The Madrid region of Spain will regulate all holiday lets with regulations that will include implementing suitability certificates. These will oblige owners to say where they advertise and to inform the police of who stays in their property.

Changes to the current law dating from 2014 were outlined by Jaime de los Santos, regional minister for Culture, Tourism and Sport, at a recent parliamentary session. “The current law doesn’t provide all the solutions to the new requirements in the sector,” he said.

One of the first changes to be included is the creation of a suitability certificate for holiday lets and the definition of holiday let advertising channels so that they become subject to tourism regulations introduced in 1999 that allow for fines of between €3,000 and €300,000.

Holiday let owners are also subject to new obligations to improve quality in tourism and national security such as giving the police information about people staying in their properties. “The Constitutional Court has allowed for regional authorities to impose this obligation even though national security is the responsibility of the central government,” said De los Santos.

Owners must also take out public liability insurance, have complaint forms available to guests and provide heating in the property that works. There’s also a set ratio of people per square metre “to avoid overcrowding in a small space”.