79% of Airbnb Listings In Barcelona Are Illegal

dkatana writes: Barcelona has more than 16,000 Airbnb listings and, according to reports on Cities of the Future, 79% could be illegal. "In April, Airbnb's European General Manager Jeroen Merchiers confirmed, during the Student Tourism Congress in Barcelona, that the platform has more than 85,000 listings in Spain alone." But most Airbnb hosts do not apply for a permit, fail to pay insurance and tourist tax, and ignore Catalonian law that forbids short-term rentals of rooms in private homes. "Residents," says the article, "had been complaining about the rising number of tourist apartments and the conduct of the mostly student-age renters. The majority from Italy, Germany and the UK were partying all night, some running around naked, and generally trashing their neighborhoods."

Comments

"Are" or "could be"?

[mi]

Words have meanings — some times, they even have consequences. The title says:

79% of Airbnb Listings In Barcelona Are Illegal

The write-up says:

79% could be illegal

The former is a statement of fact and a serious allegation. The latter is just as non-committal and devoid of information as the (in)famous promise of Geico's advertising.

Which is it?

do not apply for a permit, fail to pay insurance and tourist tax, and ignore Catalonian law that forbids short-term rentals of rooms in private homes

Phew... Malum prohibitum crimes: it is only wrong because it is illegal. Screw you, Statists, get back to enforcing the malum in se — you know, the kind of thing, that is illegal because it is wrong.

Re: "Are" or "could be"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. All business are required to be insured to avoid people getting screwed by malpractice.

Re:"Are" or "could be"?

[ultranova]

Not having insurance means this: the hotel industry lobbies the government to make competition illegal, that is all it is.

According to the summary, the customers are "partying all night, some running around naked, and generally trashing their neighborhoods". The hotel industry is perfectly within their rights to demand everyone plays by the same rules. If you can figure out a better way to run a hotel, good for you; but if you simply figure out a new way to externalize the costs, you should be forced to eat them - and for Joe Average, that means licensing and insurance.

As a side note, we have far too many people who want to be treated as business geniuses despite doing nothing but turning costs to externalities, and often even making them costlier in the process. It's that failure of human spirit that makes it impossible to have completely free markets.

Only in Barcelona?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most (if not *all*) major cities in Western countries have laws regulating room/house rental. By going through Airbnb or similar services you just ignore those laws, allowing hosts not to pay any taxes, not to have any insurances, and so on. Where's the news in that? Why do they think so many people offer housing through it?

I'm not happy with the amount of bureaucracy that one has to go through just to rent out a room for a couple of weeks, but on the other hand unreported/untaxed income for the host or lack of insurance for the guest is just *wrong*. Like with Uber, countries should move towards a simplified and more effective jurisdiction (as owning an hotel and renting a room for a week are pretty much different things), and then they can force Airbnb to give out the names of the hosts and start enforcing such laws.

Re:What the fuck is Airbnb ??

[Virtucon]

It's supposed to be intrinsic knowledge when speaking of companies that really don't produce anything and introduce a business model based upon others taking the risk while they reap a profit. Uber and Lyft are examples of these kinds of companies. They're viewed as perfect investment models and have insane valuations based on hype rather than substance. Welcome to the new economic reality.