Latest / STR Unpacked / Your Renewal, Not The Designation
Transcript
- Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short-term rental bulletin on the 24th of August. So the Highlands Council in Scotland says a control area will not affect existing short-term rent. Its own report says something more precise than that, and the difference is worth, I think, an hour of your time this week if this market is in your area. So, what's going on here? On Monday the 17th, the City of Inverness Committee voted to recommend that a control area for Inverness City must be progressed and that rural Invernessia be folded into a proposed Highland Rural Control Area. It goes to the Economy and Infrastructure Committee next, and then to the Scottish ministers, whose approval is required before any designation exists. The consultation numbers come from a report CIA 3526. On the city, 202 responses, 62% in favor, 34% against. Amongst residents and businesses, 84% in favor, amongst operators, 86% against. Officers note that the category of respondent is dominant. Predictor for the answer to almost every other question, which is a careful way of saying the two sides are not describing the same town. Now, the part that matters operationally is paragraph 5.3. Now that confirms a control area cannot apply retrospectively, and that existing operators can apply for a certificate of lawfulness where certainty is required. Paragraph eleven point six goes further. Once a control area is in force, the licensing regime has to take account of it. And operators applying for a new or renewed license inside the area must show they hold planning permission and or have applied for it or have evidence that they do not need it. The designation does not reach back. Your license renewal does. The the Highlands have also opened a short let development inquiry with no application fee, the planning service will tell you whether you need a material change. So 89 operators used it during the consultation and they're still opened. So three days later in Argyll and Butte, the ASSC warned that control area plans there carry serious legal exposure and asked the council to pause a consultation that is not due until late autumn. So nobody is asking you to prove your planning status yet, but that is the cheapest moment to establish it. The evidence you gather before the designation is worth more than the objection you file after it. That is your bulletin for Monday and I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you for watching.