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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
The city of SF is not enforcing anything - it's the landlords. In SF, most units are covered by rent control, meaning most people are paying rents far below the market value. Landlord are prohibited from increasing rents or kicking out current tenets unless they violate their lease. So any lease violation, such as subleasing, can be used as an excuse to evict the tenet and get one that will pay the current market value.
"'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.
the context here is that rental rates in SF have skyrocketed in recent years, and if landlords can evict long-time tenants they can get the unit on the market for 4x rent.
Irrelevant. You expect your landlord to uphold his end of the lease, why should he not expect you to uphold your end of lease.
This sounds like predatory landlord practices.
It sounds to me like landlords enforcing the rental agreement. The agreement is between the renter and the landlord, not some unknown unvetted third party.
I'm not sure I want to live in a building where other renters are sub renting to random people on a daily basis. Seriously, these people need to get a hotel room, and if they can't afford a hotel room, well, what could go wrong?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"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.
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?
I wish I could mod you up.
As a landlord, I dislike rent control enough that I won't be a landlord in a rent controlled area.
The city enforces how much the rent can go up, but can't enforce how much property taxes go up. The city won't cover my losses when rent goes down of course. It's a one way street. I keep my places clean, and things in good order. I make repairs, with a licensed contractor, quickly. I have given people a break on many occasions (late rent, giving young renters without a credit history a chance to *start* a rent & credit history, etc).
My wife was a HUGE supporter of rent control, until we bought a house and she began to understand how much money it costs to keep a house in good condition, and how often the city or state raises some random tax on home owners.
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.
This isn't about not allowing people to "to engage in free enterprise without greasing some palms". It is about local laws and one agreed to when one signed a lease instead of purchasing one's own property.
This may clear some things up for you:
So why can tenants rerent their units to tourists at a higher rent than what they pay their landlords? Actually, they can’t. These tenants are violating a multitude of San Francisco ordinances, starting with rent control itself, which affords their own low rent protections. If the “host” tenant is renting out their room or unit at a daily rate that exceeds their own daily rental value, that tenant is violating the San Francisco Rent Ordinance, which states that a tenant cannot charge more rent to a subtenant than what the tenant is paying their landlord.
Moreover, by offering their entire unit or room as a short-term rental (defined as a rental for less than 30 days), the tenant is also violating the San Francisco “Apartment Unit Conversion Ordinance.” That particular ordinance prohibits the rental of residential units to tourists or short-term transients without obtaining a special permit first. Violations of this ordinance has penalties, including fines of not more than $1,000 or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not more than six months, or by both.
Depending on the neighborhood zoning designation, it is also likely the tenant is breaking zoning laws, which require that hotels in residentially zoned districts obtain a conditional use permit. It is also probable that your tenant or his “guests” are afoul of tax laws because, in 2012, the San Francisco City Treasurer office stated that short-term rentals were subject to the city’s transient occupancy tax (also known as the “hotel tax”). Lastly, assuming the tenant has signed an SFAA lease, they are in breach of the “no subletting” clause of their lease agreement. The most recent version of the SFAA lease is even more explicit, and specifically states in the section entitled “Use” that “No hotel use, such as daily rentals, shall be made.”
Does that clear things up?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.