Landlords Want a Share of Renters' Airbnb Revenue (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A group of leading U.S. property owners, including AvalonBay Communities and Camden Property Trust, have met with lodging rental site Airbnb to discuss ways that they can get a cut of their renters' income. The tech company has faced obstacles to its growth, with residents putting their leases in jeopardy by renting out their places to Airbnb users as temporary accommodation – a form of illegal subletting. A future agreement between owners and tenants could mean renters no longer need to take a risk when letting their apartments on the site.

Comments

Re:Seems reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not that simple you have rights as a renter. You may not have the right to sublet however.

I am a Landlord

[brian.stinar]

I am a landlord, of four one-bedroom apartments, and all of my leases explicitly disallow subletting. Numerous posters, with zero stated understanding of any kind of real estate practice, seem to think that subletting is "illegal" if it's disallowed in their lease. Someone is not going to go to jail, or have to deal with the cops, for breaking a provision in a lease I wrote. They may get evicted, which could involve the cops, but that's an eviction. Breaking the agreement isn't going to have legal consequences, past the *potential* eviction, unless I chose to try and have a judge pass a judgement (and then good luck on enforcing this judgement.)

Plus, this 100% depends on the lease. I can write a lease which gives full authority to sublet, one that disallows subletting, or one that gives me a percentage of the sublet. Unless we read the lease, there is no reason to try and pass any kind of informed judgement on the situation.

The entire process I described to you, having a judge pass judgement against someone, and then sending that person to collections (or garnishing their wages) is a big, big, pain. Plus, it's going to destroy the relationship with the renter. The judge is going to award you probably all the income they made, since they were not authorized to resell your place, and maybe 3x as much for damages. That's still not worth your time, unless you like spending time in court or need to be there anyways. Even then, the tenant isn't going to be able to pay, and collections won't be able to get it out of them...

It's like 1000x easier if you have an agreement in place with airbnb.com, as a property owner, to automatically get a cut of the short term rental on your place. Especially if you own a gigantic tower in New York City, as opposed to four rinky dinky apartments in Albuquerque, New Mexico (like I do.) You can negotiate with airbnb.com ONCE for your entire property (if you have a standard subletting clause, which everyone is under) as opposed to getting a judge to offer a judgement against every single person, who is going to end their lease at that point.

The only reason this is even news is because most people have no idea about how rental property actually works. This isn't news - it's called good business.

Re:Seems reasonable

[mjwx]

It is not that simple you have rights as a renter. You may not have the right to sublet however.

This.

That means you may not use the property as a commercial enterprise. To me, owners asking for a cut is a very, very fair compromise on that rule.

Before some smart arse pipes up and says "but it's no different to having a home office", first let me say, you're an idiot because it's completely different. As a home office you're running a business out of your abode, as an AirBNB you're running your abode AS A BUSINESS.