Barcelona City Council has taken another step in the persecution against property owners who repeatedly fail to comply with housing and tourism regulations in the city. Thus, he imposed a fine of 420,000 euros on the representatives of the property of a building located at number 24 Ample Street, in Ciutat Vella, which rented 14 apartments, almost all the accommodations in the property, to tourists irregularly.
After months of investigation by municipal inspectors from the Ciutat Vella District and the Urban Police, it was found that the owners of the building were avoiding criminal proceedings and sanctions. Consistory alleging that it rented homes apparently legally with long-term contracts to specific tenants, although in reality they were tourists who stayed, for a short time, in these apartments.
In this way, the property avoided the file by ending the rental contract or changing the owner, once the date of final conclusion of the municipal administrative sanctioning process expired. Barcelona City Council indicates that the owners of the property rented 14 tourist accommodations on platforms such as Booking and Airbnb without any authorization for this activity.
Since 2018, municipal inspectors have opened files and requested that the ads on the two platforms be deactivated, although they found that were republished with new photos and names of different hosts. The owner claimed that they did not know if his tenants used the apartments to rent them out to tourists and that he considered himself “deceived.”
Complex investigation
However, after accumulating several tests last April, a joint action between municipal inspectors and the Urban Police confirmed that in the building, made up of a ground floor and four high floors, there were 14 of the 15 floors occupied by tourists, without having a license. corresponding, while in the remaining home there resided a former tenant who was in charge of managing the entrances and exits of the illegal tourist accommodations as well as the delivery and collection of keys.
The Barcelona City Council considers it a “very serious action” and that is why it sanctions the property with 420,000 euros for having an activity “organized to avoid the administration and fraudulently using the homes, without meeting tax obligations” for tourist activity. Furthermore, it discredits the sanctioned person who traded with the only old rental apartment by incorporating his tenant “in the tourist management of the property.”
Along with the fine, the Tax Agency is informed of the illegal activity and the economic benefit of the property in case it must initiate tax inspection actions. The deputy mayor for Security of Barcelona and councilor of Ciutat Vella, Albert Batlle, considered that it is a “criminal network”, since the owner’s actions are a “real scam” and that is why the sanction is “exemplary.”
“Flawless” pursuit
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“It was an issue that seriously harmed the rest of the residents of the area” Batlle highlighted, who disfigured the “complicity between the former renter and the owner”, since “what had been taking place was a continuous expulsion of the residents” of this property. That’s why he hopes that the sanction is “exemplary” and turn it into “a warning that any action of this type will not be permitted for those who are tempted to do so” since the City Council “will be relentless in complying with the regulations.”
Batlle added that there are several similar investigations open and highlighted “we have acquired experience” in detecting specific cases of illegal tourist housing on a case-by-case basis, which is why he stressed that “We are more prepared to face similar actions” such as those at the Ample Street property that they found for years “legal loopholes to do illegal business with housing and tourism to the city.”