How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord • Hacker News Board

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#81

Post by parfe » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

chrisdannen wrote: post #72

ed209 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If your landlord was interested in running a tenement home/boarding house/hotel" - then he would have to staff it himself too, promote it and take the risk of no bookings. With a tenant he has someone making sure the place is looked after + he has a contracted income for the whole 12 months. By the sound of this place, the landlord could probably do quite well out of airbnb. But in that case, why not just approach t…

Exactly. This restraining order was the first I had heard from my landlord that he didn't want us airbnb'ing. A phone call and I would have stopped. I knew it was too good to be true.

Attached to the order was a complete printout of my Airbnb listing and all my reviews, included as evidence I had violated clauses in my lease. (Some leases, I have since learned, have evolved specific language prohibiting tenants from listing their pads on vacation-rental sites such as Airbnb.)

I don't buy your innocence here. I've been leasing houses for ~10 years now during and after college. The leases have always required a mix of landlord approval for subletting, banned running a business from the house, and prohibited occupation by non-lessees.

Here are two clauses from an older lease[1] I happen to have in my desk:

* Tenant shall not assign this Agreement, or sub-let or grant any license to use the Premises or any part thereof without prior written consent of Landlord.

* The premises shall be used and occupied by Tenant and Tenant's immediate family... exclusively, as a private single family dwelling.

Your faux innocence is pretty annoying actually. You were abusing the property for commercial purposes and you're surprised he didn't give you a friendly phone call?

1 Looks like the lease was originally snatched from www.academichomes.com/downloads/ExampleLeaseAgreement2.doc

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#82

Post by drpgq » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

uptown wrote: post #10

So he's: 1. Violated his lease. 2. Documented exactly how much income he received during that violation. 3. Probably thew up some red flags to ensure the IRS double-checks that he declares that income on his tax returns. And all of this before he finds out what the courts have to say about his actions.

I do wonder just how much Airbnb income isn't declared for tax purposes.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#83

Post by Locke1689 » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #68

Locke1689 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's amazing how one can make a lot more money by violating health and safety regulations. Upton Sinclair did a great piece about how amazing it is.

Your comment is incredibly relevant and insightful because the world is black and white and our current regime, which is perfect, is all that stands between us and _The Jungle_. So-called "sensible" reforms to hotel-related legislation and economic freedom in general will only doom us all to accidental cannibalism in our hamburgers. Seriously, this is flippin' AirBnB, not the slaughterhouse industry. I only asked you…

You criticized regulation in general so I criticized lack of regulation in general. It's not a hard leap.

If you want a more closely related set of laws, look at tenement housing. The Jungle was not the only example of an industry that badly needed reform.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#84

Post by jack-r-abbit » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:52 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #70

hack_edu wrote: post #7

Again and again, people who use Airbnb to 'hack' the rental market get little sympathy from me when the chickens come to roost. If your landlord was interested in running a tenement home/boarding house/hotel, they wouldn't sign you into a year-long lease. Also, and I know this has been hashed out before on these comment threads but he's grossing $30k a year on the back of his landlord. The landlord has every right to…

> If your landlord was interested in running a tenement home/boarding house/hotel, they wouldn't sign you into a year-long lease. But they aren't running a hotel (their tenant is), so what're they complaining about? If I was a landlord I'd have no more problem with this than if I was a wholesaler whose customers resold the stuff retail.

> If I was a landlord I'd have no more problem with this

Until you are a landlord, you can't really say for sure what you'd do as a landlord. I just recently started renting out my house. Going into it I was all "as long as they pay the rent on time and don't trash the place, I don't really care who rents it". But then I started getting into the fine points of liability and eviction rights and all the icky stuff you never see as a renter. And then I started showing the place to prospective tenants and started to realize how critical it is for me to choose the right people to live in my house. After doing all that, I would really hate to see the tenant let someone I know nothing about rent the place. And so the lease states they can not. The wholesaler -> customer relationship is not the same as landlord -> renter.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#85

Post by ed209 » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:55 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #45

ed209 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If your landlord was interested in running a tenement home/boarding house/hotel" - then he would have to staff it himself too, promote it and take the risk of no bookings. With a tenant he has someone making sure the place is looked after + he has a contracted income for the whole 12 months. By the sound of this place, the landlord could probably do quite well out of airbnb. But in that case, why not just approach t…

Read the article, the landlord is getting into AirBnB. Why would the landlord want a middleman in this case?

>Why would the landlord want a middleman in this case?

for the reason I stated, someone to look after the place while multiple Airbnb guests come and go. Otherwise you'll need to pay for a cleaner and check the place every time someone stays. That middleman is taking a lot of the pain of managing a property away from the landlord.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#86

Post by elliottcarlson » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #41

msrpotus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people violate leases in little ways all the time. As long as the renters didn't cause any additional problems, I don't see what the big deal is.

There are clauses in leases the landlord will often let slide. For example, limits to number of cars on the property. Such clauses are often there so that the landlord can take action if the tenant does something like put eight cars on blocks on the lawn, rather than actually attempting to limit the tenant to 1 car. There are also clauses in leases that are completely unacceptable to break. For example, paying rent.

One of my clauses is that I can't run a business from my apartment. I know this is meant to prevent me from warehousing or having some kind of showroom type traffic going on - and I am fine doing programming on my own stuff or other projects in my place.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#87

Post by bmelton » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #20

tgrass wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the amount is important. He did not cause $20,000 in damages to the landlord. At most, he did $20,000 in damages to the hotel down the street.

No, he didn't. But he did do some damage. That's the nature of property, the more it's used, the more damage it accrues. By having "extra" people in the apartment, the property was being depreciated at a greater rate without compensation to the landlord.

To that point, I wouldn't think it matters in any appreciable way.

The lessee is still responsible for those damages whether or not he was renting the room, so the landlord has a path for recompense in the event that any portions of the place are damaged to the point of requiring rumuneration.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#88

Post by rprasad » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 6:00 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #33

hack_edu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, though if the landlord had a hand in the operation I'd imagine it would have to be a legal business. This means taxes, insurance, wages, administration costs, permits that probably make it more trouble than its worth.

Let's take a moment and see the amazing things that can be accomplished with AirBnB and marvel at the things that we do to ourselves with regulation which could make things like this practically impossible. Stifling business and innovation, deadweight losses to society, and all that economics jazz. Great for the traditional hotel industry, though, and whatever lobbyists they have at City Hall and in Albany...

The Chinese suppliers who provided all that terrific melanine-spiked baby powder said the same thing!

Why let such silly things as laws stand in the way of profit? Who cares if someone else gets hurt...

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#89

Post by njharman » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #74

If they're throwing the book at you -- throw it right back. Tell your landlord that you're going to find the hotel closest to your apartment and show up with printouts of their newest illegal competitor: your landlord. It sucks to get the government involved with these disputes, but he opened the door.

Why do you imagine landlord would be illegal competitor?

Also, petty retaliation against someone exercising their legal right to enforce contract is morally suspect. Bordering on sociopathic.

Re: How Airbnb Earned Me $20,000 And A Restraining Order From My Landlord

#90

Post by jerf » Wed, Jun 06, 2012, 6:02 PM UTC

tgrass wrote: post #17

jerf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20,000 isn't "little ways".

I don't understand why the amount is important. He did not cause $20,000 in damages to the landlord. At most, he did $20,000 in damages to the hotel down the street.

"I don't understand why the amount is important."

Because, at the risk of repeating myself, $20,000 isn't "little ways".

It is $20,000. We are talking about something important here. Yes, we all make a few holes in the wall or unsanctioned little repairs or something, but we're talking $20,000. It's not "little things". I'm not saying it's automatically "damage" or harm of any kind. In fact it pretty clearly isn't since it's hard to miss $20,000 in damages. But we're not talking about a couple holes in the wall, we're talking about $20,000.

I've got a very simple four-word point, and I was not trying to imply any further argument.