The Supreme Court upholds that Palma Town Hall can ban tourist rentals in multi-family dwellings in Palma
The Chamber of Litigation of the Supreme Court has accepted the appeal filed by the Palma City Council against the decision of the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB) that annulled at the request of the tourist rental employers (Habtur) the agreement of the municipal plenary in 2018 that prevented tourist rentals in multi-family dwellings. In April 2018, Palma City Council announced a ban on tourist rentals in multi-family dwellings, following the proposed single zone for Palma.
The magistrates understand that the decision of the TSJIB implies in practice converting all the flats in Palma into potential tourist accommodation and thus consider that this decision exceeds the possibilities allowed by the autonomous regulation.
According to the Supreme Court, in order to make such a decision, the TSJIB magistrates would first have had to take the regional regulations to the Constitutional Court. In other words, the Supreme Court does not go into the substance of the TSJIB’s ruling, which was to assess whether or not this prohibition is justified. The new decision is based on a formal question: the zoning carried out by the Palma Town Hall cannot be annulled without first questioning the regional regulations that allowed it.
The Supreme Court also refers to other similar rulings in cases such as Barcelona’s housing regulations and also to a European court ruling last year.
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