Playa de Palma, Mallorca

Legal holiday lets are around one-tenth the number of what are said to be illegal ones. | Efe

Andrew EdePalma22/10/2023 09:14
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Various reasons can be offered as to why there is a housing problem in Mallorca and the Balearics. For example, builders, developers and estate agents regularly point to a lack of land and to the red tape. They're right. But according to a staggering statistic produced by the Balearic government, the principal reason is that so much residential accommodation is denied to the islands' residents and to temporary workers in the summer.

Marta Vidal, the housing minister, has said that there are some 235,000 illegal holiday let properties in the Balearics. 235,000! In the whole of the Balearics there are 652,000 dwellings. Illegal holiday lets therefore represent around 36% of all residential accommodation (or potentially residential) in the Balearics. No one can tell me that 36% isn't a major reason why we have a housing problem.

By contrast with these 235,000 properties, there were 26,400 legally registered holiday rental properties in the Balearics in 2022. Combined, they constitute 40% of all dwellings. But as these legal properties equate to just eleven per cent of the illegal ones and four per cent of all homes, one can understand why the legitimate sector can feel as if it sometimes gets picked on.

A staggering number and a highly troubling number, but wait - how does the government know it to be true? Or rather, how does the housing ministry have such knowledge to assert it as the truth? How much knowledge sharing is there between ministries? The tourism minister, Jaume Bauzá, recently said that it wasn't known how many illegal holiday lets there were.

Do we accept the number to be true? In the absence of other statistics, I guess we have to and so therefore arrive at some very simple conclusions. If all these illegal properties have space for an average of three people, they would accommodate more than half the islands' population. Small wonder, therefore, that the housing ministry is to seek means of putting them on the legitimate rentals' market and that the government is contemplating sealing off illegal lets, albeit temporarily; the legality of doing this has been drawn into question.

For tourism - the concerns about overcrowding, the calls for limits, examples of tourismphobia - holiday lets, both legal and illegal, have been in the firing line. Even before the elections this year which brought about political change, environmental groups such as Terraferida were blaming the left coalition of having presided over the enormous growth in both. Where legal lets were concerned, it is the case that the coalition facilitated growth. How ironic it was to be, therefore, that in the final months of the coalition there was so much government talk about limits.

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The new government, as with the previous one, is faced with reconciling two strains - tourist and housing demand. I have regularly argued that these have to be considered together, despite certain sources maintaining otherwise. Well, it is clear that the Partido Popular government views them in the same light. If not, why would Vidal have come up with her figures in the context of the presentation of the emergency housing decree?

I am unconvinced by the 235,000, but I can appreciate why such a huge number could be of political value. This isn't only because it helps Bauzá, who couldn't supply a figure, it also aids him with regard to tourism legislative reform that he is intending.

Bauzá is adopting a cautious approach, which he defends by reference to a need to fully consult all interested parties, but something of a spanner has been put in the works by a parliament approval to maintain the 2022 moratorium on granting new tourist accommodation places, which are principally ones for legal holiday rental. This would be until the four island councils have had time to review and possibly revise their regulations, which fall under something known as PIAT, plans for intervention in tourist areas.

Central to any general tourism law like the one envisaged is a regulation of places, so while this approval isn't particularly helpful for Bauzá, it isn't necessarily all bad for a minister who has stated that there will be zero growth in the number of places. This said, the same motion that was raised in parliament failed to quash any government intention to ultimately increase the number of places (which does sound contradictory, it must be said).

But given the figures for illegal lets, as stated by Vidal, if the government were to be able to somehow get rid of them, would it not be in a position to argue the case for more legal lets without adding to tourist overcrowding or creating exceptional strains on housing? Tourist numbers would decline because of an elimination of the illegal supply, but could then be replenished by some legal offer.

Maybe so, but despite the tough talk (and how many times have we heard it), will these 235,000 properties simply vanish from the underground tourist market? I am not alone in wondering why it can seem so difficult in dealing with illegal lets, most of which can be easily identified through websites. Insufficient numbers of inspectors may have something to do with it. But this apparent difficulty goes to explain the number, even if it is exaggerated.