“The rental market for residential apartments in Morocco remains unstructured, and very often obeys the jungle law. He also knows a great disorder which is mainly manifested by the domination of street brokers on this market, especially in areas with a strong tourist appeal, which take advantage of the summer season to impose exorbitant prices on consumers, “said Hespress Bouazza Kharrati, president of the Moroccan Federation of Consumer Rights. According to it, the disorder that this sector is experiencing also extends to the digital space, where, on the occasion of the arrival of the summer holidays, proliferate remarkablely false offers on social networks, promoting attractive images of furnished apartments with care to attract customers and push them to book.
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But once there, “they discover that the reserved apartment has nothing to do with the photos published, which constitutes an act of scam,” explained Kharrati, stressing “the need for the intervention of the competent authorities to regulate this area, and put an end to the disorder that reigns there”. He recommends the creation of approved mediation agencies supervising the activity of these brokers and subjecting them to monitoring and legal responsibility. According to him, this would contribute to their integration into the formal economy on the one hand, and to the protection of consumer rights, on the other hand.
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“Tourist accommodation through the rental of residential apartments continues to experience a certain form of anarchy which worsens during the summer period, despite a government orientation aimed at regulating and supervising it,” adds Abdelkrim Chafii, president of the Regional Federation of Consumer Rights in the Souss-Massa region. According to him, the digital platforms see, during this period, proliferate fraudulent and false offers presenting apartments in high specifications to encourage the customer to pay a deposit, while, in most cases, the reserved apartment is not the one presented on these platforms.
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These fraudulent practices produce a negative impact on tax revenue. “Many owners of apartments rental do not pay the obligations and taxes due to the State, linked to the exercise of the rental activity, whether daily or monthly, which leads to a drop in tax revenue, and thus deprives the public treasury of important financial resources which could have been used to develop public services,” said Chafii.
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He invited consumers to file complaints from the competent authorities against these crooks. He also noted that “the problems that this sector knows are not limited to the damage suffered by the consumer or the State, but also include a safe risk, insofar as the lack of registration by these brokers, as well as by certain owners, information from the tenants and the non-tenification of their identities using official documents can be exploited by certain fugitives or terrorist cells to hide in these apartments, Obvious the urgent need to accelerate the regulation of this unstructured sector. »»
