There was some surprise when the Balearic rentals legislation was approved to discover that the available tourist accommodation places in Majorca (some 42,000) were to be for all types of accommodation. It had been thought, erroneously therefore, that they would be for holiday rentals alone.
The Aptur rentals association has made a submission to the Council of Majorca in which it calls for these places to be reserved for rental accommodation. The Council is determining the zones for rentals but also finalising its plan for "touristic intervention" (PIAT), which will guide the zoning process.
The association justifies its request on the grounds that hotel accommodation predominates in Majorca. It believes that it is unfair that potential new places will not go to a type of accommodation (rentals) for which there is growing demand and the capacity to distribute wealth in ways greater than by hotels.
Meanwhile, tourism ministry inspectors will start proceedings against websites publicising illegal holiday rentals at the end of this month. While many websites have complied with the new legislation and ensured that properties which are advertised are only those with a valid licence number, there are others which apparently have not.
The legislation came into force in July, after which the ministry announced that there would be a fifteen-day period during which websites would have to comply with a total of eight requirements under the rentals legislation. In effect, there have been extensions to this period as the ministry has applied it once it has received notifications from websites that they have had notification of these requirements.
The ministry has indicated that it was looking specifically at some eighty websites and that these were in different countries. Failure to comply with the regulations, as has been well publicised, can bring fines of as much as 400,000 euros.