STR Unpacked

About STR Unpacked

STR Unpacked is a short-term rental industry podcast that reviews the key news stories of the week alongside an invited sector expert, providing commentary, insight and practical interpretation of how current developments are shaping the market.

Publisher

Ben

Category

business · news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 Feb 2026

Latest episode

11 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

179 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Nov 2026

   Wales Drew A Line

   In Welsh business rates the description on your rating list entry decides which multiplier you pay. From April 2027 the list of qualifying descriptions widens from 5 to 37, and self-catering is not on it. → The Welsh Ministers made W.S.I. 2026/133 on Wednesday 4 November, in force 1 April 2027. The Senedd approved the draft on 3 November, 45 for, 0 against, 48 abstentions. → Among the 37 are "hotel and premises", "guest house and premises", "hostel and premises" and "inn and premises". The Valuation Office's description, "Self Catering Holiday Unit and premises", is not, and the list is closed. The lower multiplier sits "30.3% below the standard multiplier". The same instrument also takes the higher multiplier to 4.2% above standard above £100,000, with no accommodation carve-out. → None of it is new. Elin Jones told the Senedd on 15 September: "The eligible visitor accommodation properties are hotels, guest houses and hostels." PASC UK Cymru had it on 17 September. The 37 were in the draft laid 6 October. Only the making is new. → Whether it touches you, the Minister answered on 15 September: "Over 12,500 more properties of the relevant types already attract full relief, and that means that they therefore do not pay any non-domestic rates." Welsh relief is full at £6,000 or under, tapering to nil at £12,000, and about 6,980 Welsh Holiday Homes Self Catering assessments sit at £6,000 or under. → So it reaches the 130 or so above £12,000 on no relief, the 700 on the taper, and any third wholly occupied unit at £12,000 or under on one local rating list. Article 12 of the Non-Domestic Rating (Small Business Relief) (Wales) Order 2017 gives relief to "the two qualifying hereditaments with the highest notional values" per ratepayer per list; for the rest "the amount of E ... is 1". Ranking is by notional value, which peaks at £6,000. → Across the linked 2023 and 2026 lists, that category's £0 to £6,000 band fell from about 7,390 to 6,980 while £6,001 to £12,000 roughly doubled, from about 350 to 700. → In 2025-26 those units could apply for 40% under a scheme listing holiday homes as eligible. The 2026-27 scheme pays 15% and excludes properties "used wholly or mainly for the provision of living accommodation as a business". No relief scheme is published for 2027-28. → Read the primary description on each rated Welsh unit. If one is wrong, regulation 4(1)(n) of W.S.I. 2023/350 gives the ground in terms, "the description shown in the list for a hereditament is wrong", with appeal to the Valuation Tribunal for Wales. If it is right, the route is collective, and PASC asked members in September for impact studies to argue self-catering onto the list. Daily Message: a description is the whole of it, and the only part an operator controls is whether their own is right. Which description is on your Welsh units?

2. 

   10 Nov 2026

   80% Used To Be Enough

   Hitting 80% residential floor area in a Vienna residential zone used to oblige the authority to grant your conversion exemption. Since this morning it does not. Law 40 of 2026 was gazetted on Monday. The building code half came into force today. The register act commences on 1 January 2027. → Section 7a(5) used to read that exemptions are to be granted, on application, by the authority where the building keeps at least 80% residential floor area. It now reads that the building permit procedure applies, with the 80% as a condition of it. The duty to grant has gone from that limb. It survives for the other 3 grounds: degraded residential quality, local amenity facilities or equivalent replacement housing in a residential zone in the same district. → The same sentence narrows the base. It used to exclude the ground floor. It now excludes only a ground floor at or immediately above street level, so where a ground floor sits higher or lower than that, more area counts against you and the 80% is harder to hit. → The test is city-wide now. New section 7g puts conversions of flats into guest accommodation outside the residential zones through the same procedure on the same 80%, and only classic hotels are out of it. The City called that extension its headline on 20 October. → Article IV keeps the old rules for proceedings pending up to 10 October. Building control's own sheet puts it the other way round, that the new rules apply to filings from 11 October. So a Vienna application filed in mid-October is already being judged against a law gazetted yesterday. → Anything on a platform on 1 January has until 1 April 2027 to register and to show its number in the listing. The City has said in terms that the number is required even where you stay under the 90-night allowance, so a single-flat home-share is in the register too. That allowance is itself now 1 flat per person. The 80% used to decide the answer. From today it only gets you into the procedure. If you have a Vienna file open, do you know its filing date against 11 October?

3. 

   9 Nov 2026

   The 31 Day Line

   Spain's 10% VAT on short lets starts on 1 December, triggered by hotel-type services at any length or by a stay of 30 nights or fewer outside the landlord's own home. The contract rules in the same decree have been in force for 32 days, and they are the bigger problem. Royal decree-law 29/2026 rewrote Spain's urban leases act with effect from 8 October. Article numbers below are the act's, not the decree's. → Article 5(e): a tourist transfer of use stays outside the act, whole dwelling or part of one, but its maximum duration, fixed by the competent administrations, may now in no case exceed 31 days. Above that the letting is inside the act. → Article 9 bis: a temporary housing lease must run more than 31 days and, as a general rule, no more than 12 months. → Article 2: it covers the tenant's housing need while the tenant is temporarily displaced from their habitual residence, for a justified and provable cause. → Article 7: the contract must state that cause expressly and the cause must be real and provable, with the burden of proof on the landlord. No properly provided cause and the contract is subjected to the residential title on habitual terms, back to the day it was formalised. → Article 9 bis again: same destination where the term runs past 12 months unjustified, or where more than 2 such leases between the same parties over the same dwelling run consecutively. A failed temporary lease is not void. Article 9 then extends it compulsorily to 5 years, or 7 for a legal entity. Royal decree-law 28/2026, in force Sunday 15 November, rewrites article 10. A valid notice not to extend, at an expiry once the lease has run those 5 or 7 years, costs the greater of 12 months at the upper value of that dwelling's individualised band in the state housing rental price reference system, or 1 month at the same value per year of residence. No individualised value and both run off the contract rent at the date of the notice. 6 ways out, 5 of which must be set out in the notice. The duty sits on whoever is the landlord under the lease. If you sign with the occupier that is you, not the owner. Manage units without being that party and the decree imposes nothing on you. Neither decree has been ratified. The Permanent Deputation sits Thursday 12 November at 9am and the order paper puts the votes after the debate on both. A correction. On 7 October I counted the 30-day window in article 86(2) from the decrees' date of 6 October and said the vote would fall in the first week of November. The order paper puts it on 12 November. I have not seen the chamber's reasoning and will not guess at it. Work to the order paper. The tax stops at 30 nights and the contract burden starts above 31 days. Is the reason your occupier is away from home written into the contract?