Brits aboard accused of running illegal hotels in Bulgaria

Bulgarian authorities have claimed that Brits are buying up local homes and illegally turning them into hotels.

Authorities in the Veliko Tarnovo region have said that British owners of three- and four-storey houses have placed adverts on the internet for hotel services.

But the officials say the owners have no permits to run hotel businesses and that the British people are also undercutting official hotels by offering rock bottom prices for their "rooms".

But Dessislava Zaevska, the head of the Municipal Economy division in Veliko Tarnovo's municipal authority adds that the task is difficult.

"Bulgaria still doesn't have a unified hotel registry, so it is hard to track those people down. We have started looking for ads online to catch the British people who are breaking the law,” said Zaevska.

Zaevska said another problem was that Brits when confronted claim the people staying in their houses are friends, which is hard to disprove.

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By Jim Glenn

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