Visit-Montenegro.com : Villa’s are in the Focus of Attention

Budva – Owners of 109 luxurious villas from Herceg Novi to Ulcinj were the first to face the consequences of the massive action of the Republic’s Tourist Inspection, which controls if the objects posses adequate working licenses.

Tourist inspectors have compiled a list of villas which are being advertised on the Internet, following the detailed control of domestic and foreign websites.

“We are already monitoring 109 villas on the coast, with almost 40 of these being in Budva. Inspectors are on the field, controlling if the owners of each villa have proper licenses. Based on our experiences so far, even if they do posses certain documentation, what they have are licenses issued by local authorities and they are mostly related to room-rentals. By this move, owners are misleading tourists, as they are advertising their objects as villas, while they are, in reality, registered like accommodation of the other type”, Head Tourist Inspector, Bozo Vucekovic has warned.

As one of the problems, he also mentions the fact that owners of many villas, especially in Kotor, were foreign nationals. In most cases, these owners are Russians, Irish of English which, as he said, makes job for inspection even more difficult.

“Our action also includes police inspectors who are dealing with foreign nationals. Problem, in this case, is the fact that some of the owners are, at the moment, not in Montenegro. However, we have their addresses abroad, so that all owners would be subjected to controls”, Vucekovic explained.

He announced that second phase of control would be launched after this one, part of which would include inspection of 800 apartments in Montenegro.

“Controls in question would be focused, which does not mean that we would not control those accommodation-capacities whose owners are already known for having legitimate working licenses. If we do go into such object, we will conduct only routine inspections”, Vucekovic added, also announcing that rooms and flats would also be inspected.

“All those who do not have working licenses would be banned by the inspection to continue with their activities, in certain cases we shall introduce on the spot penalties, with our final move being to cut such objects from their water and power supply”, Vucekovic announced.

Action “Register the Accommodation”, he added, is progressing very well, with the number of those who are seeking to legalize their activities increasing by the day.

“Over the past 20 days, we have issued licenses for over 6,000 beds. Positive example, which should be followed by the others, occurred at Bar. This municipality introduced a possibility to issue such licenses at their info-points, which had speeded up the procedure and made it less complicated”, Vucekovic added.

Even Adds at Indian Websites are Under Control

During the past couple of months, according to Vucekovic, Inspection had searched more than 100 foreign and domestic websites, which advertise, in most cases, private accommodation on Montenegrin coastline.

“We have created a list of object which is being rented through websites, which, according to our assumption do not posses adequate working licenses. For instance, one of the villa on Montenegrin coast is being advertised on a website from India”, Vucekovic has concluded.

By: V.L.