Sur y Sol Apartments Tenerife

Update 15 December: There is a public meeting planned for the second half of January in the south of Tenerife. Attending will be the Government tourism department, the chief of the inspection team, and other senior officials of the department. I will post details of this meeting as soon as I have them. Please note that if there is no update it is because I do not have any information to post, so please do not contact me for any details.

Update 14 December: I think that with the absence of any communication about tomorrow’s meeting, we have no choice but to assume it will not now take place. The general view seems to be that they became aware of what they were about to face, and pulled out. The two main lawyers who were co-ordinating the meeting in the south (which doesn’t seem to have crossed Turismo’s mind apart from as a cash cow) say they intend to hold the meeting regardless, but at this stage, we have to assume it will be on a different day. I will update as soon as I know.

Update 9 December: I have just had confirmation that Turismo has been given one last chance to clarify their position, but that in the event that they fail or refuse to attend the meeting, the local lawyers involved in the issue, and who are lobbying the Government to change the law, are going to hold the meeting anyway. I’ll update with further details asap.

Update 25 November: There is to be a public meeting on the 15th December in south Tenerife. It is being held by the Minister of Tourism and the Inspectorate as the public information part of the Government campaign against illegal letting. I will confirm the time and place as soon as possible, but can say for the moment that it will be in the general Adeje area. It is important that people attend not just to hear from the horses’ mouths the information as it appears in these posts, but also to convey to the Authorities the strength of feeling against the enforcement of this legislation. This will not intrinsically have any real or immediate effect, but will be useful background to the lobbying efforts to persuade the Government to rescind or amend the law. The public meeting will be held in Spanish, but an English translator will be present.

With regard to the fines that have been, and continue to be, levied, there are presently 7, 000 cases in various stages of process. That is not a mistype for 700: I mean 7, 000. These fines have been levied on owners all across the Canaries, on every island.

I have poor news with regard to the six month limit after which the fines were thought to lapse. Whether we call it misinterpretation in the first place, or an evolution of the Government’s view, the six months is (at least now) being taken as the time within which the Government must make its first response to an appeal, rather than the period within which the whole process must be resolved. There is said to be no chance that those who are approaching the six month limit will find themselves free of the process.

I can confirm that the BOC only records those fines which have been returned or not delivered. The wording in the Boletín, however, is that which is contained in the actual official documentation: the letter notifications are merely summaries. This means that the fines are being imposed, technically, for commercial letting administrative failures, i.e. not having notices in apartments, not having a complaints book, etc. This is in large part a mechanism to streamline the inspectors’ work, because this “offence” also covers those apartments which are already touristic, but being let illegally by not going through the onsite agent. By definition, residential apartments cannot have this paperwork, so it covers them too. There are some variations in the wording, necessarily, because not every case is identical, but it is categorically stressed that the specific wording is unimportant. The fines are for “letting in an illegal manner”, however defined. There is no chance that an appeal based on the technicalities of wording will be successful, and there are Court precedents for this. The Government is fully confident in this respect.