Recent Canarian Supreme Court Judgements have proved that the 2015 law governing holiday lets in Gran Canaria and the rest of the Canary Islands needs to be rewritten from scratch. The Court recently declared several clauses of the law illegal, including the ban on private property owners offering their homes as holiday rentals in resort areas, and the ban on bed and breakfasts. While the Court rulings are still subject to appeal and not final, it has now become clear that the Islands need a new law governing the Vivienda Vacacional market. The Canarian Government has already started discussing the new rules and we now have the first inklings of what they are planning. According to local press reports, the Government wants to impose a high level of quality standards and legal guarantees on the holiday let market. It argues that standards must be high in order to stop low-quality rentals from undercutting the existing market and damaging the destination's reputation. The Canary Islands Government is also talking about capping the number of holidays lets on the market in each local area. To do this, it plans to get local governments to assess the number of holiday rental tourists that their areas can absorb without distorting the market. Another proposal is an official registry of holiday rental tourists so that the authorities have a better idea of who is staying on the islands at any time.
