No Hope: Private holiday lets

Justin in Paris has made 90,000 dollars. Daren in London has raked in 100 grand. In Mallorca, you can expect to coin in 2003 euros per month.

An advert on a Facebook page demanded a damn good clicking. Make money in Spain, it said. Rent out your place to travelers (all American travellers, therefore, as they are lacking an “l”) and make 75 euros+ per night. Interesting, I thought. Not because I want to rent out to travelers or even travellers, but because it is quite possible that anyone wishing to – in Mallorca – shouldn’t.

On the site, there was Daren, relaxing, sound in the knowledge of the 100 grand he had made. Novi from San Francisco was smiling, thanks to her 30,000 dollars. Justin looked suitably satisfied with his ninety thousand.

The 2003 euros was the calculation for a month to rent out an apartment in Palma or Pollensa. I went and had a look. Was anything actually available in Mallorca? Yes. Not much, but there were some places. By the night or longer. Some with photos, some without. Not having a photo doesn’t really “sell” a place, but there might be good reason for there not being a photo.

It’s kicking off again. The periodic wielding of the holiday-rental stick. The tourism ministry and friends at the tax authorities are spending their days in earnest perusal of websites, mainly British ones, seeking to identify properties for holiday rent. An announcement was made last year that web pages in particular would come under scrutiny, and a similar announcement has been made this year as well.

John Lance, in his letter to “The Bulletin” (Saturday, 2 July) made the point well enough, as he has in the past, about the lunatic situation in respect of holiday lets in Mallorca. The “grey area” he referred to isn’t really all that grey. Want to now license your property for holiday rental? You can’t.

There are plenty of properties which are licensed but they date back to and before the registration of, when was it, three, four years ago. Even then, however, there was massive confusion, and the dice were heavily loaded against apartment owners. The greyness of the situation is especially so with apartments, but it isn’t so grey if you accept the version which states that you cannot rent out private apartments as holiday lets at all.

The tourism ministry has wielded its stick. In February, there were reports relating to action taken against owners of apartments in Santa Ponsa, to what was being offered, and to the fact that the apartments were being advertised via a UK website. And then there were the fines. Up to 30,050 euros.

We know the arguments in favour of more relaxed rules on holiday rentals: not everyone wants to stay in a hotel; tourists in private apartments and villas tend to spend more; a mix of accommodation types reflects the diversity of the tourism market. We know the hoteliers’ arguments against: they have the hoops they have to go through; they invest heavily; they are a key source of employment. Like the endless all-inclusive debate, none of the arguments are new.

The hoteliers can, however, be somewhat disingenuous. When the Santa Ponsa reports were coming in, the head of the local hoteliers’ association said that the competition from private apartments was unfair. Yes, but turn it around. Owners could argue the case of restriction of trade and of unfair competition that denies them the chance to properly register and market their properties.

As John Lance remarked, this could all end up with Europe getting involved. But for property owners, the problem is the lack of any co-ordinated voice. The hoteliers know this, and so, as importantly, does the Balearic Government.

It might be remembered that the hoteliers, well before the elections, expressed concern as to the appointment of Carlos Delgado as tourism minister. Now they express contentment, and Delgado, who one might hope might be more willing to throw off the shackles of trade restriction, has announced his intention to collaborate with the hotel sector in making the tourism law more flexible. And one aspect of this is the residential use of tourist establishments. Owned by the hoteliers, I think we can assume this to mean.

Just as is the case with its dealings with the major tour operators, a government in the Balearics, be it PP or PSOE, cannot afford to alienate the hotel sector. If there was hope that the private rental market might be treated more favourably by the new government, then I’m afraid it was probably a forlorn hope. And it will remain one.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

I’ll Be Watching You

Watch out! I’m watching you. I’m watching you in a bar. I’ll be coming but you won’t know me. I’ll be sitting there, watching. I am the eyes of the government, the tax office, the social security, employment. I’ll be in your bar.

The tax office, along with the other departments, is stepping up its efforts. “An aggressive plan” against the black economy, the absence of papers or the papers not quite right. More inspections. Checking on those claiming dole, but receiving a wage. Checking on everything, including the importing of goods from Asia and elsewhere.

When the money’s tight, the government does what it can to ensure its revenue stream. Quite reasonably so. But when money’s tight, the propensity for rule-bending increases. It is the vicious circle of crisis.

The checks are not out of the ordinary. They happen all the time. Just that they’re going to be increased. That “aggressive plan”. Watching and waiting.

The watching happens in different ways. There’s the watching on the internet. For some time, websites with accommodation to rent have been paid particular attention to, especially websites of British origin. The tourism ministry has netted some apartments in Calvia. The fines can be as high as 30,000 euros. The ministry’s inspectors paid a visit to one apartment, all perfectly well turned out, cleaned, with the use of pool and garden. 4,500 euros to rent. Except it wasn’t quite legal. Others offer even more, such as transfer to and from the airport. Who’s doing the transferring?

This watching of websites and of accommodation intensified a couple of years ago. The checking of apartments and villas for quality, safety and tax was not new, just that the level of effort increased and the technology was made greater use of. You wondered whether it would have much effect. It would appear that it has. There is the vicious circle of renting, though. The hoops and obstacles of trying to be legit, only to come up against the impossible barriers. Not everyone wants to do it improperly. But not everyone can do it properly. So the watching continues and becomes more intense.

There’s the watching on the roads. The director-general of Tráfico was in Palma not so long ago. More controls are planned. More promotion of the risks of speed and of being distracted, but more potential for revenue, you would have to imagine. Again, not unreasonably though. And then there is also the automated watching. The new radars. They’re not watching. Not yet. More investment is needed to make them work.

They need to step up the controls, not just to stop speed, drink-driving and “distractions” (playing with mobiles, sat-navs etc.) but also to compensate for the loss of revenue during what was something of a work-to-rule by traffic police last summer. The number of fines fell by 15% along with a reduction in the number of vehicles that were stopped, albeit, however, that during the first half of last year as a whole the number of drivers caught for drink-driving went up by a staggering 114%.

Watching employees, watching the number of chairs on terraces, watching the needle on a music limiter, watching the PRs, watching the space occupied by sunbeds on a beach. Now watching the smokers. Maybe there are even detectives watching the detectives.

All this watching has its value. Calvia, when setting its budget for this year, placed an amount on what it anticipates coining in through fines. Maybe local authorities all do this, wherever they are. Maybe it is a part of “good” public financial management. I confess it had never occurred to me that local government or any other government income might actually take into account what comes in by way of fines.

Revenue from fines, you might think, would simply be the jam on the other revenue. The bonus. It would seem not. But by formalising the outcomes of all the watching, giving it a number in the accounts, it is as though it institutionalises wrong-doing. The expectation is to break the law. Human nature being what it is, then maybe this is a pragmatic approach. Yet it is a system which appears set up for social failure as it undermines the psychological contract of reciprocity between authority and citizen, the latter afforded the role of the unscrupulous, whoever the citizen might be.

And all the while, the citizen does his or her own watching. That of the politicians and others in positions of authority or in positions within businesses with close connections to these authority figures doing their own fiddling.

The whole world’s watching. Each other. In Mallorca, at any rate.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Breathe More Easily? Traffic police

Here, especially if you have just polished off a decent bottle of red and are about to uncork a second and then intend to drive home, is something that might make you think twice about switching on the ignition. You know all those controls. You know the ones. The chaps in green, arms folded and staring menacingly from under the shade of a tree at a roundabout. They do actually do something. Not all just light up a fag and chat to their mates. Oh no.

During the first six months of this year, Trafico collared, get this, over one hundred per cent more drivers in Mallorca for drink-driving offences compared with 2009. This offence inflation does rather concur with what I was told some while ago that Trafico was one arm of the government being deployed as a revenue-generator. “Excuse me, sir, would you mind blowing into this, and do you have six hundred readies available in the event that … ?”

I have never quite got it with all the controls. If you want better driving, then might the police not be better served, as in the UK, hanging around in bushes with a speed trap or cruising along the roads about to blue-light a speeding Seat? The thing is that they do this as well. And there are, by the way, some unremarkable vehicles which look as though they have been picked up for a song from a car auction spluttering along the main roads, their only distinguishing features being a couple of antennae stuck on the boot; antennae not designed to aid better reception for RNE radio or to act as mobile WiFi. They are speed cops.

The numbers of traffic plod have been increased, and so – one has the impression – have been the controls. Fines, for a government reduced to using a torch to hunt down the back of sofas for any lurking billions with which to bolster a bankrupt economy, are relatively easily-generated national or island dosh. Part of the thinking one might imagine, and they could of course be right, is that most drivers will have fiddled their tax returns, so they might as well cop it in some other way, via the traffic cops.

However, not everything is rosy or light green in the world of the traffic police. They’re none too impressed with current pay. All those fines, and the government’s trousering the moolah for itself. As a consequence, while the first six months might have produced some record bounty, the second half of the year might find the piggy bank less than flush. Plod has been more inclined to do nothing or just tick off a Jaco-m’chico tanked up and oozing a smell of Saint Mick combined with the gallon of Hugo Boss in the neck area. Trafico is its own bit of the Guardia, and this is another slight bone of contention. Traffic plod don’t earn as much as others. They’re not allowed to go on strike, so they’re being less assiduous in pursuing lagered-up drivers. But don’t, for God’s sake, let this be taken as a hint that you should empty the local bar and head off for a good burn-up down the local carretera. Oh no. I, for one, actually applaud what they do. Oh sanctimonious me. Drink and drive? Nope.

In case you’re wondering, the legal limit is 0.25 milligrams. Fines for exceeding the limit are 600 euros plus four points on the licence, but sanctions can of course be greater, depending on the levels and the offence.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.