The Canary Islands Vacation Rental Association (ASCAV) flatly denies that the Ministry of Tourism, led by the Popular Party, "will maintain the status quo of small owners of vacation homes in the archipelago." In addition, it assures in a press release issued this Monday that "they have woven a framework in the rule that will exclude most small owners" of the islands.
First, Ascav assures that only owners who are also operators of their properties will be able to opt for consolidation, "when the Government of the Canary Islands itself is aware that most owners transfer their homes to specialized management companies (all of them will be left out). Why does the Government of the Canary Islands want to eradicate those small owners who have decided to transfer the management of their property to a third party?"
Second, Ascav assures that "this is not a consolidation of use properly said." Therefore, it describes as "uncertain the words of the minister, who months ago assured that: "Those who are, stay".
The Association warns that owners who in turn are operators of their own home "will have to pass a new exam", providing more documentation and submitting to a control by the City Council and the Cabildo, which must give the binding yes. "This is not any consolidation, but a new authentic license that they must obtain," they say.
Third, the Canary Islands Vacation Rental Association indicates that "all owners of apartments, bungalows and the like (almost 60% of current vacation rentals) will be automatically expelled from vacation rentals. If this is your case, you can hang the closed sign."
The association continues saying that "even if they get the consolidation, they will not be able to transfer their vacation home even to their children or descendants in case of death, who will automatically lose the tourist use: a real expropriation of the enabling title of the vacation home."
Ascav describes all these measures as "an extermination" of vacation homes and states that 90% of tourist rentals will be affected. "The Ministry of Tourism has established that City Councils and Cabildos have eight and six months, respectively, to examine all the responsible declarations of the homes located in their territorial terms, to inexorably eliminate them due to the impossibility of obtaining the activity classified as a vacation home."
Thus, they assure that "that expense will be paid by the owners themselves through the payment of a fee. The Administration may enter into agreements with the Property Registrars to act as collaborators in that management."
In the same statement, the association assures that "the play of the Ministry of Tourism has been masterful: since October 2023 they have created an authentic "call effect" (as even the Economic and Social Council has recognized in its report on the Preliminary Draft) to justify such a restrictive rule". According to their data, in October 2023, when the Ministry announced the rule, after eight years of validity of the Vacation Homes Regulation, "something more than 40,000 vacation homes" had been registered in the Canary Islands. Meanwhile, ten months since the announcement of the new text, more than 20,000 have been registered. "Does anyone still doubt that the Ministry itself is responsible for the increase? Does anyone with two fingers of forehead still doubt that the Ministry itself is interested in this brutal increase promoted by them to have a weighty reason to justify their abuse of vacation homes in the Canary Islands?"
Finally, it warns that it is uncertain that the text has been "flexibilized". For example, those who lose their responsible declaration of vacation home "will be automatically excluded for three years. Three years in which they will not be able to earn a living. Does Mrs. Minister want us to thank her for prohibiting us from earning a living during that time for having lowered it from ten to three?"
The Canary Islands Vacation Rental Association ASCAV calls on all owners of vacation homes in the Canary Islands to "distrust the words of the Ministry of Tourism of the PP. Let them inform themselves by studying the final text and confirm for themselves the outrage that the Government of the Canary Islands is going to execute against them to, once again, leave tourism in the hands of the usual ones."