Dealing with spanish guests

[pepsipuss]

We have heard for many years about Spanish people turning up in inappropriate numbers on the grounds that they have rented the property and they are entitled to sleep as many as they can. However, maybe we have just been lucky but in nearly 8 years of renting properties, and looking after a couple for friends as well, it has not yet happened.

I think this is partly because they know we are in the vicinity but also because we have a clause in the conditions which states very clearly that if more people are seen to occupy the property than agreed and listed in the contract, then the booking is immediately cancelled with no refunds. How they think we could achieve this I am not sure but they are always very careful to ask our permission for example if they have an extra person coming just for a couple of days in the case where the original number does not fill the property to capacity.

On the plus side, our experience of the state in which the property is left leads us to prefer to let to Spanish or indeed anyone other than the British. But again this is down to the terms - we take a €200 deposit for apartments and €500 for our house which sleeps up to 12, and we say that we expect the property to be left in the state in which it was when they arrived and any abnormal cleaning will be charged - they don't know how hard or not you will be and it certainly concentrates the mind. One lot recently went to the trouble of washing the sheets before they left!!