OVERHAUL: Law changes give communities in Spain power to ban new tourist blocks from their area

THE government has granted neighbours powers to limit the expansion of tourist renters in their building.

Following the success of rental platforms like Airbnb, the Ministry of Development has used a Royal Decree to curb tourist rental effects on local communities.

In a bid to put Spanish citizens first, the government has reduced the required majority to ban new tourist flats from being built in an area.

Previously, a unanimous decision was required from residents, but under the new reforms, groups of residents will only need a majority of three fifths.

This will make it easy for communities to limit or apply conditions to tourist rentals in their areas.

It will therefore be far easier for residents groups to bump up the price for tourists renting in their area, as well establishing special quotas.

Spanish Minister José Luis Ábalos backed ‘more people who use the common areas paying more’.

This Royal Decree of Urgent Measures has also been employed to change Urban Leasing Law so that it no longer covers tourist properties, which instead will be regulated at a regional level.

The new measures ‘help the autonomous communities to mitigate the difficulties of control of housing of tourist use and gives more capacity to the communities of owners’, according to Reyes Maroto, Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism.