Two important news items (part one )

Valencian central government are starting to move on anyone who is letting a property without the required paperwork. Tourism authorities want to crack down on unregistered holiday lets of apartments and villas along the whole region's coastline. I have heard some expats say it’s my property I can do what I like with it. Not so, an apartment must be registered as a holiday let before you can market it as such. Registration will not be automatic, local authorities may refuse the licence if they consider your property is only suitable for residential use. Personally I can see the logic in this as it would go someway to preventing whole areas of towns and villages becoming ghost towns out of season. The owners who comply with the law are suffering as they cannot afford to lower there prices to far, they have taxes etc. to pay, but that’s not the whole story. An illegal let may well have consequences with regards insurance, quality of product and effects on the community it is in. Quite aside from the fact that a community of owners can its self be fined if property within it is used as holiday lets, and the building/complex is not registered as required, there can be detrimental effect on community life when large amounts of people are arriving and using, or misusing faculties. Sadly it is often the case that holidaymakers will not respect the fact that some people have to get up and go to work in the morning.If they or their family do not own the property they are in they have no investmant , financial or social in the area. Rules for using pools etc. will be ignored and residents are even subject to abuse if they try to remonstrate. I would think a claim against a community insurance policy would be on shaky ground to if the company found illegal letting was going on. If more and more properties in a residential area become purely holiday lets, it means less and less people signing on at the padron. This leads to cuts in services as council income decreases. This is the no doubt the reason holiday letting licences are not granted for what are primarily residential. When owners let and do not pay taxes they make no financial contribution the governments coffers which does have a serious knock on effect for local services. It’s not all bad news for holidaymakers either. Health and safety issues should be better addressed under a licence system. The type of facilities holidaymakers seek should be more available in areas which are catering to tourist.