A new law has just been passed in Spain that states if you want to rent your property as a short-term tourist accommodation, you must have approval from your neighbours.
The law, which originated in two sentences from Supreme Court judges in 2024, declared that the communities of property owners (comunidades de vecinos) could prohibit the activity of tourist rentals through agreements adopted in a meeting (junta de vecinos) by a three-fifths majority. That is to say, the owner of the property who plans to use it as a temporary rental must seek permission from the community association, and that permission to do so will go to a vote at the next neighbours meeting.
The law now also states that the president of the community of owners, or any other neighbour, can report the one using their property without due and express permission, on their own initiative, and can take legal action against the owner.
Law change on tourist rentals welcomed by neighbours
This modification, according to the president of the Andalusian Council of Colleges of Property Administrators, Manuel Jiménez Caro, has been in response to multiple complaints by homeowners, especially in flats, about the distress caused by noisy and disruptive tourists staying for just a few days at a time in their buildings.
In the newly built and supposedly luxurious Torres Martiricos in Malaga, a project that was supposed to be designed for families, 120 of the 252 flats were immediately bought by temporary tourist rental investors to transform directly into Airbnb-style accommodation. The new residents of the other flats have complained of a living nightmare as drunk tourists have been making noise at all hours, leaving bags of rubbish in the corridors, and even on one occasion, one man was receiving a haircut in the common corridor from his girlfriend.
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