Homestay owners continue to worry over classification procedures, Real Estate News, ET Real Estate

Kochi: Homestay The association has written to the tourism minister and secretary asking them to do away with procedures that make it difficult for homestays to get classification. His main concern is to get the resident certificate from the local bodies.

Homestay owners have to submit eight documents to get the classification certificate. Homestays are classified into three for government certification – Class A (Diamond House), Class B (Gold House), and Class C (Silver House) based on a set of predefined score criteria. The classification is for functional homestays and for two years.

Two of the eight documents – owner certificate and resident certificate – need to be collected from the LSG department. While owner certificate is available online, for resident certificate, one has to apply offline as per Revised Building Rules2019.

Here’s the catch. As per the revised rules, the house owners who already have an approved scheme and have paid taxes will have to get a new map prepared and submit the new map of their house to the LSGD. In other words, if a room in a homestay is set aside for a guest (domestic or foreign tourist), Rs 25 per square meter and Rs 35 per square meter will have to be paid if the said structure is in a panchayat, as per the amended rules. . square meter if it is in Municipal Corporation, which comes to about Rs 15,000, to the licensee preparing the new plan, apart from miscellaneous expenses.

“Instead of ensuring ease of doing business, these processes will lead to more expenditure and time due to which homestay owners may avoid going for classification, which has actually picked up after the government relaxed norms last year.” MP Shivdathandirector, Kerala Homestay and Tourism Society.

On June 3, 2022, the government decided to exempt homestay owners from seeking NOC from local bodies for classification or reclassification. In the past, the owners had alleged difficulty in obtaining NOC for obtaining the classification certificate. “And now this is the new thing which is creating hurdles for homestay owners,” said Sivadathan.