tommy.irene

Thousands of Brits with holiday homes in Spain and France may be banned from renting them out to tourists
Second-home owners on the continent targeted in controversial new laws
Travelers will no longer be able to pay cheap rates direct to owners, but will have to stay in apartments, hotels of villas operated by major firms
Crackdown could be implemented in Paris and Lyon as early as next week

Hundreds of thousands of Britons with holiday homes in Spain and France could be prevented from renting them out to tourists.
Controversial laws set to be passed could also add hundreds of pounds to the cost of breaks for millions of travellers from Britain.
They will no longer be able to pay cheaper rates direct to owners but will have to stay in apartments, villas or hotels operated by major firms.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2ndYcEoiI

Fred James

There was an article in the Telegraph recently about the situation in the Balearics. It looks like it could be different in each reason and judging by the comments in the article there may be ways round it.

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/expat/anna...-the-baleares/

IamStu

Are the people making these decisions drunk!?
Deter people from visiting the country...I haven´t looked up the figures for tourists spending but I´d bet my house, it´s a lot more than the cost of the licence fee, which according to the article, might be applied
I could go on...

bobd22

Nothing surprises me these days the world seems to have gone bonkers. Still they know you can't do anything about it I mean what are you going to do sell up for a pittance they have got you by the short and curlies I'm afraid.

chopera

Actually I'm pretty tired of renting unlicensed properties with missing utensils, 10 year old back-breaking matresses, etc. Some sort of regulation is required.

IamStu

I agree with that. Minimum standards etc.
However, it´s affordable for the market it appeals to. These measures would damage that market.

coleio

I've just read the Daily Mail thing and there is little information in it. The idea of having a minimum standard is a good idea, electrical safety and carbon monoxide poisoning spring to mind, but no where does it say what the standards will be nor how it will be inspected nor about banning private rented accommodation. Getting quotes the from "Mr Edwardes-Ker, 66, who also runs a holiday rental company" is hardly a source of factual unbiased information. It would be interesting to know "Catalonia, the Canary Islands and the Balearics....thousands of apartment and villa owners in these areas have been fined up to £15,000 each" How much were the fines and what were they for? Apartment Owner had a 7 euro parking fine would be covered by this.
All seem a bit of a non-story to me without facts.

chopera

The last I heard they were going to leave it up to the councils to organise the licenses in Spain. Obviously in areas without many hotels they aren't going to be too strict because they rely on private rentals to bring in the tourists. But in areas with lots of hotels it might be a different story, and to be fair, the hotels have to abide to strict standards so their competition should do so as well.

Domino

what do you expect reading too much of the DM, surprised it made any sense considering the number of spelling mistakes in the on-line version
they are one hit wonders - splash the headlines and then move on to another subject, no follow up - unless the patient dies.