Politics Of The Madhouse: Tourist rentals

What on earth is the Balearics tourism ministry playing at? If we understand correctly provisions contained in the draft decree that will amplify the 2012 tourism law, it would appear that the ministry is playing a very strange game. The headline aspect of this amplification of the law is the requirement that owners of properties for tourist rental need to get permission from neighbours. It is only one aspect. There is the further stipulation that properties have to have been built before 1960. Are they serious?

This decree is directed at "chalets", standalone, detached houses and also townhouses, those which conform to the law on "horizontal property". Apartments are considered to be horizontal property as well. The terms refers to shared buildings. In the case of townhouses, they are deemed to share because they are adjoining. I mention them because, as ever, we are in definition territory. I've put chalets in quotation marks. What is a chalet? Is it what might also be referred to as a villa?

The ministry and the regional government have over the years gone out of their way to obfuscate when it comes to the matter of private tourist accommodation. One is tempted to conclude that such obfuscation has been deliberate. The greater the confusion, the greater the government might hope that the problem of so-called illegal or "alegal" accommodation will just go away. It has been wrong to have hoped this.

But now we have a new set of rules that are likely to enter the statute books, and they are rules which will unquestionably raise the level of confusion and the level of owner anxiety and which will also contradict government PR since the tourism law was enacted. The minister, Jaime Martínez, has boasted about how the law has led to the legalisation of houses for tourism accommodation. As an example, he has said that 4,500 "viviendas" have been regularised; almost as many as in the preceding 25 years. If this is the case, what now happens to these regularised dwellings? How many, if any, are older than 54 years? How many, if any, will escape a rejection by neighbours of their use as tourist accommodation? If we understand the decree, then these newly regularised properties will be very swiftly unregularised. On the face of it, the new decree makes absolutely no sense.

The 1960 stipulation is the maddest part of this decree. It is a date which has clearly been taken for a very good reason. There was little by way of property on the coasts of Mallorca (or the other islands) before 1960. In effect, therefore, the ministry is on the point of excluding virtually all property in coastal areas for commercialised tourism rental. One can draw no other conclusion.

The decree also deals with apartments, those which are deemed to be illegal if they are rented out on a commercial basis. Somewhat bizarrely, given that such property is categorised as illegal under the 2012 law (and indeed has been ever since the 1980s), the decree will nevertheless apply the 54-year rule and the neighbour approval requirement. Bizarre it might seem, but perhaps not. This will kill, once and for all, any prospect of regularising apartments for tourist rental. The chances of any community of apartment owners agreeing to allow certain apartments to be made available for tourist rental are virtually zero.

The ministry and government will argue, and they do, that the tenancy act will still apply. The reason why is that rentals made under this act (and which have to be clearly contracted to prove that they are) are not classified as tourist rentals in the commercial sense. Government doublespeak and hypocrisy is truly staggering. Everyone knows that the tenancy act is used as a loophole, if only by some and not by owners who need to genuinely commercialise properties. If neighbours might object to a property being commercialised for rental, why should they not object to one that is rented out under the tenancy act? The law is an absolute ass and it gives rise to a total lack of logic.

This new decree comes at a time when every other main sun-and-beach region in Spain, including the Canaries, has or is moving towards a properly regulated tourism-rental market, one that is permissive but subject to specific controls and standards. In the Balearics, by way of contrast, the ministry is becoming less permissive to the point of total destruction of the private market. Not that this will happen. P2P renting, e.g. through Airbnb, has been something of a game-changer, and the ministry knows it. Might there just be some other motivation behind this latest decree? One that can enable the government to collect ever more fines? It wouldn't be unknown. Mallorcan government and local authorities draw up budgets based on fines' revenue. They cultivate an atmosphere of mistrust and exaggerate this mistrust by issuing the draft in the middle of August and giving precious little or no time for response. It is no way to run a tourism industry. Unless the industry is being run from a madhouse.