Alex Trelinski
MASSIVE fines totalling €960,000 against 12 unlicensed holiday apartment rentals in a Palma building have been notified by the Consell de Mallorca’s Tourism Department.
The block is in the Levante area of the Mallorcan capital and the penalty works out at €80,000 per apartment.
The Consell de Mallorca has not clarified whether the building owner faces the large bill or whether there are individual apartment owners that will be penalised.
READ MORE:
- Angry residents protest outside Mallorca building crammed with illegal tourist rentals
- WATCH: Angry protesters spray tourists in Barcelona with water pistols during Spain’s latest march against ‘overtourism
The previous tariffs reached a maximum of €40,001 per let which was not licensed for tourist purposes.
The Consell- in a statement- made it clear that the increased fine aims to ‘dissuade people from carrying out this activity and putting an end to it’.
The authority advocates ‘protecting residents and guaranteeing the legal security of all legal rentals in the tourism sector’.
The Minister of Tourism, Jose Marcial Rodriguez Diaz, expressed his pleasure over the stiff penalties.
“Illegal offers, regardless of the sector in which they operate, represent not only unfair competition that is very damaging to all those who do things well on the island, which are the vast majority, but also a terrible problem for coexistence, against which we want to fight and to eradicate it.”
Rodríguez added that the sanctions are the result of a long procedure followed by the Department, which has ‘scrupulously complied with all administrative processes’ and which has allowed it to act ‘in accordance with the legal deadlines.’.
On July 11, around 50 people took part in a protest outside a Palma apartment block that houses illegal tourist rentals.
The demonstration focused on a Calle Gaspar Bennazar building with five floors of accommodation- totalling 56 beds.
Protestors held banners and chanted slogans about the lack of regulation of tourist apartments and authorities not listening to their complaints.
