Millionaire fines for a building with 31 illegal tourist apartments next to Sant Pau

BarcelonaRaid by Barcelona City Council on a network of illegal tourist flats near the Sant Pau Hospital. The first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, explained this Friday that, following a citizen complaint, the Directorate of Inspection Services (DSI) has detected 31 illegal tourist flats in the same building. During the inspection, several irregularities were found regarding both the fraudulent use of the dwellings as tourist flats and works carried out without the proper license. Consequently, the City Council has initiated 34 proceedings, seven of which may lead to fines of up to 600,000 euros for very serious violations of the tourism law.

The property, located at number 441 of Travessera de Gràcia, has a ground floor and nine more floors. On the upper floors there is a hotel establishment. On the lower floors there are 24 dwellings, of which 19 had a tourist flat license. During the inspection, however, it was possible to corroborate that at least thirteen of these flats —managed by different members of the same family who inherited the block— had been subdivided. Upon entering, instead of finding the 60-square-meter property that had the tourist flat license, the inspectors found a kind of landing with two doors that gave access to two different flats of less than 30 meters.

In the other licensed flat that the inspection services were able to enter —there are five that they have not yet been able to access—, they found that although in this case there had been no works to subdivide the space, there were more people accommodated than the current license allowed. In addition, the inspectors also found irregularities in most of the remaining flats in the building that do not have a tourist flat license. Specifically, in four of them, tourists were being accommodated despite not having any kind of permit to do so. The other flat in the entire building is the only one that has the condition of habitual residence, as a person lives there with an old rental contract.

Bonet has put the case of this building as an example that the City Council "is not only faced with illegalities where there is no license, but also where there is one". Since 2018, the council has annulled 202 licenses for tourist housing due to non-compliance with the law. The first deputy mayor appeared alongside the head of the council's inspection service, Eva Mur. Although it has not yet been proven, the council does not rule out the possibility of some kind of alliance between the hotel and the owners of the flats that were exploited as tourist flats.

And now, what?

Faced with this scenario, the City Council has initiated seven sanctioning proceedings for very serious violations of the tourism law that could range from 60,000 to 600,000 euros. Added together, they could amount to a fine of 4.2 million euros. In addition, 14 restitution and cessation proceedings have been opened for tourist apartments without a permit, which could nullify the owners' initial licenses, as well as a sanctioning proceeding for a serious violation of the tourism law for "overcrowding" that can range from 3,000 to 60,000 euros.

The City Council has also initiated 13 proceedings for the legalization of irregular works, which oblige owners to return the apartments to their state prior to fragmentation. Furthermore, these proceedings could eventually lead to the opening of another sanctioning proceeding for violation of the urban planning law or, even, of the housing law if it is considered that the fragmentation of the apartments has resulted in the creation of substandard housing.