Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.
Property owners’ ‘Kafkaesque’ ordeal at Gran Canaria land registry
The Platform for Those Affected by the Tourist Law (PALT) has denounced the situation experienced by several property owners who attended the Land Registry No. 2 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) to register their opposition to any tourist classification of their homes. According to the organisation, the owners were handed a form that included a request to incorporate tourist use of those very same properties.
In a statement, the Platform described what happened as “Kafkaesque, surprising and deeply worrying”, and considers it unacceptable that a property owner should have to go to the Registry to declare that they do not authorise a tourist classification of their property, only to find, in the documentation handed to them, a request to the contrary effect. A person goes to the Registry to say they do not want the situation of their property changed, and is faced with a document they are asked to sign in which there is an express request for the tourist use of that same property to be recorded. “This is the condition imposed at the property registry for lodging the opposition document that the legitimate owner wanted to present. This is a situation that deserves a public explanation,” the group criticised.
Form ‘contradicted owner’s wishes’
The Platform explained that one of the owners attended the Registry with a formal application stating that she did not authorise any modification of the registral situation of her property, nor any tourist classification that she had not requested. However, the organisation maintains that, upon presenting the document, she was given a form whose content could be interpreted in the opposite direction to her wishes. Specifically, the form included a section requesting that “with regard to the property […] the tourist use to which the plot and the building are destined be recorded…”
The Platform considers that this circumstance raises a question that must be clarified by the Registry itself. The organisation is demanding that the Registry explain the scope of the request included in the form and the reasons why it appears in a document handed to a person who intended to oppose a possible modification of the registral situation of their property.
Demand for owner consent
The organisation believes the central issue is to determine who is deciding the registral destination of properties and on what legal basis. In this regard, it demands that any assignment to tourist exploitation, use classification or restriction on a property must have the express and individualised consent of its owner, or the corresponding legal title.
The Platform is also requesting that owners be formally notified if an operating company, developer or any third party presents documentation to register a tourist classification or a restriction of use on their homes. The organisation bases its demands on the need for the express will of the owner to be recorded, and that no entries implying a tourist assignment, link to an exploitation or restriction of use of the property be made without the corresponding title.
Registrar’s comments spark controversy
The group’s action comes after public statements which, according to the Platform, were allegedly made by the Registrar of Property No. 2 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana regarding the application of the new tourist regulations. According to information passed to the Platform, the registrar allegedly indicated that complexes subject to horizontal division would henceforth be considered tourist establishments, and that apartments and bungalows would be regarded as “lodging units”. Furthermore, according to the organisation, the registrar reportedly stated that if owners disagreed, “the law would have to be changed in the Parliament of the Canary Islands”.
In response to this situation, the Platform has drawn up and made available to those affected a model application for opposition and preventive warning against possible restrictive entries on property titles, addressed to the Land Registry. The aim is for each owner to be able to formally record that they do not authorise third parties to assign their property to tourist exploitation, impose a tourist classification upon it, or incorporate restrictions on their property without their consent.
The Platform has announced that it will individually examine the documentation handed out by the Registry and will continue to use the administrative and legal channels it deems appropriate. “We will not take a step back,” it said, while demanding that any application of the new tourist regulation be carried out with clarity, within the law and respecting the rights of property owners.
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