Apartments affected: Airbnb must delete 65,000 ads for apartments in Spain

Spain has ordered the deletion of more than 65,000 Airbnb ads for renting holiday apartments. In the past few months, a total of three instructions have been issued to the Airbnb European Center in Ireland to remove these advertisements described as illegally designated, the Ministry of Consumer Protection in Madrid said on request. The measure could also make it more difficult for holidaymakers from Germany to book cheap holiday accommodation.

The Spanish authorities have been trying to contain the renting of holiday apartments for a long time because the housing market is extremely tense. Especially in metropolitan areas and in tourist strongholds, the demand for living space far exceeds the offer, so that rents rise sharply.

Again and again there are demonstrations for affordable rents as recently nationwide in early April. Overall, the number of Airbnb apartments in Spain is estimated at more than 400,000.

How the authorities argue

The ministry emphasized that the Airbnb ads to be deleted would violate statutory requirements. Only entire apartments and not offers of individual rooms in the landlord’s apartment are affected.

So a number of ads would not have a license number or registration with the authorities. In almost all Spanish regions, however, a holiday apartment must be registered with a state body before renting.

In other cases, the indication is missing whether the landlord is a private individual or a commercial provider. Among other things, it depends on whether the tenant can claim consumer protection. There would also be advertisements with license numbers that did not match the numbers awarded by the responsible authorities.

Airbnb had requested preliminary legal protection against one of the extinguishing instructions that affected 5,800 ads. However, the Higher Administrative Court in Madrid rejected this. Now the Ministry of Consumer Protection emphasized that Airbnb would expect the instructions.