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

Seems reasonable

[plopez]

If you are renting it is not your property.

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.

Re:Seems reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to sublet is often standard in rental agreements.

The owners are already getting a cut. It's called rent.

Re:Seems reasonable

[AuMatar]

Standard? I don't think I've ever signed a lease that didn't explicitly forbid it- its a pain in the ass for the landlord and can lead to difficult 3 way legal issues. I can especially see a landlord not wanting it done for short term leases- a normal sublease is annoying, who to sue when you have a contract with one person who subleased it for 3 days each to a half dozen people via a 3rd party website? No thank you.

Re:Seems reasonable

[TsuruchiBrian]

It's property that you've entered into a contract to acquire the right to occupy and use in exchange money. What seems reasonable is simply having the contract spell out what is and is not allowed so both parties can make an informed decision about whether they want to agree to the contract.

Re: Seems reasonable

[guruevi]

A lot of rent in cities are paid by governments. So a "low income" tenant may not even have to pay rent, get income assistance, food stamps they live "temporarily" with a partner, husband/wife or family that has the same arrangement (gets assistance etc) while subletting the entire house and netting the entire rent in cash to students or other transient residents.

Re:Seems reasonable

[RelliK]

> I would say if the tenant is renting it out and able to make a profit it is only possible if the landlord is renting below market value.

Not at all. A short-term stay at a furnished apartment is always going to cost a lot more than a long-term lease of an unfurnished one. What the tenants are doing is renting out their place while they are away (vacation, trip, etc.). Of course that still violates the no-subleasing rule found in most contracts. But I think the only thing landlord can do in this case is evict the tenant.

Re:Seems reasonable

[Darinbob]

Every single rental agreement I every used always forbid subletting. The was the number one thing they would point out to make sure no one made any mistakes. Some other places I did not rent did allow subleases but you had to get a sublease form filled out and approved. Landlords do not want strangers staying in their properties without having a legal agreement.

This is not about money, the "cut" does not matter. What matters is that it is NOT the renter's property.

Look at it like a rental auto. You can not let any of your friends drive your rental, even if the rental agency is getting a "cut".

Re:Seems reasonable

[Harlequin80]

I'm not so sure about this. From the Rental Tenants Authority Queensland site one of the things they list in their FAQ is:
* The property manager/owner’s permission must be sought for all people living at the property, even if they are sub-letting.
https://www.rta.qld.gov.au/Ren...

Re:Seems reasonable

[Harlequin80]

Short term rentals tend to suffer greater levels of wear and tear than long term rentals as well. So this is a consideration when choosing between the two options.

Re:Seems reasonable

[chipschap]

I realize the issue is complex (I was once a landlord myself), but while landlords have legitimate interests, a lot of them are just plain greedy and a certain percentage are downright dishonest.

I always tried to be fair with tenants and work with them. I had a few bad tenants, of course, like anyone does, but by and large with almost everyone we could mutually work things out when necessary.

But then, I was only looking for a reasonable return on investment, not trying to squeeze every cent out of people who often didn't have a lot in the first place.

Re:Seems reasonable

[Opportunist]

Actually, it is. When you're renting, any wear that goes above and beyond normal use is something you have to compensate the landlord for.

Re:Seems reasonable

[roman_mir]

Indiana court defined Pi as 3 at some point in time, sure, you can say it set Pi to 3 legally but it did not change the nature of Pi.

There is no such thing as a 'right' to other people's property. A right is protection against government abuse and oppression, nothing else. A right is only a meaningful term in the context of a relationship between an individual and the collective, since the collective cannot be actually punished for oppressing an individual, the laws are set in place to prevent the oppression in the first place. Declaring that in a contract between 2 individuals one of them has specific claims that will be backed by government force and oppression does not create a right, it removes the right of the party, who is on the short end of that stick and it is a stick.

Once somebody has to give something up because of government oppression to provide it to another party, then it is an entitlement. Just don't pretend you can't understand the difference between a right and an entitlement, very few are that obtuse.

Re:Seems reasonable

[roman_mir]

Actually as a landlord I would not authorize any subletting of my property and would take you to court and remove you judiciously from my property should you violate the contract where I state that very thing unequivocally and the contract is agreed upon by both sides before possession takes place. Most definitely a landlord can remove a tenant if the tenant violates terms of the contract agreement, it may go to court but it will be enforced.

Re:Seems reasonable

[ChrisMaple]

The landlord has the right to by contract set the conditions under which the property is used. The terms don't have to be reasonable, the prospective tenant has the right and ability to not sign the contract and to seek lodging elsewhere, or to bargain for a different contract.

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.

Re:Seems reasonable

[jrumney]

So the government using force to oppress the slaveholder on behalf of a slave is not a right, it is an entitlement? What exactly is a right in your narrow world view?

Re:Seems reasonable

[Capsaicin]

If there is no natural right to property then you do not own your body and organs and freedom because your natural right to property starts with yourself and extends to the fruits of your labour, as they are expression of your time on this planet.

And again, your rights to your own body and organs are those which the law bestows and nothing more. Thus for example NSW law (as I believe does the law of the several states) prohibits the sale of human tissue including one's own (e.g. blood, semen organs), which are all donated.

The idea that one has inherent ownership in one's body (and thus arguably the Lockean conception of property as the admixture of Labor and Nature generally) falls victim to a famous contradiction. Throughout the British C'th till 1833, and for some time thereafter in the US, there existed an entire class of people who famously were not owners of their own bodies, but rather owned. Now when the law sought to prohibit the trade in humans it thereby deprived everyone of one of the most important property rights: the ability to alienate that property. In short the contradiction is this, if by Nature or the Will of God, one was possessed of full proprietary rights to one's own body, one should be able to sell oneself into slavery, but where slavery is permitted to exist there are people who are born with no right to the property in their own bodies.

But again, a right is a protection against a government oppression

Which is again a nonsense, since many rights exist which are enforceable against non-government parties. These include property rights of all kinds, which you are unwittingly arguing do not exist.

Re:Double dipping

[Anonymous Coward]

You made your bed, fucking sleep in it.

Can't, it's being sub-let for the next four nights.

Re:double dipping much...

[phantomfive]

That is how AirBnB characterizes it, but it's not always like that. There are people who are renting out apartments, then posting them on AirBnB. They don't live in them, they get enough "visitors" to cover rent and more. In some cases they don't even see the visitor.

I like AirBnB, but it has to be legal.

Analogy, please

[Sloppy]

This is Slashdot, so we need analogies.

Say I have a KVM Linode, and then "WebBnB" wants an LXC container on my Linode, and they're running Apache in their container, and serving up several VirtualHost websites for their customers. WebBnB needs to charge their customers for the websites, so I can charge them, and Linode can charge me extra. And we all take a cut, thereby making WebBnB the stupidest and most expensive webhosting company ever, so the customers leave 'em and start doing business directly with Linode. Problem solved.

Re:Interesting precedent

[magarity]

A car owner with a car loan is the wrong comparison. The proper comparison would be with a leased car.

Re:Double dipping

[ADRA]

Why all the hostility? They rent at market rates for single family use as is (which is likely unfurnished). Its very possible that they're only legally allowed to rent in that way:
1. Government subsided housing
2. Limited Accessibility (Hosuing Coops)
3. Occupant Security / Strata restrictions (Appartments/Condos)

Ultimately, its a boring old contract law problem, you either have the right to sublet, or you don't. If there are restrictions on sublets, the landlord can evict / negotiate whatever share they see fit (say 100%). If (and in all likelihood you don't) have rights to sublet without impunity, the landlord can't and shouldn't have the right to 'double dip' as you perceive it.

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.