Mykonos: 995,000 euro fine for a businessman with 199 undeclared “Airbnb”

A “property manager” was renting out 199 luxury villas in Mykonos on “Airbnb-style” short-term leases, but had not registered them in the Register of Short-Term Accommodation Properties. The competent authorities that investigated the case in 2023, imposed a fine-mammoth fine of 995,000 euros (a fine of 5,000 euros per property) as provided for by Law 4446/2016 in force at the time (with a new law the fines became even more severe).

The businessman to whom the investigations led, claimed that he is not the owner of the property and that the act imposing the fine does not even mention the specific properties. He claims that he is in the business of providing customer finding and real estate brokerage services. At the same time, he appealed to the Administrative Court of Appeal of Athens against the fine, but the court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction and referred the case to the Council of State (CoE). An appeal was also made to the Directorate for Dispute Resolution of ADEA, where the businessman argued that the owners of the properties are responsible. The authorities, however, located the headquarters of the business, cross-checked the bank transfers, rejected the argument that the individual owners were responsible, classified the businessman as a sub-tenant and upheld the fine of €995,000.

The businessman in his appeal points out that “as the owners of the disputed properties had not made a Declaration of Information on Lease of Real Estate, declaring him as the manager, in accordance with the provisions of para. 4 of Article 111 of Law 4446/2016, they themselves are the managers of the properties”. That is, he claims that the “managers” of the 199 properties are their owners, who have proceeded to issue the relevant AMAs and are responsible for further actions under the relevant legislation. To confirm his claim, he provided the authorities with the names of the alleged owners/managers of the properties and the property registration numbers (PRNs).

The investigation conducted by the Control Directorate of the ADEA found that the applicant was renting out 199 properties (luxury accommodation in Mykonos) through short-term leases under the sharing economy in September 2022. In particular, he posted the properties on a website without indicating the registration number in the Register of Short Term Accommodation Properties. From the same website it was possible to book the property and pay for it via bank accounts in Belgium and the UK, as well as by bank transfer.

It was concluded that the fine of EUR 995,000 was rightly imposed and therefore his claim is not accepted.

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