Tourist Licences

Good idea and as long as it’s properly regulated should work well.

Proper order

Guardamar have always had some restrictions over who they allowed to have Compatibility Certificates.  The Tourist License should only be used for whole property lets anyway, not just part of the property, unless established that the two parts of the property are fully independent of each other.  

Since July 2018, all Town Halls have the ability to restrict the number of Licenses or the locations in which they are granted within their municipality, they can even do a complete ban.  If the Town Hall won't issue the Compatibility Certificate then the owner cannot apply for a Tourist License (which is not issued by the Town Hall).  

However, having picked up messages over the years from people who were in the process of buying, or even in some cases just purchased, a property that couldn't obtain a TL, despite informing the estate agent that was an important aspect of their search, I sadly have little faith in all estate agents passing on this information to prospective buyers.

Whole properties yes, but this decision states detached properties in their own grounds. Considering the number of semi, terraced, quads, apartments etc it makes a big difference. 

I know it will make a difference, but at least there is clarity on what properties they will and won't consider issuing a Compatibility Certificates for, so people know in advance.  Guardamar have never issued them to everyone who wanted one but it was always a bit hit and miss as to whether a property would or would not be allowed one.  The Certificate is needed before an owner can apply for the actual License, which isn't issued by the Town Hall but by the office for tourism in Alicante.

Indeed, and therein lies the issue.

I suspect Estate Agents will still advertise properties with "good rental potential" in the Guardamar area even knowing that the possibility of legally letting that property out as a tourist let is next to nil.

As ever, purchasers are likely to be unaware of either (a) the requirements around tourist letting and/or (b) in the case of Guardamar the additional restrictions/conditions on getting the tourist licence.

I've been looking at buying a further property in Spain for various reasons but it would be let out and I'm pretty much taking the approach it needs to have the tourist licence in place already which probably removes >90% of properties advertised from the equation. It would be nice if you could filter on the EAs sites on whether it has a tourist licence but that doesn't strike me as likely to happen any time soon!