Barcelona City Halls begins proceedings to fine Airbnb, HomeAway websites

Barcelona City Hall on Thursday confirmed it had begun legal action with the aim of fining home rental websites Airbnb and HomeAway 600,000 euros (around 635,000 U.S. dollars) for offering accommodation which lacks the necessary permits.

The City Hall published a statement saying it had begun the case which "will result in 600,000 euros of fines for each of them for the repeat offense of advertising tourist lodgings online."

A 2012 regional law in the Catalan region of Spain said that any apartment which is rented to tourists must be registered in the area's tourist registry and have a permit.

This is partly to ensure the accommodation on offer reaches safety standards and also to ensure that homeowners pay the relevant taxes.

Meanwhile, the City Hall seeks to control spiking visitor numbers in Barcelona, which in 2015 passed the nine-million visitor mark. This in turn has led to rising house prices caused by the number of people buying accommodation with a view to then renting it to tourists.

Both Airbnb and HomeAway were fined 30,000 euros each in December 2015 for offering accommodation without the relevant permission. That was the maximum fine at the moment, but that maximum was multiplied by 20 in June 2016.

Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau's local government is working to try and limit visitor numbers in order to prevent local people being driven out of the city's traditional neighborhoods due to noise and house prices.

One of her first acts upon becoming mayor was to place a moratorium on the increase of the number of hotel rooms on offer in the city. (1 euro = 1.06 U.S. dollars) Endit