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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

#31

Post by criddell »

techsupporter wrote: post #17
Judgmentality wrote: post #3

Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when pres…

> Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Frankly, I feel the same about every single one of the prominent "sharing economy" / "gig economy" companies. Uber/Lyft and AirBnB just seem to be the worst of them because they're the most visible of the visible…

> All of them appear to delight in exploiting the fact that enforcement of codes and rules isn't (and can't be) 100% universal so it's a "go under the radar until caught" model.

This is true, but in some ways I think it's been a good shock to the system. For example, I think taxi regulation is being rethought and that wouldn't have happened without Uber.

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

#32

Post by carapace »

gumby wrote: post #24
Judgmentality wrote: post #3

Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when pres…

> People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Just quoted this part because it's so important. Most (but not 100%) of regulation complaints are of the "waah waah" sort.

"If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested."

~ Thomas Wolfe

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

#33

Post by eh78ssxv2f »

scarface74 wrote: post #11
danaris wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. I dunno; it seems to me that in these cases, the people who are really to blame are the "tenants" who are actually breaking both laws and rental agreements. I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're…

I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're talking a $20k fine, I would imagine there's at least a good chance of recovering more than you pay...and it didn't sound like any of the mentioned owners were attempting to do anything to the bad-faith tenants. It sounds like you have never been a landlord. It's a fi…

So, it seems that regulations governing the relationship between the landlord and tenants is the real problem here. If it was easier to recover money from the tenants, and kick them off the property, this would not be a problem.

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

#34

Post by t1o5 »

I have had bad experience with AirBnB. For me, it was a rental agency posing as a family. The listing had photo of a family which I hoped to meet when I rented. After checking in, I called the phone number and it was picked by a receptionist with the usual courtesy. I asked if I could meet the family, she said "there is no family sir" we are a rental agency. After some days, talking with the next door neighbors, I found that the entire building was AirBnB.

I felt sorry for the real tenants of that locality. They wont have any affordable place to rent anymore. I deleted my AirBnB profile after this incident and another security incident in another rental and will never use this again.

Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the safety, the standards and a 24 hours reception desk.

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

#35

Post by djrogers »

Judgmentality wrote: post #3

Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when pres…

> People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason.

In this specific case, it’s clear that this a) happened in spite of regulations, and b) is much more difficult to clean up due to regulations (specifically over-reaching tenant protections).

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

#36

Post by ryan-c »

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?

Why would the city take responsibility for enforcing a contract they are not a party to?

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

#37

Post by aidos »

techsupporter wrote: post #17
Judgmentality wrote: post #3

Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when pres…

> Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Frankly, I feel the same about every single one of the prominent "sharing economy" / "gig economy" companies. Uber/Lyft and AirBnB just seem to be the worst of them because they're the most visible of the visible…

I'm interested to hear more about how Uber behaviour is inconsiderate. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the company itself - but the experience itself seems to be all round good.

In the U.K. the drivers need to be registered for private hire and pay the appropriate insurance. In my experience the drivers abide by the law, are friendly and have nice clean cars. The service itself is miles better than traditional minicabs or black cabs. And it's cheaper too.

As far as I can tell, it's just generally a better taxi service and nobody is getting hurt (though I welcome insights on where that's wrong).

Having discussed it with black cab drivers, the best they've come up with (other than the destruction of their market) is that the uber drivers register in London and then drive in the other parts of the country. Apparently that's bad somehow, but I'm not sure why.

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

#38

Post by WalterBright »

yardie wrote: post #19
WalterBright wrote: post #8

One solution would be to have the city levy the fines against the tenant, not the owner, because it is the tenant breaking the law.

They leave the notice on the door. Tenant will typically take it down and toss it in the trash. And like a speeding parking tickets the fines get sent to the owner on record. Which is public record.

The government is more than capable of fining the tenant.

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

#39

Post by cookiecaper »

gumby wrote: post #24
Judgmentality wrote: post #3

Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when pres…

> People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Just quoted this part because it's so important. Most (but not 100%) of regulation complaints are of the "waah waah" sort.

I agree that there is usually a "good reason" behind many regulations. The issue is that the law applies with unbending force. Regulations would be both less necessary and less onerous if we could conceive of a more flexible, fluid legal system. It's not necessarily a valid implicit assumption that the regulations that apply to professional hoteliers should be applicable to individuals taking on short-term boarders.

Justice is very slow and very expensive under our current model. I understand that there are a lot of complex mostly-good historical reasons why things became that way. But we need more legal fluidity and better legal accessibility.

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

#40

Post by djrogers »

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.

Why would the city go out of it’s way to avoid charging huge fines?
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