Renting out holiday let’s on a community and fees

We have a several properties legally renting as holiday let’s and profiting enormous amounts as luxury properties. They have full capacity of around 8 to 10 people per property and booked all year round. They are constantly using water for showering ect and cost the community extra money for maintenance due to broken locks So Gate repairs. Ect. More expense for pool maintenance would it be legal to charge an extra community fee for these registered companies are rent their properties as a business. 

go and speak with the President of your community... I am sure they will have a solution .

I suppose the community can make democratically any rules and regulations it wishes providing they remain within the Spanish rules of law. However implementing them maybe another matter. If you restricted holiday renters to one shower a week, a substantial bond on the gate key in case of damage, use of the pool on alternative days only and increased the community fees by 100% to these holiday rental owners what would you do with the extra income?

The question raised is very valid.  Our urbanisation is more seasonal, but the renters can be a real nuisance - it's known by many as the "silly season" with a shrug of the shoulders, but I've always thought that owners who rent should contribute more to the running costs of the urbanisation.  

Has a good solution/system been put in place elsewhere?

As a serving President of seven years and a lot of experience of renters. I would love to charge those that rent out their properties more fees as they (renters) cause most of the damage to our five garage doors and five entrance gates into the community, but frankly it is difficult to apply as the owners of these properties say "I only allow my family to use our apartment - often not true), actually identifying these properties is not easy as people are always "coming and going" in our community (84 apartments across three blocks). Recently two renters were evicted by the owners for breaking community rules (i'll not go into that!), the renters then left early in the morning and on their way sparayed all our our exterior community walls with Black spray paint, they also sprayed our exterior intercom system rendering it totally defunct, to compound that issue the insurance company refused to pay out the 4,000 euros worth of damage (mostly on a new intercom) because they claimed it was graphiti !! needless to say we will not be renewing our insurance with them !!

Back to the question/ my answer, we have a "key fob" to enter the community gates and a "mando " to enter the garages, we charge 5 euros each for the entrance fobs and 40 euros for the garage mandos, and who buys most of these ? the rental properties of course, so this is our way of getting some compensation for the community for damage the "rentals" do to our community. I explained this at our community AGM two weeks ago and the owners that attended were very happy with that solution.

To be honest I hate renters (not all) as  they cause more problems and complaints (noise etc) to our community  than any other item, but then when me and the boss go on our holidays - we become renters!!

Can't please everybody you can only try 

This message was last edited by CostaBlade on 13/10/2018.

Sadly Acer, no I don’t think anyone has yet come up with an answer, believe me it is discussed at many a holiday resort Community all over the Costas.

Perhaps if a majority agreed to increase fees hugely then offered a varied discount structure for invoices paid on time that favoured residential property could be considered but you would need to know which are rented and check its legality with your Administrator as,

Community fees are based solely on the original coefficient of the property taking into account sqm.

Obviously the larger the apartment or property, the more fees will be paid.

Remember HPA was designed for residential blocks of flats and never properly updated to consider holiday rental resorts.

What Costablade has suggested makes perfect sense if the Community of Owners agree.

High_man,  You mentioned the HPA not being designed for properties that are rented which is spot on.  But presumably that would not exclude a change in the statutes?  I would suggest that a 25% annual surcharge be applied to any property that rents commercially during say a specified 12 week period in the summer.

So this would allow friends and family and commercial rents during the off peak season.  Yes it's arbitrary and some might think they can tell porkies, but if there was a suitable penalty for breaches...?

At the very least it might persuade owners who rent to take more responsibility, so that these folk do not attract attention...pie in the sky?  Possibly, but it is an issue that needs more airing.

Sorry Acer but I’m going to have to disagree this time

Community Fees are established at the outset and are based purely on sqm

i don’t think these can ever be changed but stand to be corrected.

Increasing total fees, then offering different discount levels to residents or rentals could be a way around it if discussed and approved at an AGM.

 owner's that are renting out for profit or to so called family... I would take it that the administration that are in charge would  insists they have separate  liability insurance in place just in case they have a accident... or does all the other owners that don't rent out have to pay for this liability insurance through the annual site fees .

Commercial rental owners must have a licence and the licence conditions will include adequate rental liability insurance. The licence must be displayed on the property. As regards non paying friends and family, I doubt any liability exists but I would check with an insurance company and the community President.

Any owners rental liability or home insurance would NOT cover damage to Community facilities which are covered by Owners Community Insurance.

The President or Administrator would have NO real idea whose property is rented commercially or not.

Tenants or guests have exactly the same right of use of facilities as owners.

The licence must be displayed on the property.

All registered ´viviendas turisticas´ must exhibit near the entrance of the property a sign that displays its status as vivienda turistica and the registration number.

Thanks for these thoughts Angeleyes1 - it may be a useful tool.  I will float the idea past our President to obtain his input.