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

Quebec Cracks Down on Airbnb

theglobeandmail.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–55 of 55 posts

Re: Quebec Cracks Down on Airbnb

#51

Post by weisser »

znowi wrote: post #49
weisser wrote: post #14

I may be downvoted to oblivion for this but I really don't think my neighbors in Boston would like it if I rented my room out on a nightly basis to people they don't know. There are 20 units in my building so seeing many random people coming and going would trigger great unease and I cannot say that I would blame them for that. I've used AirBnB and I love it but I think the biggest issue is not the commercial propert…

It's disturbing to see a comment prefixed with a concern about downvotes, which suggests a gropthink environment. This is a hackers community. Please speak up without fear of lost karma or reprimand from the local celebrities.

Rightly or not I sometimes feel that dissenting opinions, especially against popular YC companies, are met with contempt. I wouldn't go as far as "groupthink" but I would postulate that an inordinate amount of people that read HN are very supportive of YC companies and dislike when flaws are pointed out about them.

Re: Quebec Cracks Down on Airbnb

#52

Post by orangethirty »

noarchy wrote: post #45
orangethirty wrote: post #18

I wonder what will happen when someone declines to leave the rented space. Do they have any law protecting them? Do the property owners have a law that protects them from this? It would be interesting to see how a magistrate would interpret a property owner renting out the place on airbnb. They are not hotels and are not licensed as such.

Quebec laws are very generous to renters, so this is indeed an interesting question to ponder. As much as one can argue that AirBnb renters are "getting away" with not paying certain taxes, they also may be getting lucky that they don't face non-paying tenants, or ones that simply won't leave.

I can see the headline now: I rented my apartment in airbnb and now can't evict the renter. It's been a year.

Re: Quebec Cracks Down on Airbnb

#53

Post by chm »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #27
stfsbrb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing that you got downvoted for this. The comments in this thread which are cheerleading "disruption" are completely glossing over the issues of taxes and regulations. Other startups are out there making good faith attempts at following the law and competing fairly. Why does HN seem so eager to collectively give AirBnB a free pass?

These new services simply make the regulation and taxation issues more and more obvious. You can't stop technology, you can't stop innovation. Once you acknowledge that, you realize that laws have to adapt to new realities.

In a healthy system, that's what should happen.

In the meanwhile, people should pay their taxes!

Re: Quebec Cracks Down on Airbnb

#54

Post by pasbesoin »

supergirl wrote: post #39
alukima wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rent controlled tenants below me pay about $800 for a unit that now rents for $3200 a month. Last year when they bought a home they decided to keep the apartment to use as a pied-à-terre and rent it out on Airbnb. I found out about this after having three different people in a weeks time knock on my door and ask me where the fuse boxes are. Not a huge deal if my neighbors do it, but these are total strangers. At…

there are already laws for such disturbances. as for airbnb already being illegal in some places, I wonder why those laws exist in the first place.

There are laws, and then there is the matter of getting the laws enforced in a timely fashion -- if at all.

And of not suffering undue material harm during the process. Such as an extended lack of sleep adversely affecting one's employment.

There is also the possibility of escalating retaliation after you file a complaint.

There is the time and cost and confrontation of taking the other party to court, when that's what the law dictates and/or what police insist upon.

I'm significantly inclined to view AirBnB as a parasite upon the well being of long term, "real" tenants.

Both I and my extended group of friends and acquaintances have, en masse, had enough difficulty with neighbors -- before even adding AirBnB to the mix -- for me personally to give this viewpoint considerable weight.

Re: Quebec Cracks Down on Airbnb

#55

Post by crdoconnor »

dantheman wrote: post #44
crdoconnor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you seriously think it's the responsibility of the service provider to make sure its users don't engage in any potentially illegal activities? If the illegal activity is "using their system as it was intended" then they have a degree of responsibility, yes. They should at the very least provide a warning to users in quebec that they need to pay the $250 or they will be in violation of the law by using the airbnb…

10 lines of code for every city, county, state, etc? And keeping it up to date will be easy too right?

>10 lines of code for every city, county, state, etc? And keeping it up to date will be easy too right?

For every city, country and state that has special rules about renting, yes. If they really don't want to participate in a particular market, they can let their competitors serve it instead.

And no, it's not especially difficult.

Post reply on HN