By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

In Barcelona it is estimated according to market factors that one in three short-term rental listings is illegal.

In the Berlin short-term rental platforms are not obliged to share data with the authorities so the German state does not know who is breaking the law and who is not.

78% of the listings on the Airbnb platform in Amsterdam are entire apartments or houses and not rooms. This means that around 7,000 houses or apartments are available not for the residents of Amsterdam but for its visitors. These figures were presented to the European Parliament by the Dutch MEP of the Greens Kim Van Sparedak, who is also the rapporteur of the law that was passed with celebration and provides for the harmonization of the rules for registering and receiving data from short-term rental platforms. The law aims to ascertain the exact impact of this particular form of tourism on the housing crisis affecting the whole of Europe and then take the appropriate initiatives.

In essence, an attempt is being made to bring order to the way short-term rental platforms operate, which in many countries Eurozone they run rampant, without context.

Under the new legislative framework, online platforms that facilitate short-term rental services must comply with obligations regarding listing procedures and data sharing for properties they display in listing areas. The simpler online process will allow the relevant authorities to identify each owner and unit and verify their details.

Online platforms should ensure that the information provided by owners is reliable and complete and that the registration number is clearly visible on the relevant page. They should also make reasonable efforts to carry out spot checks to confirm the information. Competent authorities will be able to suspend listing numbers, request platforms to remove illegal listings, or impose penalties on non-compliant platforms or owners.

Obligations are also foreseen for the Member States which should create a single digital system to receive data from platforms about the activity of the owners on a monthly basis, e.g. the number of nights for which the unit was rented, the number of guests, the address, the number and email address of the listing. The collection of this data will allow the authorities to check the owner’s compliance with the procedures and the national authorities to implement appropriate policies.

According to the latest available data, 1 in 4 overnight stays in the Eurozone is in accommodation available for short-term rental. Greece is slightly below the average with 21.9% when:

In Belgium it is 47.4%

In Croatia 50.6%

In Lithuania 42.8%

In the Netherlands 39%

In Poland 37.3%

The law will allow Eurozone countries to find common ground on how to “handle” short-term renting which many argue is a key factor in the “exacerbation” of the housing crisis. Until now it was pretty much every man for himself.

Our country is one of those that has made important moves to regulate the system with real estate registry, taxation, operating framework and also memorandums of cooperation for the provision of information to AADE with the major short-term rental platforms.

Barcelona has banned short-term rentals in the historic center and Florence has tried to do the same, Paris has put an annual limit on the number of days a property can be made available for short-term rental, and Austria will impose such a limit from next summer.

The text of the legislative initiative now remains to be approved by the European Council, then published in the Official Journal of the EU, and will then be implemented within 24 months of publication.