Several Ministries Co-Ordinate To Get Their Hands On Tourist Housing

The Minister for Housing and the Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, has confirmed that she is already working with the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, and wants to add Economy and Finance for the regulation of tourist flats, hand in hand with local administrations. to guarantee the social function of housing, and in the case of tourist flats, as an economic instrument, they will explore changes in the Mortgage Law and in taxation.

He called for “a country-wide agreement”, involving all public administrations to implement all the necessary instruments and that they are “adjusting and trying to determine” the price index to be applied so that the rent containment law comes into force during the month of February,

On the other hand, he announced that the Government is working with the Ministry of Industry and Tourism on the regulation of tourist flats in order to try to ensure that in this legislature housing is not only conceived as a property, and in the case of tourist flats, as an economic instrument.

It seems that it was not introduced in the Housing Law because the competences are fundamentally autonomous and in some cases local, but that a working group has been created to accompany the competent administrations in this regulation so that the purpose of the housing is for social use, so that what is approved is above these autonomous competences.

“We are working with the relevant ministry, in this case the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, to see within the framework of our competences, from the regulatory point of view, what we can do so that these initiatives that have to do with the development of tourism in our country do not lead to a deprivation of the social use of housing, which is ultimately what we are going to try to achieve in this legislature.”

He wants us to believe that the tourism sector has already recovered pre-pandemic rates with respect to GDP, and that it is necessary to manoeuvre so that the growth of supply is sustainable so that this does not generate a problem of inaccessibility to housing in our country, especially in the largest or most touristic cities in Spain.

He has been saying all this in Barcelona, in hostile territory for tourism, and in which housing has been marked as a priority by the city council and the Generalitat, so that housing is for “social” use, also insisting on the objective of reducing tourist flats in the city, especially in stressed areas such as the Ciutat Vella district, and has assured that they will be forceful, with exemplary sanctions so that it reaches all citizens.

In other words, a declaration of intent to “attract more investment” (Irony mode on).