The president of the Canary Association of Vacation Rentals, Doris Borrego, has had a dizzying year trying to contain a bill that, in its current form, will mean the “prohibition of vacation homes” that generates 2.7 billion euros and more than 50,000 direct jobs.
In an interview with Ekonomus, Borrego explains that the latest draft of the bill is even more restrictive, as it includes a “responsible declaration of consolidation with a page and a half of requirements, which are impossible. That is not a responsible declaration, it is a license.”
Borrego invites all Lanzarote residents who own or work in vacation homes to attend an open information meeting this Monday, October 7 at 6:00 p.m. at the Lanzarote Chamber of Commerce about this issue.
Can anyone imagine a new hotel law where there is an imposed text that is not negotiated or agreed upon with the hotel association?
Borrego regrets that the Ministry of Tourism has not agreed on the law: it is an imposed text, no one agrees with it, not the FECAM, nor the FECAI, nor the Economic and Social Council, nor the College of Economists, nor the Association and Federation of Real Estate Agents, nor the Federation of Builders”…”
Therefore, “we have asked to put this bill in a drawer and make a one-year moratorium and agree on a text between all parties,” she explains.
But the Minister of Tourism and Housing, Jessica de León, rejected the moratorium and requests for vacation homes grew more than ever. In the eight months since the project was announced, the registry of vacation homes increased from 40,000 to 60,000 properties. “The problem has been generated by the Ministry itself, which has caused a call effect,” Borrego specifies.
The president of ASCAV highlights that the bill “prohibits commercializing the home for three years if any documentation is missing when providing the new responsible declaration”, and asks how people who are deprived of the right to commercialize their homes for three years are going to subsist, since, according to her, the law “does not contemplate the right to amendment”.
Borrego does not understand how a law can be passed without agreement with the employers' association and asks a question: Can anyone imagine a new hotel law where there is an imposed text that is not negotiated or agreed upon with the hotel association?
“They will sell the houses to foreigners who will market them in black from their countries”
The president of ASCAV warns that the long list of requirements will cause many small owners to “sell the houses to foreigners who will market them from their countries.”
“The same thing will happen as in 2013, they will escape Spanish taxation. They will have a neighbor here who hands over the key, a person who does the cleaning and they will continue to come, but misnamed friends or family, and they will charge in black.”
“We don't understand anything, no one understands anything, I don't think even the Popular Party understands anything.” In this regard, Borrego points out that the PP of Catalonia denounced the Vacation Housing Law of Catalonia before the Constitutional Court “with which the Ministry of Tourism of the Canary Islands, which holds the Popular Party, made a copy and paste in our rule.”