The Supreme Court upholds Palma City Council's ban on tourist rentals

Linh Vo on Unsplash

6 March 2023, 19:44

The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled in favour of Palma City Council and confirmed that Cort can ban tourist rentals in the city. Close sources have confirmed that, as such, the High Court accepts the appeal filed by the Consistory against the ruling of the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands, which overrode the ban in September 2021.

In April 2018, Palma City Council announced the ban on tourist rentals in multi-family homes, following the proposed single zone for Palma. Now, the spokesman for the Balearic Government and Minister of Tourism, Iago Negueruela, has welcomed this ruling and insisted on the need for a Spanish and European framework to be able to sanction platforms that market illegal accommodation.

In statements to Europa Press, Negueruela considered the Supreme Court's ruling on the zoning made by the Palma City Council to be "very important". "We always said that it was fully legal to limit an activity and to do so in a general way," he stressed.

It is worth remembering that in the summer of 2017, the Balearic Government implemented the autonomous law on tourist rentals 6/2017, an extension of the Tourism Law 8/2012, and with which it introduced fines of up to €400,000 for companies that advertised properties without a reference number guaranteeing they were legal.

Since July 2018, owners of a flat or apartment in Palma cannot rent out their property to tourists; tourist apartments are banned throughout the city.

Only single-family homes – detached houses or villas – can be rented to tourists, except those located on protected rural land, surrounding the airport and in areas for non-residential use, such as industrial estates.