After registration obligation, Texel will now also check landlords with bed and breakfast

This notification obligation is one of the consequences of the Tourism Future Plan of the municipality of Texel. There are currently 554 registration numbers provided. This number is expected to increase further.

The registration obligation has been introduced to keep a grip on the tourist rental of various accommodations. Renting out part of the house was not bound by any rules. The tourist sleeping places were therefore not included in the total number of tourist beds that the municipality has in the zoning plan.

The supervisors will carry out both administrative checks (for example, what is offered on various websites), but also on the road to check the homes. A violation, for example by someone who rents out to tourists but has not registered, can expect a fine.

Grow

Because the provision of bed and breakfast was not bound by rules, there has been a growth in recent years in homes that were rented out to tourists. Besides a nice source of income for the islanders themselves, this also caused problems for the neighborhood and the quality of life on the island. In residential areas in particular, parking pressure increased and residents regularly complained about a shortage of parking spaces in the villages.

The municipality has tried to regulate this via the parking vignette. For example, tourists are not allowed to park for more than two hours in the center of Den Burg. This means that they are not allowed to leave the car at the homes within the Den Burg ring road all day.

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Until two years ago, the municipality made an internal inventory on Texel of accommodation accommodations offered via the major rental platforms such as Booking.com,
Airbnb, Texel.net and Bedandbreakfast.nl. At that time, 306 unique lodging accommodations emerged. Of these, recreational rental at 95 addresses was permitted through the zoning plan.

Enforcement

The enforcement department started work on the other 211 accommodations from the autumn of 2020. The permits were not in order at a number of accommodations examined and an enforcement process was started. Entire houses were often rented out. In the meantime, 35 homes have been returned to the regular housing market. An equally large number required further investigation.

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Tourist rental in the ‘bed & breakfast’ sector is subject to a number of rules. One of these is that, for example, the letting must be ‘subordinate’ to the residential function. Some landlords are unclear about this.

For example, the Tourism Future Plan states that sometimes entire upper floors are rented out, but the owner considers this to be secondary to living. Enforcers note that accommodation with breakfast is becoming increasingly important. Large extensions are being made to houses to accommodate tourists.

kitchen

Placing a kitchen unit or an entire kitchen is also not allowed in this sector. Tourists are not allowed to cook for themselves in the accommodations. There is often no discussion about it.

There are a total of 262 addresses on Texel that are intended as second homes. This is a right that has existed for a long time. You may either live or recreate at these addresses. In practice, it appears that many of these houses are rented out for recreational purposes or that they are empty for a large part of the year, because the main occupant also has a residential address elsewhere.