After seven months, Jesús Nebreda, 38, was able to return home. On November 19, Madrid City Hall closed the unlicensed hostel that was located at the top of his villa in the Plaza de Santo Domingo, in the heart of the center, and that made his life easier on the April day that fell on his living room while he was sleeping. What is the cause? Some work that the hotelier carried out, also illegally, frayed and overloaded the wrought wooden beams that separate the roof of Nebreda’s house from the ground which trampled tourists who stayed there to spend a few days in the Spanish capital. Despite this serious incident and the fact that a closure measure was imposed on this establishment since 2024, it continued to operate without interruption until EL PAÍS revealed it in a report published in November.
This same day saw things happen that seemed incompatible. The planning delegate, Borja Carabante, when questioned by the press, responded that the hostel was not closed because the businessman had allegations about the order to close the Ayuntamiento in 2024. “Luego is worth the neighborhood order, but the last extreme has not been reached,” the popular council wrote on October 21. However, as you may have discovered this periodical now, just a few hours after saying these words, it seemed to reach you. The Activities Agency, which depends on the government zone of Carabante, has opened an expedient for the forced execution of this cessation order. The duño closed it or went to the local police to close the door, as ended up happening every few months, on November 19th.
On the same day that the report was published, Madrid City Hall included in its file the formal request that Madrid had presented to request that measures be taken once and for all. Eduardo Rubiño, spokesperson for the functions of the municipal group, believes that the City Hall has been “marreando la partridge” for months and that “it only acts against illegal tourist accommodation if it feels political pressure”.
Jesús Nebreda, who finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel after months of removing heaven and earth to get his house back, shares the same perception as Rubiño. “I feel very relieved and very grateful ―des―, but I also believe that if I wasn’t too busy dealing with the press, we would remain the same.” “Madrid City Hall will not act as long as there is no pressure to do so,” he protests.
However, Nebreda still could not return to her home because there were still new pillars in the room that firefighters had placed after the fall to form a temporary structure capable of supporting the weight of the cliff floor.
The next step is to approve to the board of directors a deposit to repair the structure, since the owner of the inn, for the moment, has refused to pay, understanding that the loss is not his fault. “The derrumbe has nothing to do with the Cierre order,” I told this periodical. After the work to rehabilitate the building, which Madrid City Hall requires for security reasons, the next step, comments Nebreda, will be to demand the return of the money saved for the rest of the money.
The hostel above the house had 10 rooms and 10 completely new bathrooms. Nebreda blames the work that was interrupted to install them on the fact that the beams were rotting from humidity. “There has never been a major water leak until this date,” he specifies. The reason for this overload, according to the report written by the City Hall experts behind the spill, was that the owner had thickened the inn’s floor by 15 centimeters to install a layer of pipes that radiated heat.
Nebreda’s case is probably one of the most extreme examples of a very common situation. At the end of 2024, there were more than 15,200 tourist floors operating illegally in Madrid. In other words, out of 10 accommodations located on platforms like Booking or Airbnb, they do not have an operating license. The data is only an estimate from the Department of Consumer Affairs, but the exact figure is unknown due to the difficulty of locating households operating on the banks of the law.
Faced with this figure, Madrid City Hall has only imposed 92 sanctions throughout 2024 against vacant apartments operated without the authorization that authorizes them. At that time there were only 1,131 houses of this type in operation that had the correct visa from municipal inspectors and, therefore, with all the safety guarantees.
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