Cash grab: Massive €560,000 fine for 7 illegal tourist flats in Mallorca

THE owners of seven flats in a single Palma building are being slapped a total of €560,000 for using them as illegal tourist rentals.

The Mallorca Tourism Department is demanding fines of €80,000 for each of the apartments, saying they are operating without the necessary licenses.

Announcing the fines,Tourism Minister Jose Marcial Rodriguez declared that ‘illegal rentals are a plague’.

He warned that they create unfair competition for honest businesses and threaten community harmony.

“We’re committed to cleaning this up,” he added.

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This enforcement is part of a thorough effort by the department, which has meticulously followed all legal processes to bring these offenders to justice.

Previously, fines handed out for illegal rentals hovered around €40,000, but now they’ve been doubled to deter future violations, although the maximum possible is a whopping €400,000.

Earlier this year the owner of five tourist apartments received a then record fine of €200,000 for illegal holiday rentals.

The Mallorca government levied the giant sanction for continually renting five separate flats to tourists without a licence.

Only 621 properties in Palma have official licences to rent to tourists.

The authorities in Mallorca are particularly angry about the number of holiday rentals available on the platform Airbnb, which it claims are illegal.

At least 70% of the properties to rent are illegal, while around only 8% are illegal, for example, in Pollensa and 7.5% in Manacor.