El Medano residents fight back claiming ‘Most holiday lets in our town are operating illegally’
Residents in El Médano in the south of Tenerife, have launched a community campaign claiming that the majority of holiday let properties in the town are operating illegally, regardless of whether they are displaying an official VV registration number or not.
The Barquera Neighbourhood Platform began placing posters around the town centre yesterday (Tuesday) to encourage people to check the legal status of local holiday rental apartments and report those that do not comply with regulations.
The posters, now visible in dozens of shop windows and on residential buildings, include QR codes linking directly to official complaint channels run by the Canary Islands Government and Granadilla de Abona Council.
According to spokesperson Victoria Colmoner, the campaign is a response to “a situation that has reached breaking point”, motivating residents to inform the public about their rights and how to act. She stresses that the regional holiday rental registry “only issues a number and a sign, but does not make a property legal if it fails to meet the required standards, and most do not, with or without a sign”.
The group highlights the scale of the issue: El Médano, with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, now hosts around 8,500 tourist beds spread across nearly 2,000 registered holiday homes. This level of pressure, Colmoner says, is affecting everyday life of people who live in the town.
The posters also remind residents of local regulations. Under Granadilla de Abona’s municipal rules, holiday rentals are banned in buildings where access is via shared areas such as entrances, stairways, or lifts, a condition that would render many existing properties non-compliant.
The platform adds that communities of owners can act collectively, as there is a limit on the percentage of holiday rentals permitted in each building. Through decisions taken in residents’ meetings, they say it is possible to reduce or block holiday rental activity where the situation remains irregular.
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