21/05/2013 00:00
TW
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l Dear Sir, I appreciate that yours is an English language paper, written mainly for English residents and tourists but could I ask that your readers look at holiday lettings from a Majorcan perspective? The issue is transformed if you do! Were they aware that the largest number of holiday lettings are not between owners of holiday homes on the island and tourists coming to the island? These are the only people the hotel industry say are unfair competition. In fact the largest number of illegal holiday lettings are between one Majorcan owner and one Majorcan resident, as far as I can tell. To avoid the heat in July and August many, many families who live in Palma, Inca, Manacor and other towns rent flats on the coast for two months. The sea, breezes, many of their neighbors and cheap home cooking are irresistible. How likely are these families to rent a 3* all inclusive from an hotelier? I will let you all guess.

Can you get the hotel industry to explain why short term holiday illegal lettings are shedding a bad light on the island when islanders are probably the biggest culprits in that case. Will they get action taken against islanders for their illegal trade, or is their self interest so obvious they have no intention of doing so?

Sheer hypocrisy in my mind as the hotel industry does not give a damn about illegal lettings as a law. We holiday home owners have no objection to the islanders doing what they have always done as part of their lovely way of life and neither do the Hoteliers apparently! Richard Taylor
Calvia l Dear Sir, It was interesting to read your article commenting that English buyers are at the top of the property buying league.
It is surely the case that sale prices will reflect the present economic climate but buyers should be made aware that “the tax authorities” do not necessarily share this view. However genuine the agreement of the sale price may be, if they assess the price to be under what they say it should be, they will apply their own valuation and demand any extra purchase tax that might be reflected. UK buyers will be used to paying Stamp Duty based on the price paid i.e. the market price.

Perhaps it is a hangover from the bad old days when black and white money was so much a feature of this economy and all that involved.
I understand it may not be politically correct for you print this but I do strongly feel that buyers should be aware that there is a real possibility they will be faced with a demand for many thousands of Euros some months after their purchase has been completed.

Graham Holt