Buying a hotel room in Spain: the “condohotels”

Abstract

Purpose

The “condohotel” is a type of condominium, which is most commonly used in tourist buildings, such as hotels, where investors can buy a private room/unit and offer it to a hotel company, which manages the “condohotel” and offers the units to guests through an accommodation contract. According to the Spanish regions called autonomous communities that provide a special legal framework for “condohotels”, room owners are also permitted to use their units for a specific period. However, residential use is prohibited. In exchange, the hotel company pays a part of its profit to those owners. This paper aims to analyse how the “condohotel” regime works in Spain and what the main weaknesses are that explain its limited success, despite the importance of the real estate and tourist sectors and the popularity of the condominium regime in this country.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the complex concept of “condohotel” is explained. The role of the participating parties is examined along with the supplementary legal regimes that are applied to identify the reasons why it has had a limited success and how its regulation could be improved.

Findings

This paper identifies the changes that are needed to address the relative failure of this regime in Spain, as “condohotels” can be an attractive type of alternative accommodation for someone interested in hotel services or for retired people who want to stay some months of the year in the beautiful and sunny Spain with all the amenities of a hotel or for those who need to live in a place for a few months for work reasons.

Research limitations/implications

This paper identifies different contracts to cede private units to hotel company. However, further research is necessary to identify which contract is the best option or if it could be a mixture of them.

Originality/value

The “condohotels” facilitate becoming an owner of a hotel room or unit of another tourist establishment under the condominium regime. However, the unit can only be used for tourist purposes. Despite this limitation, “condohotels” might potentially be used not only as a second residence or a tourist solution but also as a temporal housing solution or as an investment to obtain some extra income. Thus, it is worthwhile improving the legal framework and offering more legal certainty to the parties that intervene in this regime.

Citation

Caballé Fabra, G. (2018), "Buying a hotel room in Spain: the “condohotels”", Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 172-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPPEL-05-2018-0012