Judicial endorsement to limit tourist apartments in the macro-block of the 120 licenses in Barcelona

BarcelonaThe soap opera affecting one of the apartment blocks in Barcelona, a symbol of the conflict with tourist apartments, continues to add chapters. Now the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has sided with the Barcelona City Council and has endorsed the council's decision to revoke the tourist apartment license for 72 of the 120 homes in the block at 84 Tarragona Street. Although the ruling only refers to one of the apartments, it sets the TSJC's jurisprudence for the rest.

This building made headlines in 2023, when it became an example of the loophole that some tourist apartment owners found to obtain new licenses. The real estate company Gallardo—owner of the block—was the first to obtain a judicial resolution that considered valid the licenses requested during the impasse between the TSJC annulling Barcelona's plan for the regulation of tourist establishments (the Peuat) and Ada Colau's government drafting another one. A gap through which the city has ultimately had to accept nearly a thousand licenses.

To combat that decision and prevent the 120 apartments in the Tarragona Street block from becoming tourist rentals, the City Council found another loophole: the then-head of Urban Planning for the council, Janet Sanz, relied on the Generalitat's Tourism Law, which since 2022 allowed the City Council to annul a tourist apartment license if it was proven that the home had not been used for that purpose for three months.

That maneuver allowed for stopping the conversion into tourist apartments of 72 of the 120 apartments in the Tarragona block, but it led to another judicial tangle. For a time, various contradictory rulings accumulated on the City Council's desk: some that endorsed the withdrawal of the licenses and some that did not. Finally, as announced by the spokesperson for the Eixample section of the Socialist Housing Union of Catalonia (SHSC), Rebeca Pérez, the TSJC has now endorsed the City Council's decision. The ruling can still be appealed before the Supreme Court.

In the resolution, the magistrate alleges that the Tourism Law of Catalonia establishes that tourist use dwellings are ceded in exchange for economic compensation for a temporary stay "under conditions of immediate availability". In this sense, the court points out that it is this requirement of immediate availability "that is not met in the present case", since the apartment was rented when the license was requested.

One of the residents of the Tarragona block, Enrique Núñez, celebrated this Wednesday the decision of the TSJC, and expressed his hope that by 2028 the announcement made by the current municipal government of Jaume Collboni to extinguish all tourist apartment licenses will be fulfilled. Speaking to reporters, he lamented the ordeal that living with thirty tourist apartments in his building entails for them, and denounced the incivility they encounter. "Once, the Mossos removed 24 people at dawn who were having a party in an apartment," he said.

The latest neighborhood triumph

The judicial resolution comes after the residents of this block achieved another victory a year ago. For the first time, with the help of the SHSC, ten tenants whose contracts were expiring managed to reach an agreement with the property owners to extend them for three years starting in 2026. This Wednesday, however, Pérez explained that no further agreements could be reached with the Gallardo real estate agency, which walked away from the table when it learned that another front was being opened against it in a building on Muntaner Street.