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Governor Cuomo Bans Airbnb From Listing Short-Term Rentals In New York (nypost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New York Post: Gov. Cuomo on Friday bowed to pressure from the hotel industry and signed into law one of the nation's toughest restrictions on Airbnb -- including hefty fines of up to $7,500 for people who rent out space in their apartments. Backers of the punitive measure -- which applies to rentals of less than 30 days when the owner or tenant is not present -- say many property owners use Airbnb and similar sites to offer residential apartments as short-term rentals to visitors, hurting the hotel business while taking residential units off the Big Apple's high-priced housing market. Enforcement, however, will be a huge challenge, as thousands of short-term apartment rentals are listed in the city despite a 2010 law that prohibits rentals of less than 30 days when the owner or tenant is not present. Violators could be turned in by neighbors or landlords opposed to the practice, or the state could monitor the site to look for potential violations. But beyond that how the law would be enforced was not immediately clear. The new law won't apply to rentals in single-family homes, row houses or apartment spare rooms if the resident is present. But will apply to co-ops and condos. Airbnb mounted a last-ditch effort to kill the measure, proposing alternative regulations that the company argued would address concerns about short-term rentals without big fines. Tenants who violate current state law and list their apartments for rentals of less than 30 days would face fines of $1,000 for the first offense, $5,000 for the second and $7,500 for a third. An investigation of Airbnb rentals from 2010 to 2014 by the state attorney general's office found that 72 percent of the units in New York City were illegal, with commercial operators constituting 6 percent of the hosts and supplying 36 percent of the rentals. As of August, Airbnb had 45,000 city listings and another 13,000 across the state.
The idea that people should be free to conduct business seems to be foreign to NYC. And has anyone bothered to actually confront how many issues this opens up? A girl stays with me for three weeks. Who gets to question me about why she is with me? Is she a relative, a friend, a sex partner or a health aid as I am an older man? Who exactly assumes the privilege of questioning me? Further, if cash changes hands with no receipt, how is proof established? Can i pound on the door of a neighbor i do not like and grill him about exactly why someone stayed with him overnight and can i legally prove that someone actually did stay overnight? Who defines overnight? I had a girlfriend who lived in a condo. I alway left about 4am. I rode a motorcycle that was banned from overnight parking. They were smart enough never to call a tow truck. If they had i would have sued them into the dirt. People almost never think of the consequences of writing rules or laws.
Of course, that would make it difficult to keep the place rented full time. One guest would decide to stay the full 60 days. The next renter would pay the "cancellation fee" after a week -- and you now have no renters lined up because you couldn't put it on the market until the one-week guy gave you your $20 cancellation fee and left (because you had made a commitment to the full 60 day term).
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
It's not new tech, AirBnB is pretty much a sublet which is and has been against the terms of most lease agreements since forever.
The twist is that a lot of their bookings are not Bill and Jan renting out the apartment while they're away on holiday but the landlord who's thrown his tenants out because he can make more on short term rentals without going through the task of having his building rezoned as a hotel.
But, hey, at least, abortions are still legal — is not that comforting?..
Sure, as long as you have a note from your husband, have attended a local church's "Don't do it!!" seminar, you've lasted through the mandatory 48 hour waiting period just to be really really sure you're certain you want one and then you've driven outside the state to find an actual clinic....
Conservatives, strict on property rights and still trying to consider women as property.