Spain: holiday rental guests refuse to leave and demand €3,000

Holiday rentals: the guest who won't leave and demands €3,000

According to accounts circulating online, one scene keeps repeating itself this summer in holiday apartments in Vigo, Spain: the two-week stay ends, the guest doesn't pack their bags, and the owner receives an offer hard to refuse. Three thousand euros and I'm gone. Otherwise, I stay, and your season goes down the drain. The practice, according to these accounts, has spread among the tourist flats of the Galician city, and has peine a war that seemed settled: that of the small landlord who bought a flat to make it pay and now finds that the two-week tenant has more bargaining power than he does.

The guest who won't leave: the new scam in holiday rentals

The phenomenon is not new in its logic, but it is in its brazenness. The difference between a tenant and a guest is a legal one, and some people are exploiting it. A residential lease protects the tenant with mandatory extensions, long notice periods and an eviction that requires months of proceedings. A holiday rental contract, by contrast, is governed by the rules for rentals other than residential use, and can be terminated far more quickly. Between 24 and 48 hours is the timeframe that, according to one participant in the debate, industry operators work with to evict a guest who refuses to leave. The key is not to confuse the two roles.

The problem is that the average owner has no legal department. They have a flat, a mortgage and an online platform. When the guest digs in, the landlord runs the numbers: lawsuit, lawyer, time, a lost season. And pays up. That calculation turns a textbook extortion into a rational transaction.

The landlord's maths: pay €3,000 or lose the season

This is where the story stops being an anecdote and becomes applied economics. A holiday apartment on the coast in August can be let by the week. The comparison doing the rounds in industry gossip is revealing: a double room in a mid-range hotel runs around €250 a night in high season. A family of four means €500 a day, adding up to €3,500 a week. The holiday flat, meanwhile, is renting out closer to €2,000 a week than €1,500.

With those figures, an owner who pays €3,000 to get the flat back isn't being generous: they're minimising losses. If the season is eight or ten weeks, the extortion amounts to a week and a half of income. The guest knows it. So does the landlord. And the standoff is settled the quick way.

Why demand a €5,000 deposit and payslips from blue-chip employers?

The industry's answer has always been the same: filter. Some argue the solution is to demand deterrent deposits, guarantors and payslips proving solvency. A €5,000 deposit, four guarantors and payslips from a blue-chip company or a civil service job up front. The argument is that a professional deadbeat can't freeze five thousand euros, and a scammer can't easily fake an employment record. The filter, they say, separates the tourist from the predator.

The flaw in that reasoning is that it also separates the ordinary tourist from the owner. A family wanting a week on the coast doesn't have five thousand euros to leave frozen. And the owner who raises the deposit by 50% to cover the risk ends up with an empty flat or with the guest who can actually afford it, who isn't always the most desirable one. Adverse selection is a classic.

Squatting disguised as tourism: the case of Lekeitio

The phenomenon is not limited to Vigo. In Lekeitio, a family with three minor children rented a property for tourist use and, when it was time to leave, refused to go. Their argument: they have nowhere else to go. The case, which has become public, illustrates the most uncomfortable variant of the problem: this isn't a guest who wants money, it's a family turning a stay into a residence. The property, inherited and renovated with great effort, was being let by seasons while the owners used it in summer and Easter week.

The legal difference between a squatter and a guest who won't leave is, in practice, minimal. Both are occupying. The difference lies in how they got in: one with a seasonal contract, the other without. And in how they are evicted: the first requires formal proceedings, and so does the second if there's no swift action.

The holiday rental business under scrutiny

The underlying issue is a change of cycle. For years, buying to let to tourists was a golden goose: double-digit returns, high occupancy and light regulation. That story is cracking. Regulatory pressure, competition from hotels and now guest extortion have turned the business into a risky activity. It is no coincidence that some owners are starting to consider switching back to long-term rentals, with lower returns but fewer shocks.

The paradox is that the phenomenon hits small owners hardest, those who bought a flat to supplement their income, rather than investment funds with legal teams. The landlord who is neither rich nor poor is the one footing the bill. And the one who, according to these accounts, is starting to do the maths on whether it's worth carrying on.

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The exact point where the analysis gets stuck is this: there is no official data on how many cases there are, how much money is being paid out in extortion, or whether the phenomenon is growing or fading with the season. There are only stories, calculations and one uncomfortable certainty: whoever owns the flat has the problem, and whoever holds the keys holds all the cards.