happen that the value of flats with a valid tourist housing licence will skyrocket, as [it happened] in Barcelona, where the rise reached 50%. In the rest of the properties, prices will normalise". In his analysis, Dubois stated that the effects of these limitations would be "very progressive".
It is enough to take a look at Andalucía's tourism registry to know that, despite the ban on tourist accommodation in 43 neighbourhoods in Malaga city, registrations in these areas have not stopped. The decision to do so has financial consequences, with penalties of up to 18,000 euros. "A responsible declaration means that you admit and recognise that you have the responsibility and knowledge of the regulations under which you are registering, both in terms of urban planning and the quality requirements included in the regulation," said Arturo Bernal, specifying that the declaration in question "is the document by which we have the absolute certainty that, if you have done it wrong, you have done it wrong knowingly. Therefore, it is an administrative offence that is typified and sanctioned as such". In fact, the regulation establishes that the falsification or alteration of data in the responsible declaration, implies a serious infringement that can lead to a fine ranging from 2,001 to 18,000 euros. In addition, such an offence would also result in the cancellation of the registration and the impossibility of re-registering it. These sanctions are subject to hearing and allegation procedures.
The Junta has just tested a system that, depending on the cadastral registry data, will warn the owner formalising the registration that the property he/she intends to register cannot be registered. This tool is expected to be activated as soon as possible.
In addition to those who are currently registering their properties to market them knowing that they are in areas regulated by Malaga's city council, the Junta requires the handing of the responsible declaration, which shows that the required criteria have been met.
The Junta de Andalucía plans to address a range of issues with new legislation set to take effect soon. The law will regulate registrations using cadastral references, enforce inspections and impose automatic sanctions for those entries made through responsible declarations that violate urban planning regulations. It will also require municipalities to issue compatibility reports to ensure alignment with their urban development models. "It will introduce a series of attributes and characteristics that will help town councils and will also facilitate coexistence," stated Bernal, rejecting tourist housing as "the real problem in cities". It is worth remembering that in the province of Malaga there are already 81,180 registered holiday rental properties, with a total of 430,096 beds. Of these, 13,308 are located in the city of Malaga, accounting for 68,992 beds. The Junta said that the new law will improve the urban planning tools that town councils have, to support them in applying the decree to tourist homes. Currently, there are numerous de-registration processes being carried out by the Junta throughout Andalucía and, specifically, in the city of Malaga, which has already banned holiday rental properties in 43 areas and has limited such activities to properties with independent access in the rest of the city.
81,180
is the number of tourist dwellings registered in Andalucía, of which 13,308 are located in the city of Malaga.
Bernal said that, "according to the last calculation made by the city council in Malaga, there are 16,000 empty homes in the city. According to the mayor, perhaps the housing problem could be solved by having 4,000 or 4,500 homes available to the public for rent or sale. This means that with 25% of the properties that are currently empty, this problem could be solved, because there is no housing development, there is no land available for public projects, and the housing law is fundamentally a failed law- it is a law that was designed to solve this problem, but has, instead, been the architect of the opposite. What it has generated is legal insecurity for the owners who have withdrawn from the market."
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