The Directorate General for Consumer Affairs has opened proceedings against the platform after warning it of the need to remove ‘imminently’ thousands of advertisements for flats that contained illegal advertising and were maintained by the platform.
The initiation of this Directorate General, which is part of the Ministry of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs headed by Pablo Bustinduy, now opens a period for the investigation of the final file and the subsequent resolution by Consumer Affairs.
The Consumer Affairs investigation began last June with a request for information to various tourist flat rental platforms to obtain information on the properties advertised on their domains. This request for information was followed by a new cease and desist order sent to one of these platforms in which it was urged to remove ‘imminently’ thousands of advertisements for holiday homes hosted on its domain that did not offer their licence number, among other possible breaches of Article 47 of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users.
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Consumer Affairs opens disciplinary proceedings against a tourist flat rental platform
Now, months after the start of the investigation and after verifying that the advertisements have not been withdrawn, the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs has opened a disciplinary case against this platform for not providing a solution to the problem detected. According to the legal precept, the aforementioned practices can be classified as serious infringements with fines of up to €100,000, an amount that can be exceeded up to four to six times the illicit profit obtained. Likewise, the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs stresses that the opening of this case does not prejudge the outcome of the case.
It should be noted that the tourist flat advertisements detected in the investigation are being marketed in different autonomous communities, which could generate, in the opinion of the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs, ‘harm or risks to the interests of consumers and users in a generalised manner’. Likewise, they would be incurring unfair commercial practices based on Article 47 of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users, as they would be in breach of sectorial regulations about illegal advertising, as in the case of marketing these homes without advertising their licence number when this is compulsory.
In this way, the ministry headed by Pablo Bustinduy is once again putting the spotlight on possible irregular practices in the housing sector and, specifically, in the tourist accommodation sector. Last week, the ministry publicly announced an investigation by the Directorate General for Consumer Affairs into the major managers of tourist flats for possible misleading practices. The investigation targets companies that manage hundreds of tourist flats in different autonomous communities.
Likewise, the Ministry of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs has opened another investigation against various real estate agencies that have allegedly carried out abusive practices against tenants in the management of rentals, such as forcing them to pay a commission for the management of the rental, forcing them to sign temporary contracts without justifying the temporary nature of the contract, or including clauses that are abusive for consumers.
All these initiatives are part of the objective set by Pablo Bustinduy to contribute to tackling the housing crisis in Spain, an issue which, as he has publicly stated, is one of the main problems facing our country. ‘There are thousands of families living on the edge in our country because of housing, while a few get rich with business models that drive people out of their homes’, the minister said, while also pointing out that “no company in Spain, however big or small, can be above the law”.