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Short-term rentals, new arrivals and controversies

10 months ago babelfish

Short-term rentals, new arrivals and controversies

Reactions and comments to the legislation wanted by the Ministry of Tourism to regulate short-term rentals are making an entire sector angry and not a little

“Who's afraid of short-term rentals?” This is the question rhetorically posed by Confedilizia, the association led by Giorgio Spaziani Testa and the most aggressive, among the 13 that have signed a document to oppose the bill wanted by the dicastery of Daniela Santanchè ( recently grappling with other fronts, much more personal ), in reiterating that the new rules are useless, are wrong and risk damaging a productive fabric already put to the test by the waves of inflation. But let's go in order.

SHORT RENTALS, WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO DO

The executive, for its part, maintains that with the bill on short-term rentals, it will arrive at «providing a uniform discipline at a national level aimed at tackling the risk of oversized tourism compared to the local accommodation potential and at safeguarding the residential nature of historic centers and preventing depopulation".

THE HIGHLIGHTS

Article 3 of the bill introduces the national identification code (Cin) for each residential property rented out for tourist purposes. It will be unique, it will have to be displayed in the announcements published on the telematic portals (otherwise sanctions will be triggered) and it will replace the twenty regional identification codes (Cir) that currently exist.

The Ministry of Tourism will compile the national database, in order to centralize the activity of gathering information and counteract any form of illegal activity in the hospitality sector. On the other hand, the task of granting the Cin to individual properties remains with the Regions, while the Municipalities and the public safety authorities will control and sanction the failure to display the Cin.

SHORT STAYS

The following article, or 4, introduces the obligation to stay for at least two nights in properties located in the historic centers of metropolitan municipalities classified as having a high tourist density. There are currently 14 Municipalities identified as metropolitan.

It remains to be seen whether large families, identified as those with at least one parent and 3 children, will be exempt, to avoid excessively penalizing those who inevitably bear higher expenses than others.

THE PROPERTY MANAGERS

Article 5 of the Legislative Decree establishes and regulates the figure of the Property Manager, who in Italian is the intermediary between the customer and the owner who rents his house. The figure has actually been around for some time, but not for sorting. An ad hoc ATECO code will be established for this type of activity, specifying the obligation to act as a withholding agent, collecting and paying the dry coupon on behalf of the owners.

THE SANCTIONS OF THE DDL ON SHORT-TERM RENTALS

Of course, the most unpopular article of the corpus of regulations being studied by the Ministry of Tourism concerns the sanctions connected to non-compliance. Failure to display the Cin will result in a fine (as indicated in article 6 of the Legislative Decree): for hosts, managers and OTAs the amount of the fine can vary from 300 to 3 thousand euros, while for the owner who does not there will be a fine ranging from 500 to 5 thousand euros.

THE REASONS OF THOSE WHO PROTEST

In the past weeks, thirteen representative organizations of the real estate sector have drawn up a document on short-term tourist rentals with five proposals: a single fulfillment for the owner who decides to rent for a period of less than thirty days (or for the professional manager of his property) , an electronic communication to the Police Headquarters about the data and information required by law with the assignment of an identification code or registration number. In short, for the 13 associations the new rules must reduce and not increase the burden of bureaucracy in the sector.

Secondly, it is deemed necessary to standardize the regional regulations involving short-term leases, "too often different from each other in dealing with the same matter", complain the representative associations. "In order to promote greater transparency in the sector, we recall the urgency of the operational launch throughout the Italian territory of the National Identification Code (CIN), to be reported in all communications of property rental offers as well as of the related Bank Data, in order to guarantee consumers about the legitimacy of the offer”. Furthermore, it is proposed to repeal the provision which attributes to the Municipality of Venice the power to establish – moreover with reference only to natural persons – if, how and when an owner can exercise the right to let his own property. Furthermore, it is proposed to repeal the rule included in the 2021 budget law which compulsorily transforms the owner who intends to rent more than four apartments for short periods into an entrepreneur, with all the consequent obligations.

In short, Confedilizia, Fiaip, Confassociazioni Real Estate, Property Managers Italia, Prolocatur, Aigab, Rescasa Lombardia, Breve, Myguestfriend, Host+host, Host Italia, Abbav and Fare only promote the establishment of a single registry, while they return all the package.

THE LOCATION OF AIGAB

A few weeks ago Aigab, the Italian Association of Short-Term Rental Managers, through its president Marco Celani , intervened in the press to reiterate that "The short-term rental market is mainly aimed at business and travel sectors, the houses that have this destination they are online for limited periods (often the owners continue to use them and in any case do not want to block them for long periods), they are central houses, typically never entered the student circuits (the overlap is very little). The student houses are close to the universities or in the semi-periphery, larger than those of the short-term, which have long been destined for the long-term. The big problem at the moment is given by the ISTAT adjustment which weighs 7.4% on long-term rentals (14.8 if the increase is every two years), combined with the increase in the cost of utilities, which is borne by conductors in the 4 + 4 and paid by the owners in the case of students.”

CONFIDENCE ATTACKS

And so we return to the rhetorical question posed by Confedilizia, which reserves the Ministry of Tourism repeated attacks on the subject and has even made a video entitled, precisely, "Who's afraid of short-term rentals?"

The video points out that in Milan they are only 1.6 of the total, therefore they do not create problems in the big cities, while small villages and shops benefit from the 1.7 billion euro related industries on a par with private individuals who do not competition – it is their thesis – to hotels. So who's afraid of short-term rentals? Those who don't get informed, Confedilizia responds.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia-on-demand/affitti-brevi-novita-in-arrivo-e-polemiche/ on Mon, 10 Jul 2023 12:47:50 +0000.