Spanish Property lets.

[CSE]

Found this bit of news via another forum.
First article.
Hopefully those of you here are registered.
http://www.efip.co.uk/index.php?page=ne ... rticle=219

[Ben McNevis]

This kind of article seems to surface in the press every so-often. As I understand it, different regions of Spain have different laws. The cana ry islands have the toughest. There, no private letting of holiday accommodation permitted.

However, despite this law being effective since 2001, and hundreds if not thousands of private apartments advertised, not one owner has yet been prosecuted (as far as I can ascertain).

The law was clearly devised to pacify the powerful hotel companies who don't want competition from individual owners. However, there doesn't seem to be any appetite for enforcement. I guess that's because enforcement would rid the islands of a significant proportion of their tourist numbers.

Still, it's best to play safe, so it's a good idea to ensure that either your guests are not "tourists" or that they are paying you for something other than rental of the property.

[cc]

Friends of ours just opened a B&B near Tarragona, they are in the process of applying for a Hostal licence like ours. A neighbour grassed them up and the police were round last week.
As it's August their lawyer is away and the council offices are closed so they cannot prove they have applied for the licence. They have spent two very anxious weeks expecting to be closed down.

[CSE]

It is mainly for rental properties. But it seems not only are they after ensuring you meat safety standards they are after your income too. You should obviously declare your taxes earned too. How that affect a non-residence we have not been able to establish. It also seems that the local councils are looking for ways to increase the money coming into their coffers. Imposing fines is one way of doing this.
Regarding B&Bs we have very strict laws in Galicia too. We have been asked to report any illegal properties too. We have not seen any yet.

[Ben McNevis]

I would really welcome a registration scheme that ensures quality and safety standards. Sadly that's not the way they do things in our part of Spain.

it's an interesting point about income tax and I can only imagine that the tax people in the Cana ry islands are spitting feathers. Private letting to tourists is outlawed, so it follows that owners can't declare rental income. As far as I can see, the 1995 law, operational since 2001 has totally failed to stop the thousands of holiday property owners from letting, but has totally succeeded in preventing them from declaring income. The advice I have from our Spanish lawyer is that we can't let therefore we can't declare any income and that any money we receive should be treated as payment for services rendered in the UK. We do declare the income in UK but I would rather it was all above-board in Spain too even though we would pay a little more in tax.

The legislation has been a dismal failure for the hotel industry who lobbied for its adoption in the first place. Their argument was that they should not face "unfair" competition from private owners who don't pay taxes. Now they really do face unfair competition because owners (particularly the Spanish owners) can't pay the tax even if they want to.

Any other canarian owners got a view on this?