With MPs due to debate yet further changes to the government’s “Alojamento Local” regime (private holiday rentals), AHETA – the association of Algarve hoteliers – has warned that any expedient tweaking could “lead to an increase in illegal rentals”, of which the region already has “hundreds of thousands”.
The truth is that despite official PR on the ‘success’ of the private holiday rentals scheme, the Algarve on its own is believed to have over 682,000 ‘illegal beds’ – places to stay where the owners do not claim the income on their tax returns, or put their heads over the parapet in any concrete way at all, says the association.
Of the roughly 800,000 beds available in secondary residences in the Algarve, “only 118,000 are registered as Alojamento Local” .
At the same time, the Algarve accounts for over 36% of the country’s AL ‘offer’.
The reason for so many people running holiday rentals ‘under the wire’ stems from “badly thought-out, much-too-rigorous legislative impositions of the past”, AHETA explains in a press release put out by State news agency Lusa.
Thus to try and bring in “more laws” and “more difficulties will only serve to drive these rental businesses underground, and consequently into the black economy”.
AHETA stresses it has no issues with AL, it simply wants everyone in the rentals sector to be subject to controls, particularly when it comes to safety.
As things stand right now, the changes various parties suggested on January 5 got into such a tangle that the proposals are to get further ‘specialised debate’ in future.
AHETA is hoping its warning will be taken on board before MPs ‘carry on regardless’ and take the AL regime further down what it considers to be the wrong road.
AHETA’s warning follows criticism coming from the association of AL owners, ALEP (click here) and a petition raised by Luz lawyer Alexandra Soares, suggesting new proposals represent an attack on the country’s economy (click here).
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
