The Canarian Association of Vacation Rentals (ASCAV) denounces that the Canarian Federation of Municipalities (FECAM) has commissioned a new draft Decree on Vacation Homes "with the aim of concentrating the activity in the hands of investment funds and large management companies."
If the draft is consolidated, it would lead to "the strictest, most limiting, rigid and restrictive law of all those existing in Spain on vacation homes and would mean the disappearance of more than 95% of vacation homes," which are the "livelihood" of more than 75,000 families and provide work for some 37,000 people in the Canary Islands.
This plan, they continue, contributes to the "evasion of capital from the archipelago and usurps the small owner, who contributes to the money staying in the Canary Islands, the management of their vacation home."
This economic activity, explains ASCAV, "generates more than 1.5 billion euros, which remain entirely in our archipelago and will affect more than 27% of the accommodation places in the Canary Islands."
Vacation homes only represent 3.5% of the total
The Association explains that they had access to the draft "thanks to many city councils that are as indignant as ASCAV itself" and that they have been waiting for the call from the president of FECAM for more than five months.
ASCAV understands that the Federation of Municipalities "justifies this outrage in the scarcity and high cost of housing for its residents," which they have described as "demagoguery."
ASCAV recalls that "all parties, Island Councils and City Councils of the Canary Islands have a report of more than 150 pages prepared by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (TIDES Institute), which dismantles that myth."
The TIDES Institute report explains the scarcity and high cost in the "unstoppable increase in population, the absence of a Housing Plan for more than 20 years, as well as many other factors."
"Vacation homes in the Canary Islands represent just over 3.5% of the total housing stock in the Archipelago," they add from ASCAV.
ASCAV considers that the 2015 regulation "is a good regulation that we can be proud of in the Canary Islands. We have the most stable and least conflictive sector in Spain, a more than evident sign that the regulation we have at present adapts perfectly to the reality it regulates."
The Association describes the draft as an "authentic legal absurdity," which invades exclusive powers of the State, the Autonomous Communities and the Island Councils." We are going to be very aware of the evolution of this Decree, since we have sufficient experience of what usually happens before and after the elections."
