There is little doubt that for some owners in some communities the constant changeover of tenants is an issue, ongoing encounters with a stream of unknown faces becomes increasingly disturbing, especially with some claiming to be friends, tenants or relatives of another owner in order to sneakily enjoy the pool or other facilities. Where there is a high number of properties being used for short-term tourist accommodation in what was previously just a residential community, even more so.

 

Most communities will try to have some way of being informed which apartments or villas are being rented to tourists and try to control access to their facilities. However unless there are specific rules in the community statutes restricting access or use, fenced off areas with perhaps a security guard or two it is difficult to enforce. Invariably other owners expect the unpopular job of policing to fall to; the president, the administrator, the “Portero” (concierge) or even the gardener but the reality is despite signs saying please close the door or lock the gate it is hard to prevent strangers drifting in for a quick dip in the pool, a game of paddle or sometimes more nefarious reasons.

 

There are new laws for private property officially rented out as short-term tourist accommodation which allows communities to prohibit such rentals or to raise the community fees for these properties by up to 20%  but how to initiate this and know which properties are registered and which are not? It is becoming increasingly more complicated and the law is unclear.

 

The community can ask the president or the administrator to enquire if the people using the pool etc are relatives or friends of another owner on a two week holiday or paying tourists. But neither the “guests”, the short-term tourist tenants or the owners are obliged to even answer the question, let alone provide the community with a copy of a short-term rental contract or some certification showing they are what they say they are, relatives or friends of another owner on holiday.

 

A community could ask the official registering body, the Junta de Andalucia if they know which properties if any are registered as short-term tourist accommodation and then seek to increase those community fees. As yet there is still no efficient way of automatically communicating this information to each community and if a property is not registered, then what, a community cannot function on guess work and all this still does nothing to dissuade antisocial behaviour or unauthorised use of community facilities.

 

This has always been some what of a concern especially in summer but it is the dramatic increase in private property being used as short-term tourist accommodation that has turned it in to a real problem. The new laws are vague and basically do nothing to address the situation.

 

In addition, these new laws only pertain to property used as tourist accommodation as per the conditions and requirements of the Junta de Andalucia Decree 28/2016, meaning pertaining to those properties promoted and advertised by travel websites and agents or other typical tourist promotional media with a possibility of making a prior reservation.

 

For owners who attract clients by other means the decree and its restrictions and conditions does not apply and as such these tenants still go unregulated and the situation remains unresolved. Many will say the government has missed a good opportunity to finally bring some sort of improvement if not a legislative end to these problems and then by doing so at least prevent owners from blaming the president or community administrator that such situations still exist.

 

Unfortunately, unless the statutes provides on the contrary, the owners are not obliged to show the administrators their letting contracts; Neither are they obliged to give information about the personal details of the friends or relatives that will be using their properties, and no neighbours can expect the president or the administrator to be a policeman to check who is who in the community.

 

In some urbanizations and luxury communities there is a security access and a guard take control of this but, except in this exclusive cases, all the owners will have to take the control of the communal areas and it would not be fair to blame on the president or administrator if someone with no relation at all with any owner is using the communal elements.

 

This article has been published in Euroweekly News ( Community Corner), written by José Luis Navarro.