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Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

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Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#61

Post by cperciva »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #49
cperciva wrote: post #25

I don't understand. The city is levying fines against... the victim of a break and enter?

Illegal subletting isn't breaking and entering, though. A home is ultimately the home owner's responsibility; if your tenants break the law, you're likely responsible, which is why contracts typically disallow subletting (as well as contain many other clauses to prevent putting the owner at risk). This is why absentee owners with no property manager are putting themselves at a risk, as they can't check on the tenants…

The Airbnb customers had no legal right to be in the property in question. Maybe it's trespassing rather than breaking and entering; but they weren't legal tenants.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#62

Post by jessaustin »

arkades wrote: post #44
pjc50 wrote: post #12

It's not great, and I have no sympathy for tenants who trash properties - but this seems like a result of being an absentee landlord with an inadequate local agent. I have to say that in this situation I'd probably change the locks immediately and sort it out in court later; it's not clear what it means to "evict" tenants who aren't living at the property but instead are illegally subletting it. (Also, jurisdictions…

"Changing the locks and sorting it out later" is incredibly illegal. Your "advice" is useless.

It's not illegal to keep out trespassers. Maybe one wouldn't change the locks on the first day, but after seeing one group of carousing teenagers with whom one had no contractual relationship replaced by a different such group, it would be pretty safe to shut the whole thing down.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#63

Post by URSpider94 »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #27

Is it feasible to write "Tenant agrees to pay all city-related fines caused by their intentionally renting the property on sites like AirBNB" into the lease, and tell the city they can collect directly from the tenant?

That's not the way liability works. The city will always collect from the property owner, because they hold the deed. Municipalities don't chase debt, they just seize property or apply liens.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#64

Post by korzun »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #29

I skimmed the article a few times. How did the City of Miami figure out the property was listed on AirBNB? If they're scraping the AirBNB website for images of the front of the buildings, or however their doing it, wouldn't it then make sense to contact the owner to advise them of the unlawful listing. This would give the owner an opportunity make a statutory declaration stating they didn't make this listing.

Good luck with that.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#65

Post by bdcravens »

dawnerd wrote: post #59
techsupporter wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm interested to hear more about how Uber behaviour is inconsiderate. Certainly, and I think I can sum up why you and I have different experiences in another quote: > In the U.K. Your government didn't bend to the "but they're just shaaaaaaring so being licensed is haaaaard " bullshit that many governments here did. (Austin, Texas tried to pull it off and the Legislature of the State of Texas smacked them, hard.)…

Just to add another pain point, in Orlando drivers hire out immigrants to drive for them. I've had many rides where the person driving speaks no English and doesn't match the profile pic despite the car plates matching and having the lyft/Uber app open with my details. Many complaints to Lyft and Uber and nothing has been done so far as I can tell. And as you'd expect those drivers don't obey the laws at all. Last dr…

I had a similar experience in San Diego. Driver had only been in town 2 days; we had to give him directions (I was there for a conference and had never been to San Diego before!)

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#66

Post by jessaustin »

This is golden:

Vacayo was recently accepted into start-up accelerator 500 Startups. Today Vacayo touts itself as a start-up that "transforms long-term rentals into beautiful, short-term group vacation homes available online." 500 Startups did not respond to requests for comment. After we published this story, Vacayo was no longer listed on 500 Startups' web site.

AirBnB are the deep pockets here, and cities that continue to go after landlords instead are leaving money on the table.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#67

Post by bdcravens »

x0x0 wrote: post #50
mahyarm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regulation is what is screwing the owner in this case. It's a simple ban on short term renting. If it didn't exist then it would just be a civil lease agreement violation and far less painful. AirBnB went wrong in this case because they don't have a good property owner support channel to remove bad properties like this.

At first blush, allowing the owner to exclude addresses from rental seems reasonable. But if an airbnb host is willing to violate their lease, why isn't that person willing to fake ownership? How far should airbnb be required to go to verify ownership, and what happens when ownership changes? To be honest, these people sound like shitty, lazy landlords who deserve their bad tenants. They 1 - didn't do a reference che…

> How far should airbnb be required to go to verify ownership, and what happens when ownership changes?

Isn't this a matter of public record? Tons of solutions for verifying identity exist and are used in other industries.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#68

Post by waisbrot »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #29

I skimmed the article a few times. How did the City of Miami figure out the property was listed on AirBNB? If they're scraping the AirBNB website for images of the front of the buildings, or however their doing it, wouldn't it then make sense to contact the owner to advise them of the unlawful listing. This would give the owner an opportunity make a statutory declaration stating they didn't make this listing.

Probably, the city got many complaints about parties, trash, and different people every week. They're not fining for "using AirBnB" they're fining for "short-term rental" or "code violations". But AirBnB is the obvious way that you get short-term renters, so it's not a stretch to name them without any hard evidence.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#69

Post by lobster_johnson »

cperciva wrote: post #61
lobster_johnson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illegal subletting isn't breaking and entering, though. A home is ultimately the home owner's responsibility; if your tenants break the law, you're likely responsible, which is why contracts typically disallow subletting (as well as contain many other clauses to prevent putting the owner at risk). This is why absentee owners with no property manager are putting themselves at a risk, as they can't check on the tenants…

The Airbnb customers had no legal right to be in the property in question. Maybe it's trespassing rather than breaking and entering; but they weren't legal tenants.

That's still a non-sequitur. Trespassing is a criminal violation, doesn't apply here, and has nothing to do with the terms of a lease.

If I'm renting an apartment from a landlord, and you visit me, are you trespassing? No, because I gave you permission. If I'm out of town and let you stay, you're still not trespassing. As a guest, you don't need the owner's permission to be present. As a guest who subleases from me, you wouldn't be violating the terms of the lease, either; I would be.

The case in the article happened because a law is being broken by persons who are not legally responsible for it. This whole problem exists because anyone can create AirBnb listings, even if they don't have the right to rent it out.

Re: Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

#70

Post by bdcravens »

ameister14 wrote: post #26

Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law. Right now they make money from this behavior. It's a poor long term strategy that made sense when they were small and scrappy but is no longer acceptable. Also, they're losing public support - I've used airbnb for years in SF and around the country…

> Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law

In the meanwhile, they'll continue to accept listings in the name of ubiquity. Then they'll settle lawsuits as a cost of doing business. Why else raise 4.4B? Not for infrastructure or developers ....

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