STR Unpacked

Ben

STR Unpacked is a short-term rental industry podcast that reviews the key news stories of the week alongside an invited sector expert, providing commentary, insight and practical interpretation of how current developments are shaping the market.

  1. 6h ago

    What Those 5 Years Replaced

    The Canary Islands moved the holiday-let regularisation deadline to 31 December 2027 on Monday, and said anyone who misses it gets 5 more years. The gazette text published on Wednesday shows what those 5 years replaced. → Decree-law 10 of 2026 came into force today and is backdated to 13 December 2025. The deadline to lodge the prior notification of classified activity with your town hall was 31 July 2027, so the move is 5 months. The operative wording says before that date; the preamble says up to it. → Law 7 of 2026 had inserted a paragraph requiring an operator who missed the date to cease the tourist activity immediately, with the responsible declaration of consolidated tourist use extinguished automatically. The decree suppresses it. In its place, an operator who misses the classified-activity deadline may carry on for the 5 years following it and must then cease tourist use. The act calls that a compensatory effect. On this deadline that is the end of 2032. → So the 5 months matters more than the 5 years. The act says in terms that the consolidated-use declaration escapes the 5-year limit article 10 puts on an ordinary responsible declaration, and existing operators have until 13 December 2030 to opt for it. The notification is the gate. Miss it and what you get is a dated exit, not a reprieve. → The re-filing route widened, to operators holding a responsible declaration from before the act whose notification was rejected or declared ineffective. The same provision then excludes anyone who lodged before the act came into force, whatever became of it. → The community-of-owners test in the consolidated-use route is now taken at the date of the original declaration, where before it fixed no date at all. A block that has since voted to ban tourist use can no longer defeat the paperwork. That does not reach El Hierro, La Gomera or La Palma, where the consolidated-use route is switched off until 13 December 2030. → In July the competition authority, in its monthly market-unity summary, called that same town-hall notification an unnecessary administrative burden, saying it breaches the burden-simplification principle of the single market act because the regional rules expressly exempt these dwellings from it. That summary binds nobody and the decree does not touch the point. → And it is provisional. Article 46.3 gives the Canary Islands parliament 30 calendar days from publication to validate or repeal it, so by around 10 December. Daily Message: those 5 years are a wind-down, not a reprieve. The consolidated-use declaration escapes the act's own 5-year clock, and that is why the 5 months is worth more. Do you know, for each Canary unit you hold, when the notification was lodged and what became of it?

  2. 1d ago

    Wales Drew A Line

    In Welsh business rates the description on your rating list entry decides which multiplier you pay. From April 2027 the list of qualifying descriptions widens from 5 to 37, and self-catering is not on it. → The Welsh Ministers made W.S.I. 2026/133 on Wednesday 4 November, in force 1 April 2027. The Senedd approved the draft on 3 November, 45 for, 0 against, 48 abstentions. → Among the 37 are "hotel and premises", "guest house and premises", "hostel and premises" and "inn and premises". The Valuation Office's description, "Self Catering Holiday Unit and premises", is not, and the list is closed. The lower multiplier sits "30.3% below the standard multiplier". The same instrument also takes the higher multiplier to 4.2% above standard above £100,000, with no accommodation carve-out. → None of it is new. Elin Jones told the Senedd on 15 September: "The eligible visitor accommodation properties are hotels, guest houses and hostels." PASC UK Cymru had it on 17 September. The 37 were in the draft laid 6 October. Only the making is new. → Whether it touches you, the Minister answered on 15 September: "Over 12,500 more properties of the relevant types already attract full relief, and that means that they therefore do not pay any non-domestic rates." Welsh relief is full at £6,000 or under, tapering to nil at £12,000, and about 6,980 Welsh Holiday Homes Self Catering assessments sit at £6,000 or under. → So it reaches the 130 or so above £12,000 on no relief, the 700 on the taper, and any third wholly occupied unit at £12,000 or under on one local rating list. Article 12 of the Non-Domestic Rating (Small Business Relief) (Wales) Order 2017 gives relief to "the two qualifying hereditaments with the highest notional values" per ratepayer per list; for the rest "the amount of E ... is 1". Ranking is by notional value, which peaks at £6,000. → Across the linked 2023 and 2026 lists, that category's £0 to £6,000 band fell from about 7,390 to 6,980 while £6,001 to £12,000 roughly doubled, from about 350 to 700. → In 2025-26 those units could apply for 40% under a scheme listing holiday homes as eligible. The 2026-27 scheme pays 15% and excludes properties "used wholly or mainly for the provision of living accommodation as a business". No relief scheme is published for 2027-28. → Read the primary description on each rated Welsh unit. If one is wrong, regulation 4(1)(n) of W.S.I. 2023/350 gives the ground in terms, "the description shown in the list for a hereditament is wrong", with appeal to the Valuation Tribunal for Wales. If it is right, the route is collective, and PASC asked members in September for impact studies to argue self-catering onto the list. Daily Message: a description is the whole of it, and the only part an operator controls is whether their own is right. Which description is on your Welsh units?

  3. 2d ago

    80% Used To Be Enough

    Hitting 80% residential floor area in a Vienna residential zone used to oblige the authority to grant your conversion exemption. Since this morning it does not. Law 40 of 2026 was gazetted on Monday. The building code half came into force today. The register act commences on 1 January 2027. → Section 7a(5) used to read that exemptions are to be granted, on application, by the authority where the building keeps at least 80% residential floor area. It now reads that the building permit procedure applies, with the 80% as a condition of it. The duty to grant has gone from that limb. It survives for the other 3 grounds: degraded residential quality, local amenity facilities or equivalent replacement housing in a residential zone in the same district. → The same sentence narrows the base. It used to exclude the ground floor. It now excludes only a ground floor at or immediately above street level, so where a ground floor sits higher or lower than that, more area counts against you and the 80% is harder to hit. → The test is city-wide now. New section 7g puts conversions of flats into guest accommodation outside the residential zones through the same procedure on the same 80%, and only classic hotels are out of it. The City called that extension its headline on 20 October. → Article IV keeps the old rules for proceedings pending up to 10 October. Building control's own sheet puts it the other way round, that the new rules apply to filings from 11 October. So a Vienna application filed in mid-October is already being judged against a law gazetted yesterday. → Anything on a platform on 1 January has until 1 April 2027 to register and to show its number in the listing. The City has said in terms that the number is required even where you stay under the 90-night allowance, so a single-flat home-share is in the register too. That allowance is itself now 1 flat per person. The 80% used to decide the answer. From today it only gets you into the procedure. If you have a Vienna file open, do you know its filing date against 11 October?

  4. 3d ago

    The 31 Day Line

    Spain's 10% VAT on short lets starts on 1 December, triggered by hotel-type services at any length or by a stay of 30 nights or fewer outside the landlord's own home. The contract rules in the same decree have been in force for 32 days, and they are the bigger problem. Royal decree-law 29/2026 rewrote Spain's urban leases act with effect from 8 October. Article numbers below are the act's, not the decree's. → Article 5(e): a tourist transfer of use stays outside the act, whole dwelling or part of one, but its maximum duration, fixed by the competent administrations, may now in no case exceed 31 days. Above that the letting is inside the act. → Article 9 bis: a temporary housing lease must run more than 31 days and, as a general rule, no more than 12 months. → Article 2: it covers the tenant's housing need while the tenant is temporarily displaced from their habitual residence, for a justified and provable cause. → Article 7: the contract must state that cause expressly and the cause must be real and provable, with the burden of proof on the landlord. No properly provided cause and the contract is subjected to the residential title on habitual terms, back to the day it was formalised. → Article 9 bis again: same destination where the term runs past 12 months unjustified, or where more than 2 such leases between the same parties over the same dwelling run consecutively. A failed temporary lease is not void. Article 9 then extends it compulsorily to 5 years, or 7 for a legal entity. Royal decree-law 28/2026, in force Sunday 15 November, rewrites article 10. A valid notice not to extend, at an expiry once the lease has run those 5 or 7 years, costs the greater of 12 months at the upper value of that dwelling's individualised band in the state housing rental price reference system, or 1 month at the same value per year of residence. No individualised value and both run off the contract rent at the date of the notice. 6 ways out, 5 of which must be set out in the notice. The duty sits on whoever is the landlord under the lease. If you sign with the occupier that is you, not the owner. Manage units without being that party and the decree imposes nothing on you. Neither decree has been ratified. The Permanent Deputation sits Thursday 12 November at 9am and the order paper puts the votes after the debate on both. A correction. On 7 October I counted the 30-day window in article 86(2) from the decrees' date of 6 October and said the vote would fall in the first week of November. The order paper puts it on 12 November. I have not seen the chamber's reasoning and will not guess at it. Work to the order paper. The tax stops at 30 nights and the contract burden starts above 31 days. Is the reason your occupier is away from home written into the contract?

  5. Nov 4

    The Summary Is Narrower

    Spain's tax agency has published its own summary of the new short-let VAT rule, and it leaves out one of the 2 ways the charge bites. From 1 December 2026, a furnished apartment let to the same tenant for 30 nights or fewer stops being exempt from Spanish VAT and moves to the 10 per cent rate. Royal decree-law 29/2026, article 7, all 4 numbered points carrying that date. One exception, sitting on the nights test alone: a let in the dwelling the landlord has as their habitual residence. The nights test is new, and not the only route out of the exemption. Article 7 rewrites article 20.Uno.23 letter e') of the VAT act to bite "cuando concurran cualquiera de las siguientes circunstancias", and it lists 2. The other was in the act as parliament enacted it in December 1992: the exemption falls away where the landlord undertakes to provide any of the "servicios complementarios propios de la industria hotelera": hotel-type services, the act's examples being restaurant, cleaning and laundry, introduced with "tales como", so the list is open. "noches" appears 0 times in the 1992 act. The decree's preamble carries both limbs and joins them: "servicios complementarios propios de la industria hotelera o cuando concurran conjuntamente las condiciones relativas a una estancia no superior a treinta noches". Of the services limb it says "Se mantiene, asimismo, la tributación". The agency's note is that sentence with the first limb and the "o" taken out. It is accurate on what it covers. "industria hotelera" appears 0 times in it. So an operator on a long furnished let whose contract undertakes a service during the stay reads the note and sees nothing that catches them. The VAT act has caught that letting since 1993. This reaches you if you have Spanish stock, a furnished let, and a contract undertaking a service during the stay. Which services qualify turns on the agency's own doctrine, which I have not read today. The decree is also not ratified: its predecessor, 26/2026, was repealed on 2 October, the chambers are dissolved for the 29 November election, and the press expects a Permanent Deputation vote around 12 November. The agency has until 1 December to fix the note. Does your Spanish contract undertake anything during the stay?

  6. Nov 3

    Promised In 2024

    England's short-term let register is expected to begin in March 2027. The full response to the consultation that asked what it should require of you was promised in 2024, and the government's page still says it is coming later this year. That consultation closed on 7 June 2023. Question 12: "Which regulations should be satisfied in order for a property to be registered?" The tick-list ran gas, boiler, fire, electrical and furniture safety, planning, food safety, the Equality Act and an open other category. On verification, it sought views on whether registration should be "entirely self-certified", should "require evidence of certain documentation" or should "require light touch physical checks". Part of it was resolved. On 19 February 2024 the culture department reported that 61% of respondents backed a mandatory national scheme and said it would be mandatory. It also promised "further detail on how the scheme will work later in the year, including a full response to the questions we sought views on in our consultation, the full analysis of responses". The verification question was not resolved. The consultation page is still filed as a consultation outcome, and its outcome section still reads, in bold: "A full response to the consultation will be published later this year." The last published change to that page was on 19 July 2024, to the privacy notice. Then on Monday 2 November, in housing topical questions, Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth, Labour and Co-operative) said the culture department "is bringing out a short-term let registration scheme in March. Unfortunately, due to data protection rules, it cannot be more of a licensing scheme, so owners of properties will not be obliged to file liability insurance or fire safety documents." Nothing I can find published gives data protection as the reason. And those examples are not the same animal. On the government's own guidance for a self-catering let, fire safety reads "You must follow the" fire guidance, as do gas and electrical. Insurance reads "You should have" cover. One is already a duty on you. The other never was. Question 12 was published 1,301 days ago. The verification answer is still outstanding.

  7. Nov 2

    Rated Self-Catering Is In

    On Thursday I said someone needed to get it in writing whether rated holiday lets qualify for the new small business rate relief thresholds. They don't. The answer was already sitting in the annex of the Budget letter. → The annex says the raised SBRR thresholds will take the meaning of "qualifying retail, hospitality or leisure hereditament" from SI 2025/1093. Regulation 3(1)(d) of that instrument lists "self-catering accommodation or holiday home by members of the public" among the qualifying uses. So rated self-catering is in, once the amending regulations appear, which the letter puts "in the coming weeks". England only. → Full relief runs to a rateable value of £12,000 today, tapering out at £15,000. From April 2027 the letter announces £18,000 and £21,000, held until 31 March 2029. A unit at £18,000 pays a full bill now and would pay nothing then. → What decides it is the occupation condition in SI 2023/1250 reg 2: the rateable value under the threshold, and the ratepayer occupies "only one hereditament in England". Two disregards sit under it. Other units count out if each is at or under £2,899 and the aggregate is under £19,999, or £27,999 in London. The letter replaces those aggregates with a single £29,999 for England and does not touch the £2,899. → Separately, reg 2(3) as substituted by SI 2026/17 disregards a unit of any rateable value for 36 months, where occupation began after the main hereditament and on or after 27 November 2025. Before that date it is 12 months, so a unit taken on in early November 2025 is running out now. → So several small units on one site, each separately assessed, can keep full relief. Ten long-held units at £8,000 each cannot. It turns on what the others are rated at and when you took them on. → If you are outside SBRR, the RHL bill freeze is the measure with no rateable value limit, so it reaches the whole portfolio. The annex also says a hereditament vacant on 1 April cannot qualify for the freeze that year. → One to hold lightly. The letter states the 2027/28 RHL multipliers "will be set at 5.2p below the small business and standard multipliers". SI 2026/4 reg 3 specifies them as "D minus 0.05" and "B minus 0.05", in cash, "in relation to financial years beginning on or after 1st April 2026". No amending instrument has been laid. Daily Message: the money is in the thresholds, not the multiplier, and one extra unit can cost you all of it. Which of your English units are rated, and have you checked what they come to together? Links in comments.

  8. Oct 30

    It Happened Again

    Greece has given operators 24 more days to file. Decision A1227, gazette B' 6467 of 26 October, moves the short-stay declaration deadline to 13 November. In translation, it covers declarations whose date of the tenant's departure, or of cancellation of the short-term lease, falls between 1 and 30 September 2026 inclusive. So it goes by the checkout or cancellation date, not the stay. An August stay with a September checkout is in. A September stay with an October checkout is not. File by 13 November and the declaration is not late. Miss it and POL.1187/2017 charges 100 euro per declaration. Never file it at all and the fine is double the rent showing on the platform the day you are audited. It is routine: the same thing happened in October last year and again in July, and the recital giving the reason is last October's sentence with the year changed. Then it was 10 days. This time 24. On the Budget, the separation of property income from the main rates was not done on Wednesday. Finance Act 2026 section 6 did it, for 2027-28, and section 7 of the same Act sets that year's property rates at 22%, 42% and 47%. Wednesday moved those numbers to 24%, 44% and 49%, from 20, 40 and 45 today, for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But 22, 42 and 47 is the statutory rate until a Finance Bill replaces it, and no Finance Bill has been introduced. The Parliament API shows a first reading with no sitting, and the only publications against it are Wednesday's Budget resolutions, which come before the Bill. The offset is real and smaller than it looks. Schedule 1 paragraph 40 pegs finance cost relief to the property basic rate, in ITTOIA sections 274AA(5) and 274C(2), from 2027-28. Relief therefore rises with the rate, but it holds the gap rather than narrowing it: 20 points for a higher-rate payer, 25 for an additional-rate payer. Elsewhere, most of the Dutch implementation of Regulation 2024/1028 commences on Sunday. And Ireland's Bill, published last Friday, would make registering a unit a confirmation that it complies with the Planning and Development Act 2024 and any regulations under it. Daily Message: Greece fixed a deadline 6 days after it had already passed. The 2 extra points announced on Wednesday still need an Act. Is the relief leg in your 2027-28 model, or just the rate?

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STR Unpacked is a short-term rental industry podcast that reviews the key news stories of the week alongside an invited sector expert, providing commentary, insight and practical interpretation of how current developments are shaping the market.

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  • Creator
    Ben
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    179
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Ben
  • Show Website
    STR Unpacked