The administrative simplification decree, expected to be approved later this month, will establish that a restriction on legalised properties being made available for holiday rental will be temporary. All indications are that the period will be five years. Under tourism legislation introduced by the previous administration, a home for holiday rental must be at least five years old. This same period would therefore be applied to these legalised properties.
The government doesn’t know how many buildings will eventually be legalised. Not all will be. For example, if the land is covered by specific protection classifications, building is illegal and a statute of limitations doesn’t apply; there can be no legalisation, only demolition.
Estimates from some twenty years ago put the figure at around 30,000 in Mallorca alone.
Opposition parties and environmentalists are dead against the amnesty. Ferran Rosa of Més, for example, has asked: “Expedite procedures to do what? Half of Mallorca is already destroyed, without water, completely saturated with tourism. Where else do they want to build? On the small amount of virgin coast that remains? Do they want to end up filling rustic land?”
The opposition has sought guarantees from the government for this process of legalisation to specifically exclude the possibility of holiday rental.
