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The next time you book a holiday apartment in Barcelona you may wake up to find an inspector standing at the end of the bed.
Amid growing evidence that the massive upsurge in tourist apartments is driving rents up and residents out, the city has launched a crackdown on illegal, unlicensed apartments, and Airbnb, the dominant platform, is in the eye of the storm, although not the only offender.
According to the council, there are about 16,000 holiday rentals in the city, of which nearly 7,000 are unlicensed. Last year Barcelona fined Airbnb €600,000 for continuing to advertise unlicensed flats on its platform.
The city has doubled from 20 to 40 the team of inspectors who roam the streets seeking out illegal rentals, armed with apps that reveal at a click whether properties are legal or not. By next year their number will have risen to more than 100. Cross-referencing licences with property advertised online, they identify rogue apartments which are then ordered to close down. Owners – when they can be found – face fines of up to €60,000.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 05 2017, @09:08AM
Sure, supply and demand. More apartments (supply) or less tenants (demand). There's also rent control which doesn't fail too hard as long as conditions are near market rates (though one would wonder why a city would bother with that, if conditions were near market rate).