I think the punishment needs to continue to flow uphill, and start hitting AirBnB directly. If I run an operation that continuously provides safe harbor to people knowingly and willfully breaking the rules, I get in trouble.
Most places have some legislation that applies to short term lets. Those same rules should apply to people that try to run their Airbnbs like a business. Leave the folks that are renting out a spare room alone and go after the people with 5+ properties they've never stepped foot in.
I don't know how cities get the resources to try and enforce these laws. I guess if the fines are high enough, it could even be profitable but that probably comes with it's own issues.
The fine should high enough to serve as deterrent. If the house owner doesn't know anything about the renters, s/he can either ask for a bond from the tenants that covers the fine (and deal with the loss of customers) or AirBnB or a competitor could offer better vetting of tenants.
I wish the article explored the penalties associated with continued rentals in violation of the new regulations. Obviously there could be tax penalties but I'm curious if there are additional civil fines, potential criminal violations, or hell maybe civil forfeiture laws might apply (I saw that tounge and cheek but after another front page post that may be a reality?). Would airbnb pay costs and lawyers fees like Uber has done?
The goal of making AirBNB rentals a crime in the first place is to reduce the number of them. I claim it would be a more effective deterrent to go after the tenants who are profiting, rather than the homeowners who already have no incentives to allow it.
The article mentions the tenant stole some furniture that ended up on two additional listings. If the city went after them, they can nab a serial offender which seems more valuable for reducing the number of illegal AirBNB listings than going after an unaware homeowner.
The contract wouldn't be an obligation of the city, but rather a useful tool to enforce the law.
If the city can create a law punishing landlords who rent short term, they can create a law punishing landlords whose tenants disturb neighbours. Once the incentive is there, landlords using Airbnb will be sure to monitor guest behavior toward the commons/neighbours, and report misbehaviour in the ratings they give out.
Actually, I would guess catching people that try to Airbnb their rent-stabilized apt (short-term guests).
Honestly, I agree it is would be kind of messed up for someone to have the fortune of winning a below-market luxury apartment and turn that around and illegally rent it out for a massive markup on Airbnb.
If there are communities where AirBnB is deliberately breaking the law, those cities ought to be collecting punitive fines.
In a civilised society, you don't get to pick and choose which laws you think are worth following, and just ignore the rest. Don't like a given law? Then engage in the political process to seek changes to it.
As a user of AirBnB accross Europe I did not make anyone's life worse. This is quite an offense. Are there bad people? Sure. But punish them directly. We already have laws for anti-social acts.
There should be some limitations in place but how would you enforce them? If your local government checks Airbnb regularly to find people breaking the law then people will just use some other method to do the same thing as Airbnb.
> But AirBnB is clearly used to create illegal hotels and that's the problem.
The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal.
The incentives aren't difficult: Create an anonymous tip line to report illegal AirBnB operations that violate zoning regulations. Have submitters provide the street address and URL of the AirBnB to make it easy. The person operating the AirBnB (or owner of the house) gets fined. The person submitting the tip about an illegal AirBnB receives 25% of the fine.
It wouldn't take long for illegal AirBnBs to close up shop when they realize there are negative repercussions for what they're doing. Keep it anonymous to avoid retribution.
I could even see bargain hunters looking for illegal AirBnBs to stay in, then reporting their hosts to collect their share of the resulting fine to recover some of the cost. The incentives are deeply stacked against the illegal AirBnB operators in this scenario.
Of course, this only works in areas where it's illegal to run temporary rentals. I expect we'll see more of those regulations as the problems with short-term AirBnBs in residential areas become more apparent.
This is an issue, though, if AirBNB is encouraging people to break the law, and simply sees the occasional payout as "insurance" when someone gets caught.
It reminds me of the recall formula outlined in Fight Club.
reply