Will the new Valencia Tourism Laws affect my ability to rent?

7/11/2018

Recently there has been reason for concern amongst many expats living in Javea, as a problematic new law approved in June 2018 could mean they are no longer able to get a tourist license to let their property as a holiday rental.

The new law requires all holiday rentals to be registered with the local government, and you need to get a certificate “Visto Bueno” from the town hall planning department to say that your property is suitable to be rented for holiday purposes.

However, as many properties in Javea don’t meet the new criteria for a holiday let, the local council have been refusing to hand out tourist licenses, and failure to obtain a tourist license could result in fines of up to 600,000 euros.

Many expats who live in Xabia rent out their homes each summer to holiday makers in order to earn enough money to continue to live in Spain the rest of the year. Thus for many locals there have been serious concerns about how the new law will affect them going forward.

According to an article in La Marina Plaza dated 19th September, The new Valencia Laws were put into place to protect tourism in the Valencia region, but unfortunately where Javea is concerned they may actually be having the opposite effect.  When the laws were written they included certain specifications that a property must have in order to obtain a tourist license and many properties in Javea don’t meet this and therefore the town planning have been refusing to grant licenses up until now.  

The fact that Javea is one of the tourist municipalities par excellence of the Valencian Community has not served to prevent the problem when writing the law.  The opposing party ‘Partido Popular’ held a meeting in Javea to explain the situation to local residents. During the meeting they criticized the Valencian Government for not checking that local municipalities had included residential use with tourist purpose in their planning. They also reproved the local government under Chulvi for not communicating “to their peers of the Generalitat the obligatory nature of the urban compatibility report as a condition to rent a house with tourist purpose is not viable in Javea.”

They urged the local government to accelerate efforts to resolve this issue, otherwise it could cause irreparable damage to the income of the population of Javea.  

The Partido Popular urged the local government to seek provisional solutions, if necessary until the long process of incorporating tourism into the Javea General Plan is processed, or for the Generalitat to cease the obligation of the report.

They concluded that “A tourist municipality needs tourist accommodation and if tourists in Javea do not have accommodation, they will look for other tourist destinations in which they can rent houses to enjoy their vacations.”

The good news is that the local government are currently working to resolve this issue and according to Carmen Alesanco (Local Interpreter in Javea), on 19th October 2018, Jávea Town Hall started issuing Tourist Licenses for apartments.  In a facebook post to her customers, she said that Apartments should now have no problems obtaining tourist licenses going forward and if anyone has been denied a tourist license thus far, they can now re-apply and should be accepted providing you have all the relevent documentation (inhabitant Licence, DROC, energy certificate and whatever might be needed in your particular case.)

She also added that:

“Houses/VILLAS are a different issue at the moment, Javea Town Hall has proposals for Consellería and plans on changing the Local General Plan, which can take a while if allegations are presented. This might be sorted within 45 days after being exposed to the corresponding departments.