Alex Trelinski
TOUGH new regulations on tourist accommodation in the Valencian Community will include a ban on installing automatic boxes on outside walls and public areas for people to collect keys to apartments.
Visitors currently input a code and the box opens to gain access to a key.
Valencian Trade and Tourism Minister, Nuria Montes, said on Wednesday that the boxes create an ‘image of insecurity’ and act as a beacon for potential thieves to alert them that ‘tourists are staying there’.
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A package of measures to deal with tourist saturation and unlicenced apartments is expected to be approved by the Valencian cabinet next week.
Montes said it will be compulsory for tourist homes to be registered with the Guardia Civil and the Policia Nacional so that the identity of all guests aged 16 years and over must be recorded.
All tourist homes will also have to provide a ‘reception service’- not somebody physically standing behind a desk- but a person that is always available to deal with guests and to check with their documents that they are who they say they are.
The Tourism ministry intends to ensure that accommodation is up to a proper standard with new measures including a ban on using Butano gas for heating or cooking.
Only electrical appliances or equipment that uses piped gas will be allowed.
Property owners who refuse to comply with the tougher legislation will be prosecuted, with Montes believing the measures will ‘flush out’ illegal lets.
“We will show no compassion to illegal renters which will help calm down residents who feel they are being pushed out of their neighbourhoods,” she added.
As previously announced, each council in the Valencian Community will be able to set its own limits on tourist accommodation licences- depending on the situation in their area.
Likewise, tourist licences will automatically expire once a property is sold.
Nuria Montes also criticised those who blamed tourist apartments for ‘al evils’ and said that in Alicante province, they account for just 2.8% of all properties, compared to 14% that remain empty.
“There are other types of measures that should be adopted to end the problem of access to housing,” she concluded..
