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SF Evictions Surging From Crackdown On Airbnb Rentals
JoeyRox (2711699) writes "The city of San Francisco is aggressively enforcing its ban on short-term rentals. SF resident Jeffrey Katz recently came home to an eviction notice posted on his door that read 'You are illegally using the premises as a tourist or transient unit.' According to Edward Singer, an attorney with Zacks & Freedman who filed the notice against Katz, 'Using an apartment for short-term rentals is a crime in San Francisco.' Apparently Airbnb isn't being very helpful to residents facing eviction. 'Unfortunately, we can't provide individual legal assistance or review lease agreements for our 500,000 hosts, but we do try to help inform people about these issues,' according to David Hantman, Airbnb head of global public policy. SF and Airbnb are working on a framework which might make Airbnb rentals legal, an effort helped by Airbnb's decision last week to start collecting the city's 14% hotel tax by summer."
Do people really not read these things. No subletting is a common clause.
http://www.sfrb.org/index.aspx?page=1040
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
It's the usual for tourist areas: You want to soak the tourists, who don't vote in your area, for as much tax money as you can. Thus the double-digit tax percentages on things that only tourists normally use, such as hotels.
Also restaurant taxes specifically aimed at sit-down places that 'tourists' normally visit more often, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
unless you are from mexico, than its just called "enjoying the dream"
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
"'Unfortunately, we can't provide individual legal assistance or review lease agreements for our 500,000 hosts, but we do try to help inform people about these issues,'
Bullcrap. If they wanted to actually ensure that their rentals were legal, they could do vastly more to ensure that. In NYC, for example, any whole unit rental (where the lessor isn't going to be there as well) of 30 days is illegal if the unit isn't a licensed hotel. If you try to post a property for a non-roommate rental in NYC, they could have the site simply say "Is this unit a licensed hotel? If not, then the rental would violate NYC law. Please confirm that the unit is a licensed hotel unit. Yes/No"
They don't even bother with this level of fig leaf.
"Illegal activity" in this case, being that the little people aren't allowed to engage in free enterprise without greasing some palms.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So don't live there, "problem" solved.
For those of us who aren't in the real estate business, maybe you can explain. How is this a predatory landlord practice, when it's caused by the government enacting laws that say people need special permits to sublet for less than 30 days? Repeal the law and you remove the "predation." Isn't the problem caused by the city government "stepping in" and causing the practice to become illegal?
I get it that municipal governments want their hotel tax revenue. Presumably they would also like to have a "red shirt tax" too. That doesn't mean it's sane for people to support such a government, though.
I have an apartment. I am legally prevented from charging "market value" for my property due to rent control laws, especially for long term residents.
Now you happen to be a tenant and you got a really sweet deal on an apartment. However, because you're an asshole, you decide to exploit the difference between what I actually charge you and what the market could actually bear*. And now you're bitching about my actions, which are limited by the law with which I must abide by to do business in the location? Nevermind the no-subletting clause in the contract *you* signed. Because, fuck you, I'm getting mine.
Jesus fucking christ.
Self-entitlement is strong in this one.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
This is precisely the problem going on in San Francisco. I come across so many tenants that feel they are doing nothing wrong, all the while bragging on how low their rent is on their rent-controlled apartment. Hypocrisy to the max!
You are correct, but one thing disturbs me - from TFS:
Notice the word "crime". What in the unholy fuck is the City of San Francisco doing by saying that subletting is a crime? I get the whole tax angle (but seriously, I don't; WTF is so special about a hotel that a city - any city - needs a special tax for one?), but damn... just something about calling it a criminal activity that is way the hell wrong.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Generally when municipalities go after micro-rental users (particularly en masse), it's not to enforce the main tenants' leases, but to enforce hotel taxes. A reasonable analysis would say it's a typical case of a private citizen unwittingly crossing the line into small business, a cynical one would say that real hotels lobby for these taxes and push for their enforcement to inflate hotel rates.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Is it possible that there is more going on here than the city protecting the city's revenues? If I were the neighbor of someone engaging in the short term rental of a property that was not in an area zoned for short term rentals, I would be very glad that the municipality was cracking down on them. I like to know who my neighbors are; I don't want new ones showing up every week.