Legal experts are raising doubts as to how effective a Council of Mallorca plan for tourism inspectors to pose as clients of illegal holiday lets might be. The intention is for inspectors to use credit cards to make bookings for apartment lets in Palma that are advertised on websites and to use details they obtain to open proceedings against owners. Holiday let apartments in the city are prohibited; any apartment offered for tourist purposes is therefore illegal.
Felio Bauzá, president of the Spanish Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism and professor of administrative law at the University of the Balearic Islands, explains that this method is legal but believes that inspectors may run into issues with the courts.
He points to the example of Barcelona, where the town hall was using the same method. In early 2021, the Catalonia High Court endorsed the validity of the method but some months later considered that the evidence gathered was insufficient to impose a fine of 30,000 euros.
Council of Mallorca legal services say that the method is legal and that the 2022 Balearic tourism law supports the measure. A lawyer who specialises in internet law, Jorge Morell, agrees that there is no issue in terms of legality but shares Bauzá's doubts. The problem lies with the substance. "Whether or not it can be used as evidence will depend on who has gathered the information and how it has been gathered."
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This is as sneeky as it can gets.