Licences for 597 tourist flats revoked because of infringements to regulations

A total of 597 tourist lets are to lose their licences because of infringements to regulations. The shock plan to control this sector and protect the right to housing has enabled the city to cut the number of illegal tourist flats from 6,000 to 300 in four years.

16/07/2020 15:54 h

Ajuntament de Barcelona

Of all the apparently legal tourist flats checked by municipal inspection services, 297 have now had their licences withdrawn due to irregularities such as:

  • Use of licensee names which are different to the property owner.
  • Dividing homes into two of three flats.
  • Not possessing a certificate of habitability.

Proceedings have also been started to issue fines and revoke the licences of a further 300 flats for which licensees claimed they had habitability certificates when they applied, just before the issue of licences was suspended in 2014, but actually did not.

Balance of the shock plan: more flats for use as regular housing

The plan has enabled checks on over 20,000 adverts since 2016. Some 16,000 case files have been opened, with over 6,000 flats ordered to cease their activity and more than 8,000 fines given.

In addition, 1,982 of the flats previously offered as tourist lets have been put to use as regular housing.

Tags associated with the news item