Speedshare is a community project that is trying to (1) promote more personal connections for living together (bringing back “true flatshares”), (2) generally make life a little easier, cheaper and nicer, and (3) fight back against unfair rental prices… a big part of that is exposing, educating around and fighting back against illegal short term rentals that are largely responsible for these issues.
What does “short term” mean in this case?
Well, let’s start with…
The legal situation
In Barcelona (and most of Spain) it’s illegal to rent out an apartment/flat or room for less than 32 days without a tourist license.
Unfortunately the city and province seem to insist on publishing most of their legal texts only in Catalan. Here are some links, in case you’re a lawyer or a bit of a masochist:
- https://portaljuridic.gencat.cat/eli/es-ct/l/2002/06/21/13
- https://empresa.gencat.cat/ca/treb_ambits_actuacio/turisme/emo_canal_intern/normativa/disposicions-generals/
- https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/premsa/2021/08/04/barcelona-mantindra-la-prohibicio-del-lloguer-dhabitacions-turistiques/
There is also a website where you can check whether a flat has a tourist license and report illegal short term lets, but the translations are vague at best (e.g.: rooms in shared flats are subject to the same laws, but that is in no way obvious in the translated texts): https://meet.barcelona.cat/habitatgesturistics/en
But, what about Airbnb?
Well, Airbnb got in hot water because of this exact issue, but they were able to get out of it by using expensive lawyers and making changes to their system, where they now require landlords to provide their tourist license.
Everyone knows that there are ways around their new measures, but at least they were forced to try. The same goes for Booking and other big providers.
Here are some links where Airbnb now explain how things should be done, which they’ve been saying all along, of course ;):
Great! All fixed then?
No! That’s when short term lets moved to WhatsApp/Telegram groups… which the Generalitat & Ajuntament can’t easily monitor, simply because there are so many.
Here at Speedshare we will never allow short term rentals in our groups, and we remove any posts requesting or advertising short term lets.
We don’t immediately report posts of/requests for short term lets to the Ajuntament/Generalitat, since a lot of people simply don’t know the legal situation, but we will always notify posters and delete their posts. If they try again after, we will 100% report these posts, without fail.
Ok, but what’s the problem with short term rentals? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to sublet my room?
Ok, we’ll explain, but you’re probably a sociopath…
Back in the day (roughly until 2020), when you went on holiday, you could usually rent a hotel, hostel, camp site, etc for a few days or longer. These were regulated, so you didn’t get charged too much*
The reason tourist accommodations are regulated is that there are people living in the cities you visit or move to. These people need to live somewhere.
When you moved to a city, you usually rented a room for at least a semester, most often longer… those were also sort of regulated.
Now, if you rent a room or flat long term, and you then rent it out illegally as tourist accommodation when you decide to travel or decide to live on your parents’ trust fund, you suddenly turn your (fairly cheap*) room/flat into an incredibly overpriced space.
This removes your long-term living space from the market, reducing the overall living space available… in the long term, this results in (mainly local) people not being able to afford living in that city anymore.
QED: If you illegally rent out a room or flat for a short term you’re a complete c*nt.
And then a beautiful city like Barcelona turns into a once beautiful shadow of a city like London. And it’s your fault, in part.
Where can I find these illegal short term lets?
We have the links for some Short Term Lets WhatsApp groups… but, going forward, we will only give them out to law enforcement agencies.
Why are you so horrible to people who just want to make some more money?
Because they are destroying our beautiful cities… they’ve already destroyed London, Berlin, Dublin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and other cities. They are currently destroying Lisbon, Prague, Tallin and a lot more. It’s like taking a shit in a small swimming pool.
But, to be clear, it’s not just about illegal short term lets. “Piggy banks in the sky” (a term coined in London for foreign investors buying flats with no intention to rent them out, only to sell them when property prices have risen) are even worse.
Politics don’t help either, of course.
But Speedshare is a small community project, so we take on the a***holes we can get to… please let us know if you find one we can help with.
