The Consell de Mallorca will once again offer tourist accommodation for holiday rentals

PalmThe Consell de Mallorca will relaunch the call for applications to allocate tourist rental units after technical issues forced the cancellation of the previous process. The new call for applications will be voted on next Wednesday at the meeting of the governing board of the Consortium of Tourist Accommodation Exchange (CBAT).

The announcement was made this Friday by the island councilor for Tourism, Guillem Ginard, during the inauguration of the 4th Habturalia Mallorca Tourist Rental Forum. As the island council noted, the procedure is based on the Tourism Containment Decree approved by the Balearic Government and does not involve the creation of new listings. The listings to be offered come exclusively from those who have left the pool in recent months or from those who were not selected in the last application period. The Council has not yet specified how many will be allocated, although 654 were planned in the cancelled process.

A draw will replace the order of arrival

The previous call for applications, initially scheduled for last September, was thwarted by several computer problems that prevented the accurate determination of the order in which electronically submitted applications were received. This situation forced the cancellation of the procedure to guarantee the principles of legal certainty, equality, and transparency.

To prevent a recurrence of the problem, the Council will replace the temporal priority criterion—based on the order in which applications are received—with an allocation system by lottery before a notary public. The lottery will be public and broadcast on the Consell's institutional channels.

"The main change is the system that will determine the order in which applications are processed," explained Ginard. A waiting list will also be implemented, valid for six months. During this period, places added to the pool can be allocated as new vacancies arise, although the Council admits it is impossible to know how many will be added.

Sources within the sector, specifically the tourist rental association Habtur, have welcomed the reopening of the pool. Its manager, Maria Gibert, has positively assessed the reactivation of the system because it will allow for the restoration of the turnover of places.

However, the previous process continues to have legal ramifications. A property developer appealed the annulment to the Administrative Court No. 1 of Palma, in a proceeding that other affected parties could join. Meanwhile, the Consell (Island Council) is working with the Majorca Hotel Business Federation (FEHM) to define the system for allocating the places that are part of the pool reserved for hotel establishments. MÁS criticizes the Consell's decision: "A public administration cannot manage a procedure as if it were a raffle."

Catalina Inés Perelló, councilor for MÉS per Mallorca, denounced the island council's decision this Friday. "We are surprised that the Consell de Mallorca has decided to resolve the allocation of tourist rental units through a lottery," she said. "A public administration cannot manage a procedure of this kind in such an arbitrary way, as if it were a raffle," they criticized. "If the Consell is responsible for regulating the tourism sector, what it should do is establish clear criteria linked to the territory, sustainability, and the general interest of Mallorca," they pointed out.