“To want Barcelona is to share it with the world” or “we help you to make ends meet” were the advertising messages of airbnb that seduced thousands of Barcelonans and led them to rent their homes to tourists. Many of them did not have a license but thought that lodging occasionally or in the domestic sphere (in their own home) was feasible. Until the municipal sanctions arrived (of up to 60,001 euros) and they found themselves “in the middle” of the open crusade between the platform and the Barcelona City Council pursuing illegality. Therefore, an entity that represents them, JUST, sued Airbnb for unfair and deceptive conduct, among others. The case has come to court this Wednesday.
As this newspaper advanced, the embargoes and fines led to the mobilization of affected individuals, who constituted ACABA. They faced a double battle. First, so that the council does not apply the same standards to these small owners as to the multi-owners who have made a business out of illegality. And second, to end the tactics of Airbnb Marketing Services SL (AMS), which they accuse of having encouraged tourist rental for days without requiring (previously) the official registration number of the activity, as it has a license. Its advertising would encourage the exercise of hostswithout warning of these legal requirements, they argue.
In the first contest, the group reached an agreement with the council and stopped the wave of paid executions. All the associates left the activity as soon as they learned of the illegality, and had carried it out very punctually in their own homes. As they recounted, they did it during a vacation, in a part of their home to have extra income, or in other circumstances to obtain extra income that they needed, but not as a business, a spokesman insists.
In the lawsuit –which claims a compensation of 2.36 million, at a rate of 220,000 euros for each of the 118 associates at that time– it is estimated that until 2018 sanctions had been imposed on Barcelona users amounting to almost 230 million euros, although some have been annulled for violation of rights and fundamental guarantees. “Under the guise of an unprofessional collaborative practice, the defendant has been carrying out serious practices disloyal against their own consumers and that they are putting thousands of people at high risk, many of them with low incomes and in a vulnerable situation”, says lawyer Dylan Tarín in the documentation he presented at the commercial court number 10, where the trial took place.
“It’s important because at the legal It is discussed whether Airbnb should respond in Spain and not in Ireland and if they have committed unfair competition by promoting an unregulated activity knowing that they would sanction users”, they value from ACABA.
This Wednesday declared a Municipal person responsible for inspections, experts from both parties and a legal representative of the platform. However, the then general manager in Spain has not come as a witness. He will be summoned again to testify in a couple of months, after which the conclusions will be presented for the sentence.
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The almost one hundred pages of the demand They were previously answered with almost 200 others by Airbnb Marketing Services SL, who requested that it be dismissed as they consider it “unfair“, and without “factual, evidentiary or normative basis”. In addition, they maintain that AMS “does not own or manage” and only assumes the tasks of marketing and advertising, being the matrix of the activity in Ireland. This point has been refuted by Tarín in the session, which maintains that the advertising is illegal and that Airbnb Spain must be responsible for its users in the country, in addition to being required not to advertise homes without a license.
Tourist accommodation in flats for days in Barcelona has generated rivers of ink and debate since its emergence. It represents a multimillion-dollar business for this and other reservation portals, has led the city council to prohibit its growth beyond the 9,600 licenses granted (turned into the subject of speculation, often in the hands of multi-owners) and has generated a parallel illegal market that during years it proliferated due to the ease of its promotion on portals such as Airbnb. Not to mention the cross demands between the multinational and the administrations.