Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 186 posts

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#31

Post by sliverstorm »

Permit wrote: post #25
trauco wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer from the article: "Perhaps it isn’t reasonable to expect the company, which believes it’s worth at least $2 billion according to a TechCrunch report on its latest fund-raising efforts, to track down every zoning law in tiny vacation hamlets. But it can certainly make the rules clear in urban areas where it knows that people like Mr. Warren could easily end up in hot water."

If Airbnb started providing warnings about laws in various cities, wouldn't the lack of a warning for another area suggest there were no legal issues there? This seems like something you can't half-ass.

In other areas, you can simply swap out the "This is Illegal" disclaimer with a "This might be illegal in your area, we don't know"

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#32

Post by jlgreco »

baddox wrote: post #18
tomkarlo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way -- because they're ducking the rules…

> Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. That sounds very naive, and is extremely difficult to believe, unless hotels played no role in advocating the regulations. Besides, if that were the purpose, then why not ask the Airbnb renter and occupa…

Exactly. Of course the regulations are worded and advertised as being about "consumer protection", what could the alternative possibly be? There is no way in hell a hotel lobby would write a law that plainly claimed to be for the protection of their interests.

When laws protecting Taxi monopolies claim to be for consumer protection, nobody here buys it. Those laws are for the protection of Taxi companies and unions. These laws are more of the same.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#33

Post by kbutler »

This is especially ironic in light of the post-Sandy NYC-AirBnB "partnership":

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Airbnb today announced the launch of a new platform to help connect victims of Hurricane Sandy with free housing options. Airbnb is now providing a platform to connect those who are eager to offer free housing to those who have been displaced by the storm."

http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4...

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#34

Post by woah »

jcdavis wrote: post #27
woah wrote: post #11

I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these types of regulations. I'm assuming it's to maintain some sort of control and regulation over those who would establish unlicensed hotels on a commercial scale? For the welfare of the guests I suppose? I imagine in a world before the internet, this kind of thing was actually quite necessary. It would have been much harder to know any sort of…

I live in SF and I have no issue with landlords evicting tenants who were being AirBnB hosts. Realize that: 1) The housing market in SF is crazy right now (obviously this is hardly their fault) 2) There are thousands of available AirBnB rooms available in SF. A quick search far out returns over 2700 - thats 2700 (or more) rooms that people could be living in. 3) San Francisco has very strict rent control (whether or…

#3 is a good point. I agree on the overblown rent control laws here.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#36

Post by tomkarlo »

woah wrote: post #11

I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these types of regulations. I'm assuming it's to maintain some sort of control and regulation over those who would establish unlicensed hotels on a commercial scale? For the welfare of the guests I suppose? I imagine in a world before the internet, this kind of thing was actually quite necessary. It would have been much harder to know any sort of…

Hotels and registered lodging providers (including B&Bs) are subject to a range of safety regulations in terms of occupancy, fire codes, inspections, etc. Things we take for granted, like fire sprinklers, fire alarms, multiple exit routs and backup illumination. They're important when you have a bunch of people in a building who are probably unfamiliar with its layout, like a hotel or commercial space. They're also generally going to be required by anyone willing to write liability insurance, etc for the business.

Additionally, you have taxes and fees charged by a city that help defray the cost of regulating and inspecting those providers, as well as helping cover city services utilized by visitors (who probably do not pay income tax, etc locally.)

I suspect that if AirBNB users had to carry commercial liability insurance, submit to inspections and file proper taxes, the appeal of hosting would go way down.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#37

Post by ollysb »

zmitri wrote: post #13
woah wrote: post #11

I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these types of regulations. I'm assuming it's to maintain some sort of control and regulation over those who would establish unlicensed hotels on a commercial scale? For the welfare of the guests I suppose? I imagine in a world before the internet, this kind of thing was actually quite necessary. It would have been much harder to know any sort of…

In the article it mentions neighbors not having to deal with ever changing tenants.

This does sound a bit tenuous, what difference does it make if your neighbours change? You don't like people carrying luggage in the lift?

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#39

Post by CJefferson »

jlgreco wrote: post #32
baddox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. That sounds very naive, and is extremely difficult to believe, unless hotels played no role in advocating the regulations. Besides, if that were the purpose, then why not ask the Airbnb renter and occupa…

Exactly. Of course the regulations are worded and advertised as being about "consumer protection", what could the alternative possibly be? There is no way in hell a hotel lobby would write a law that plainly claimed to be for the protection of their interests. When laws protecting Taxi monopolies claim to be for consumer protection, nobody here buys it. Those laws are for the protection of Taxi companies and unions.…

Please don't make blanket claims about what everyone here believes.

I believe laws protecting Taxis are for consumer protection, and so are the hotel laws.

While I do not claim these laws are perfect, I believe they continue to serve an important real purpose.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#40

Post by nsp »

tomkarlo wrote: post #28
tjic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers Asserted without evidence.

Show me how commercial fire codes / building codes protect hotels but not consumers. (Edited from "instead of" to "but not", since the original assertion was that they only help hotel owners.)

They don't help people who want to make a new hotel, but they increase barriers to entry into the hotel marketplace, which benefits established players in the space. An analogous case is federal/iihs car safety regulations - since it costs xx million to get a car federally certified, you didn't see that many automotive startups until pretty recently, and we don't get a lot of European cars since it would cost to much to recertify them for the us market
Post reply on HN