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Spain: The office of the mayor of Seville has announced plans to cut off the water supply to short-term rentals in the city that are being illegally rented out by property owners to tourists.
The move is part of a growing crackdown by authorities in Seville to combat the seemingly high proportion of short-term rentals in the city and a surge in visitors.
Specifically, the city council [PP] is conducting a review into holiday apartments in Seville and it will ask local state-run company Emasesa to halt water supplies to properties that operate without a licence and / or fail to comply with city regulations, which stipulate that all holiday rentals must have an independent entrance if they are above the ground or first floors of a building.
A parliamentary bill is also being considered that would ban new holiday rental licences in the city’s old town and the western neighbourhood of Triana.
So far, the council’s review has identified 715 tourist apartments operating illegally, with Seville mayor José Luis Sanz promising a “zero-tolerance approach” against unlicensed rentals.
Despite those findings, the mayor’s office believes that there are an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 holiday rentals operating illegally in the Andalusian city, and discussions are already said to be underway with some of the owners in question.
In the meantime, David López, a spokesperson for local lobby group Ciudadana Sevilla, has suggested that the council proposals will not adequately address the housing shortage and instead proposed a “total moratorium on all new licences”.
Elsewhere in Andalusia, urban centres such as Malaga and Granada are also preparing to introduce more stringent legislation on tourist licences in order to limit the proliferation of short-term rentals. In contrast, rural areas may bring in more lenient rules to spur economic development and encourage more tourists to visit.
On a national level, the Spanish government is pursuing a national crackdown on short-term rental listings amid backlash from local citizens across the country who feel like they are being priced out of the housing market. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party [PSOE] has announced that the government will create a registry of holiday rental properties that is expected to come into effect no earlier than by the end of 2025.
In Barcelona, leftist mayor Jaume Collboni announced a plan in June to introduce a ban on all short-term rentals for tourists in the city by late 2028. From November 2028, Barcelona will no longer give new licences and revoke existing ones that allow apartment owners to rent out their accommodation to tourists.
Collboni said that the measure would mark a “turning point” for Barcelona as the city government seeks to increase housing supply and address the shortage in affordable housing for citizens, as well as “skyrocketing rental prices that are becoming more expensive every day”.
Other cities in mainland Spain and the Spanish islands have recently made headlines too for their stances on holiday rentals and perceived “mass tourism”.
In April, Madrid City Council announced a temporary suspension on granting new holiday rental licences in the capital with immediate effect – a suspension which is set to hold until 2025.
In a press briefing, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, the mayor of Madrid, said that the suspension would take place “with immediate effect”, while the city works on the approval of a modification to the General Plan of Urban Development of Madrid, which is being led by Borja Carabante, Madrid City Council’s delegate for Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility.
The goal of the General Plan is to “confront” issues around housing in Madrid, while at the same time “balancing the accommodation market in the city” to avoid “residential desertification”.
Protests have also been held in the Canary Islands against the perceived proliferation of holiday rentals.
