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PROPERTY

Why do many Spanish homes have bidets?

Whether you hate them or love them, one thing’s for certain – you can still find lots of bidets in Spain. There's even a Spanish city where it's mandatory by law for these ceramic washbowls for your privates to be installed in new homes.

Why do many Spanish homes have bidets?
Why do so many homes in Spain have bidets?

Bidets were invented by the French during the 1600s, but while they are now virtually non-existent in France, in Spain they’re still in many homes.

If you’re not very familiar with bidets, you might make the mistake of thinking they’re for washing feet (or a great place for hand washing clothes), but in fact they are specifically for washing your nether regions after going to the toilet, instead of using toilet paper. You sit on them, turn on the tap, wash your bum, you get the picture. 

They were mainly introduced for hygiene purposes and throughout the ages, many doctors have championed their use. 

It’s not only in Spain where bidets are popular, they’re also widely used in Italy, Portugal, Greece, some South American countries, Japan and India. That means that for a great number of foreigners who move to Spain, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen a bidet. 

Bidets were first introduced in Spain in the 1960s, during the Franco era, and soon became a must-have luxury.

READ ALSO: Why are Spanish homes so dark?

In the 1970s and 1980s, the bidet became standard in most households in Spain and was just as common as a sink or a toilet. They even became mandatory in apartments with four or more bedrooms according to the official public protection system. It was also obligatory for social housing between 1976 and 1978.

During the 1980s, it was very common for most hotels in Spain to have bidets too.  

But after the 1980s, the popularity of bidets began to wane. Bathrooms started to get smaller and even baths were replaced by simple showers. Even so, they remained in many Spanish households until the early 2000s. 

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of bidets in Spain fell by 60 percent.

READ ALSO: Why do so many Spanish homes have ‘popcorn’ textured walls?

This means that bidets are much more common in older properties in Spain, but you may still find them in homes where the bathrooms have not been refurbished recently. 

bidet spain
Many Spanish homeowners nowadays are prepared to sacrifice their bidets for the sake of having extra space in their bathrooms. Photo: Mariakray/Pixabay
 

Bidets are still law in one place in Spain

There is one place in Spain where the bidet remains mandatory and where you’ll see them everywhere. This is the city of Zamora in Castilla y León (western Spain). Here bidets are still a requirement for bathrooms in all new builds.

This is the only city in Spain where the installation of bidets is still mandatory by law, a rule which has been in place since 1986.

These requirements were maintained when the plan was renewed in 2001 and again in 2011 with the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) law, which is currently in force.

Increase in popularity again during the pandemic

While in most other places of Spain, the presence of bidets is disappearing, they did become important once more during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Due to the lack of toilet paper available in supermarkets, Google searches for bidets increased by 1,000 percent, particularly in Spain.

Could there be a resurgence of bidets or was this just a trend during the pandemic?

We may still see bidets in Spain for a few more years yet. ¡Viva el bidé! (Long live the bidet!)

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PROPERTY

Spain considers banning tourist lets in residential buildings

The Spanish government has announced it's studying the possibility of prohibiting tourist apartments in residential buildings where property owners live.

Spain considers banning tourist lets in residential buildings

The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, announced this Tuesday that the Government is studying a reform of the Horizontal Property Law in order to allow property owners to prohibit tourist apartments in their residential buildings.

In Spain, each building has what’s known as a community of neighbours, referred to La Comunidad or Comunidad de Vecinos in Spanish, and essentially the Spanish government is considering giving them veto power over tourist apartments in their buildings.

READ ALSO: ‘La comunidad’: What property owners in Spain need to know about homeowners’ associations

The announcement was stated in an interview on Telecinco, in which Rodríguez stated that this move comes as a consequence of recent supreme court rulings on tourist apartments in Oviedo in Asturias and San Sebastián in the Basque Country.

In the rulings, the magistrates concluded that the rental of housing for tourist use is an economic activity, and agreed that communities of owners in two separate buildings could ban tourist rentals in several apartments.  

“It will be the neighbourhood communities that will also be able to participate in these types of decisions, because this phenomenon, which is not exclusive to our country, affects the entire world and the main capitals in Europe,” explained the minister.

READ ALSO – UPDATE: Which cities in Spain have new restrictions on tourist rentals?

Recently, Rodríguez has criticised that the proliferation of tourist apartments causes problems for locals, that it stops them from being able to access decent housing and raises the price of rentals.

She praised the regions which have taken steps to try and put a stop to this and gave the recent example of Barcelona City Council, which announced last Friday that it would eliminate all tourist apartments by the end of 2028.

She believes this move in Barcelona “will benefit citizens who want to live in their city, who do not want it to be a theme park and who prioritise the right to access housing over economic interests”.

Spain’s Horizontal Property Law , which was modified once in 2019, already states that it “requires a favourable vote of three-fifths of the total number of owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas”. This means that already owners have a big say in whether tourist licences can be granted to apartments in their buildings.

However, the particular wording of the law has been the subject of much legal controversy and judicial interpretation. The reason is because the wording of the law only mentions the possibility for communities to “limit or condition” tourist use, but they do not have the power to “prohibit” since the law does not expressly say so.

Several regions have their own rulings through regional courts, but this new announcement aims to make it universal across the board in Spain and ensure that there’s no room for misinterpretation.

Rodríguez is set to meet this afternoon with the governing board of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and the Housing and Tourism Commissions to address this matter and come to a decision. 

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