tommy.irene

anyone have more information regarding this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ced-years.html
Britons facing £15,000 fines in Canaries for letting homes and breaking a law that's not been enforc
www.dailymail.co.uk
The regional government is sending out teams of inspectors to check if foreign nationals have written

snikpoh

... In this case, it seems he new about the law and was advised to (and chose to) ignore it.

I thinks that's the real moral here - don't listen to people who say it's OK to break the law. If you do, then you may have to face the consequences!

bobd22

Yes you are right states he knew but ignored the law on advise given? Also states that they face financial hardship, I would Imagine the authorities are more inclined to be concerned about the financial hardship of their citizens. Also a bit of a red herring saying people don't know about the fines because being sent to Spanish address?? Do these people never either visit their properties/have letting agents that forward on mail.

amideislas

I'd agree that as long as you obey the law, you shouldn't have too many problems...

I only wish that utility companies and government agencies took the law as seriously as we're required to.

Dick Dasterdly

I was down there when the new laws came out and got the impression that most ppl. were aware of them at the time, though wether they faded into obscurity thru lack of enforcement I know not.

Basically complexes had to be registered as either turistica or residential.
They need a 60% or so vote in favour to be classed as touristica, which gave them the right to rent out within the terms of the law.

Also such, complexes had to meet turistica requirements, such as having a pool lifeguard on duty, as just one example.
Generally those who didn't rent out on turistica complexes resented having to pay towards the extra expenses involved in meeting the new regulations.

Non turistica or residential complexes apt owners had no legal right to rent out for commercial purposes and were supposed to be strictly limited to friends and family only, as I recall.
Somewhat difficult to enforce, I would have thought, due to the difficulty of the Spanish authorities proving who was or wasn't friends and family.

tommy.irene

I dont own,, I rent which gives me the freedom to move if i want too..

tommy.irene

Canarian government is take illegal letting very serious indeed and could be quickly coming to an end. The authorities are seeking tax revenue and driven by the suffering hotel operators they are stamping down on illegal rental holiday homes.The law in the Canaries had been in existence for at least ten years but not enforced.

In Tenerife one agent has been given a substantial fine. The agents office was raided by the Tenerife police and after a short investigation, he was put under pressure to identify the owners of each property and was handed a fine for £50,000.
The agent was managing ten properties and expanded his business to include assisting the owners who rent their properties via the big listing sites, Holidaylettings.co.uk and Ownersdirect.co.uk also the spanish authorities with conjunction with the uk athorities are gathering information on properties advertised on their sites, witch by law they have to submit.
Very worrying indeed for all owners.I personally have close member of my family advertising his apartment and he has just removed off the site as he is extremely worried about the consequences. Reply Reply With Quote Thanks Blog this Post .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday, 02:00 PM #6 elaine
View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact

Registered User

Join Date:May 2006
Posts:5
Thanks:0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 PostsMany property owners purchased their property intending to rent it and neither the estate agent nor their lawyer nor anyone else told them that – in the case of people who purchased since 1995 – their intentions were unlawful.
It is of course a simple fact that if estate agents had bothered to tell every prospective owner that they would never be able to rent their property for holiday rent, then they could have expected to have lost many sales, and if one were cynical, the same could be said about lawyers.
If one of the the first questions from a lawyer to each client, had been'You are not intending to rent this property out to holidaymakers are you?' then not only would less people have purchased property, but lawyers would have earned less money.At the end of 2010 the Canarian government were so strapped for cash that they then decided to observe this law,suddenly and brutally.A team of five Turismo department inspectors, the government first jacked that number up to 12 and then to 17, as they began a campaign of fines – of €18,000 in respect of a first offence, against owners they can find, who are advertising and providing holiday lets without a licence.
To the people who are struck by these €18,000 fines they are suddenly being forced to stop renting (now said to be more than 6000 fined and increasing) because if they do not, the second fine is of around €100,000.
Whereas, back in November 2011, when the UK government wanted to catch this same group of people (or that part of them who were not declaring their income to the UK government for taxation purposes) they appointed another 200 interim inspectors because they wanted to clear the problem up so more rooms can be provided by the licensed hotels and licensed complexes.The Canarian government instead of widely publishing their intentions to start a clapdown -they have maintained an almost incredible,but diliberate level of silence, there has been virtually no publicity, other than through local forums.The possible reason is if news were to break out on a large scale would people put their properties onto the market and probably drop the market even further than it already has. Last edited by elaine; Yesterday at 02:03 PM. Reason: spelling

tommy.irene

I see what's happening ....

The law has been there for quite a few years but never really enforced. If someone was letting out their apartment and always getting noisy or troublesome clients, they knew if the neighbours reported them they could face up to 15,000 euro fine so were always very careful. So that's how the law was used really until now, so owners would be responsible I guess.

The main thing that has changed is that the government have now decided to employ inspectors who will trawl the Internet for targets then tour the resorts and investigate them, trying to catch out as many as possible and coin in the 15,000 euro fine each time.

Of course this is causing mild panic and as I can see already over here, people are removing ads, changing the way they do things and fast or are now looking for long-term tenants.

I would add as a bit of advice, if you want to rent a private apartment don't book too far in advance just for the moment. If this carries on I can see a lot of private rentals disappearing

Dick Dasterdly

There was a bit of panic when the law first came out, yet strangely it was never properly enforced and ppl.became complacent.
This action certainly casts a different light on it.
I wonder how much it will affect property prices.

If they can collect all the unpaid back tax I reckon it will be quite a considerable sum of money.

Fred James

The sooner all these tax evaders are fined huge amounts of money the better.

If Spain could collect all the evaded taxes they are owed the sooner they would get out of the financial mess they are in.

Personally I would go so far as to confiscate properties that have been illegally let and sell the properties at a knock down price and put the money in the pot to bale out the countries deficit.

mikelincs

I suspect that even in mainland Spain there are many thousands of people renting out properties illegally, i.e. without the required permissions, not declaring the rental income etc, so it's yet another way the Government can raise new revenue, just catch a lot of them.

Fred James

If you let it out long term to a Spanish taxpayer you will definitely get clobbered.

For a few years now, you have to put the catastral reference of the house you are living in, even if rented, on your tax return and they then cross check to see if the owner is declaring the rental income.

They caught a lot of tax dodgers that way but it doesn't apply to holiday lets.

There is a lot they could do if they tried. They could learn from HMRC who compile huge databases of phone numbers and other details etc from various sources both online and in the press. In addition to property lets private sales of expensive boats and vehicles can be tracked and when they decide to do a tax investigation it all comes out of the woodwork!