New tourist rental law finalised

Information and questions about the Law in Spain and Andalucia.
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anis
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby anis » Sat Mar 26, 2016 8:17 am

Quite a few of us carry our numbers on Spain-holiday.

Stevemul
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Stevemul » Sun Mar 27, 2016 12:09 am

Could you give an example please? I cannot find any either.
Is the registration number to be shown on the title page of the property advert or buried in the description? If the latter, who is going to trawl through each advert to ensure compliance?

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anis
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby anis » Sun Mar 27, 2016 7:37 am

I have carried my reg numbers on my front page for years, I dare not put my advert link on here in case I am accused of advertising. As you say, you would probably have to trawl through individual adverts to find them so the system is not simple. I was also referring to VTAR numbers which may have led to confusion.
I have asked SH several times for as specific box/place to enter the numbers, but at present there is no system to do that. I hope this will change soon. Spain holiday are quite good at things like this and usually follow up fairly quickly.

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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Stevemul » Sun Mar 27, 2016 11:42 am

Here are some simple facts and figures:
Without being specific about locations for obvious reasons, a popular local tourist area, known for its villa/apartment rentals has approximately 175 properties advertised on one of the main Advertising websites. The area is made up of a number of Urbanisations, all of which were built approximately 30-40 years ago and at that time there was no requirement for a First Occupation Licence. Most if not all of the Urbanisations are currently working towards obtaining these licences in close cooperation with the Town Hall and involves the adoption of roadways, street lighting etc etc. A long and drawn out procedure which as you can imagine is filled with Spanish bureaucracy and procrastination. The costs of these "regularisations" is borne by the owners through the Community Charges which have often been temporarily inflated to pay for them.
However, as things stand at the moment, NONE of the Urbanisations have completed the process and therefore the 175 properties being advertised have First Occupation Licences and therefore will not be able to register under the new holiday rentals regulations.
If each property averages 10 weekly lettings per year, the accommodation base will be immediately reduced by 1750 weeks.
In financial terms, assuming that the shortfall cannot be absorbed by other ' legal' properties, and approximating the holiday " spend" of each holiday week at €1000,
local businesses will lose out by €1.75m per year.
Multiply this by all the other similar Urbanisations in Andalucia and you have a rather large problem!

Lyric
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Lyric » Sun Mar 27, 2016 1:58 pm

I cannot begin to express how pleased we are that we sold our apartment when we did :D :clap:

NeilS
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby NeilS » Sun Mar 27, 2016 2:41 pm

anis wrote:Quite a few of us carry our numbers on Spain-holiday.
Indeed it appears many do - on that site..... However, just taking a random sample, I found exactly the same properties on homeaway.com without the number! It does appear there is widespread non-compliance.

unis09
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby unis09 » Wed Mar 30, 2016 7:11 am

Re: tax returns on rental income

A year or two back a neighbour was fined for not paying tax on previous rental income. He had been denounced by another neighbour with whom he had had a quarrel.

Providing a property is registered under new tourist home guidelines is it likely that hacienda will retrospectively hound people about previous rental income that was not declared?

Would the denuncia have been made through hacienda? Any idea of the levels of potential fines?

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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby unis09 » Wed Apr 20, 2016 2:55 pm

Re: getting the registration number/holiday home letting licence

My lawyer tells me that because my property was built before 1989 it is not possible to get the "licence of occupation", necessary for the letting licence4. She has been in touch with the Junta de Andalucia in Sevilla to ask what equivalent documents are available in such cases. She says it could take a long time to get a reply.

Can anyone provide further information on this?

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Trooperman
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Trooperman » Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:09 pm

As I think I've already said elsewhere on the forum, enlisting the help of the local (Ronda) tourist office "man" provided endless help with avoiding whatever it was they asked for and which I never had, nor was ever going to get! This was many years ago (about 2007). It was also for a rural property so is not specifically relevant to the new law that applies to urban letting, but the LFO was avoided, although i did have to go to the expense of getting a technical architect to approve the property, which was a good, Friday afternoon jaunt for him during which he spent a lot of time discussing model railways with me before writing a positive report and charging 190 euros for his time! It may be that things have tightened up somewhat but, I would always seek the help of the tourist office as they have a vested interest in promoting tourism. In my case, the addition of another tourist venue would have put a feather in the cap of the local bureaucrat.
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Trooperman
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Trooperman » Wed Apr 20, 2016 4:36 pm

So why - when I look through a website like homeaway.com - can I not find a single property anywhere in Spain with a registration number in the advert? Not one.
:wave: I've just noticed this comment from a little time back.......my advert with Owners Direct (Homeaway group) carries our number. :wave:
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Trooperman » Wed Apr 20, 2016 4:42 pm

....and it's property number 8011585 for the doubters...... :problem: if the moderators will allow me to put this on the forum :roll:
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unis09
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby unis09 » Fri May 27, 2016 7:46 am

Has anyone else had problems getting the cedula de habitabilidad that is needed for the licensing? I understand it is not necessary for the registration process but a copy needs to be available if inspectors come.

My property was built in 1981 and it is not possible to get such a document from the local ayuntamiento. I have sent off requests to the Junta de Andaucia, but the waiting time could be up to 6 months. I spoke to a local estate agent and her lawyer. More than half of her clients have the same problem. According to the lawyer:

.... the occupation license costs a 1% of the cost of the build or, should there not be a build involved, 725€/m2. I have contacted an architect who, for a 250m2 property, will charge 1.185€, plus the tax involved at the town hall, which will be 1.500-2.500€.

Any other options??

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Trooperman
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Trooperman » Fri May 27, 2016 9:25 am

getting the cedula de habitabilidad


Unfortunately that is not a given. Town Halls are petrified about getting it wrong with the mayor ending up on the wrong side of the Junta de Andalucia.
As I indicated above, there was a way round it when I got my (rural) letting licence in 2007 and that was for a Technical Architect to state that the place is habitable.
nil illegitimum carborundum

amelia
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby amelia » Fri May 27, 2016 11:10 am

We've done it!

So........straight from the horse's mouth this is what happens and what is needed.

Please note we went to Almeria - don't know if our experience is practiced across the various Tourist Offices.

What you need

1) Licence of First Occupation with Catastral Reference number. ( original) .We thought we did not have one. However one was lodged in the depths of Pulpi's archives!. Best to check. It is also supposed to give the maximum occupation limit. It doesn't and Almeria Tourist Office couldn't give a hoot.
We were told just use the number of bedrooms and X 2!

2) Es Copia Simple (original)

3) A completed form from Junta de Andalusia ' Consejeria de Turismo Y Deporte'

This can be downloaded from here. It also gives advice on how to fill it in ( you need to scroll down to the bottom)

http://www.spain-holiday.com/rentalbuzz ... -andalusia

We recommend you download the PDF version. It says you can do it online. BUT, to do this, you need to get an electronic signature and this involves jumping through hoops.

We were armed with everything we had - insurance documents, passports, original NIE forms from the police etc. None of these were asked for - only the 3 listed above.

The Process

1) From the Reception desk we were sent upstairs to the Tourist Office. (We don't know if this was because we looked like a couple of dingbats or this happened to everyone!)

A lovely chap ( who spoke English) checked through our forms, pointed out a few things we had missed out and photocopied our papers. We did not know we needed to have copies. Best to be prepared.

please note you need to take copies of all the 3 forms listed.

2) With all papers checked we were sent downstairs to see the Registrar. He confirmed our copies of documents were correct replicas, kept the copies and returned our originals with our Junta de Andalucia form stamped and dated.


Conclusion

We are now registered. They will send the registration number in about month ( we won't hold our breath)

They will not send any letters to the UK, only to Spain.

I do not see how anyone can do it on-line, even though it is reported in the press that you can. They need to see, feel and sniff the originals!

The folks in America Tourist office are friendly , great fun and most importantly incredibly patient!

We expected queues - there were not any. Only saw one other person clutching the same forms as ourselves.

We were prepared for a lot of hassle - but very straightforward.

The Tourist Office ( address on the advice link) was easy to find using Satnav. Parking on streets can be difficult - but there is a public underground carpark 2 blocks away.

Amelia AKA jojo (username on the other site!)

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Trooperman
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Trooperman » Fri May 27, 2016 12:48 pm

What you need

1) Licence of First Occupation with Catastral Reference number............
The problem is that a lot of/most people will fall at this hurdle from what I glean from previous posts
nil illegitimum carborundum

amelia
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby amelia » Fri May 27, 2016 2:39 pm

I understand that - and I sympathise. I can only hope that the sheer number of folks involved will make the rules be relaxed.

I am just describing what the situation is at the moment i.e. it is the first thing the Tourist office asked for and checked.

El Cid
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby El Cid » Fri May 27, 2016 5:02 pm

The assumption is that if there is no first occupation licence, it is probably illegal so it is not going to be approved without one.

The new rules are there, not to encourage letting, but to prevent it unless it conforms to quite high standards. I cannot see the rules being relaxed, if anything they will be tightened up.

Sid

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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby ashtondav » Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:17 pm

So the assumption is that all house built prior to, say, 1980 are illegal? So I also presume no property taxes are payable.

It's positively Kafka on LSD.

We need a LFO.

House was built before LFOs were invented.

Tough, we need LFO.

Only in this flippin' country could such lunacy be public policy.

BTW, I heard a heated discussion about this law last night. One protagonist had been told by his letting agent the law will only be applied in towns where the population is over 20,000. Surely not!

Lyric
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby Lyric » Thu Jun 02, 2016 2:13 pm

I have heard that Dave with reference to Frigiliana.

El Cid
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Re: New tourist rental law finalised

Postby El Cid » Thu Jun 02, 2016 2:33 pm

A letting agent may tell you that, but I would insist on him proving that he is correct.

If you read the actual law and also the many publications by lawyers concerning the new law, there is absolutely no mention of any such ememption.

Sid


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