Airbnb is also trying to make life difficult for the largest scheme of illegal tourist apartments ever seen in Barcelona. Sources from the platform assure that they have already eliminated the nearly 80 ads that this organization had posted on its portal. At this time, Airbnb technicians are also working to remove the host profiles of these listings as soon as possible. What happens is that deleting these profiles entails greater difficulties. Apparently it is a matter of a few days. These measures will not prevent this network from posting new ads and profiles, but it will become increasingly difficult for it to hide its ways.
La Vanguardia reported this Wednesday that the City Council is finalizing a sanction of up to 600,000 euros against the alleged mastermind of a network that controls at least 71 illegal tourist apartments, which in this way makes nearly two million euros each year.
The report prepared by City Hall inspectors states that this organization “constantly removes the advertisements and republishes them to make the inspection work difficult, even though they are easily identifiable because they use the same photographs. From May 2017 to the present, the City Council detected 356 advertisements related to this plot.” The network also once posted ads on Booking, but they were blocked months ago. Municipal sources add that more or less every month the management of the Consistory's inspection services sends to the different platforms that offer vacation rentals the lists of advertisements for irregular accommodation detected so that they can be taken down.
“Once Airbnb learned of the existence of this case,” says a spokesperson for the multinational, “the ads were removed from the platform and a specialized internal team investigated these profiles. “Airbnb has a data sharing agreement with Barcelona City Council and takes appropriate measures when necessary.” The portal hopes to soon remove the profiles of the four hosts behind these ads. The problem is that the removal of profiles leads to the suspension of reservations already paid. Hence, the process involves a longer delay than the withdrawal of the advertisements.
These profiles came into operation in 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2023, adding nearly 3,000 reviews. User complaints, which are not few, refer above all to charges imposed for arriving too early or too late. Some regret that during their stay the police showed up and discovered that they were staying in an illegal apartment.
In Barcelona, the number of individuals who dare to rent properties for days without the corresponding permit continues to decrease. The pressure from municipal inspectors in recent years was definitive. For some time now, those who still carry out these practices tend to be completely professionalized multi-offenders, people who make a living by breaking the law. In Catalonia, to post an ad on Airbnb, you must indicate your license number. Violators often use legal accommodation numbers. In this way they go unnoticed for a few weeks, until the City Council's surveillance programs detect the duplicity. Those responsible for the largest plot of illegal tourist apartments ever seen in Barcelona, however, what they did was directly click on the exempt box, as if their apartment were a hotel or they were offering rentals of more than 30 nights. The detail illustrates the impudence and confidence with which this framework was developed.
