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NYC Fines Airbnb Hosts For 'Illegal' Home Rentals (cnet.com)
In October, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law one of the nation's toughest restrictions on Airbnb, which includes hefty fines of up to $7,500 for people who rent out space in their apartments. Several month have passed and the New York Post has learned of "the first casualties of [the] newly enforceable law." The city has reportedly charged two hosts with a combined total of 17 violations, and since each violation comes with a $1,000 fine, it adds up to $17,000. From their report: Property owner Hank Freid -- who was once crowned one of NYC's "Worst Landlords" by a watchdog group in 2005 -- and real estate broker Tatiana Cames were slapped with 17 violations, at $1,000 apiece, for their allegedly illegal listings on Manhattan's Upper West Side and in Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Brooklyn, according to documents obtained by the Post. Freid, who manages the Marrakech Hotel, was hit with 12 violations for listing SROs in the building on several booking platforms, including Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, Hotwire, Travelocity, and Orbitz, the citations reveal. Meanwhile, Cames -- who was served with five violations -- allegedly posted five separate listings to Airbnb advertising 320 Macon St, which records show she purchased for $2.15M in 2015. The Macon St. property was discovered to have inadequate fire alarms, sprinklers, illegal subdivisions, and a confused bunch of French tourists in a rear unit, according the procured documents. Cames appears to be making money off the vacancies in the building as she attempts to fill the space, as the same units are advertised as "for rent" on her personal website. The listings also seem to suggest that drawing illegal Airbnb-ers into BedStuy will help "diversify" the locale. If Freid and Cames don't pull their listings, they could be hit with a second set of violations, at $5,000 a pop.
Just what we need - more government telling us what to do with our own damn homes.
Reason 124,151,813,523 Trump won.
welcome to the gulag.
This is just horrible. Females should not be fined nor banned from doing this. Only white males should. This whole thing is racist, misogynist, and sexist.
Why is 'illegal' in scare quotes? These listings are all blatantly illegal. The law is fairly new but that doesn't change the fact that people have to follow it or face consequences just like any other law.
It's not just restricted to taxes. Everything belongs to the government.
welcome to the gulag.
Indeed.
Funny how supporters of such government measures also seem to be the ones who rail against "ubiquitous warrantless wiretaps".
All without realizing that their support for overweening government is what gives the government the power and resources to actually perform such surveillance of everyone.
Right.... AirBNB has some illegal unlicensed activity and NYC uses law to impose heavy fines.
At the left side of the argument, illegal unlicensed people in NYC get taxpayer subsidized healthcare and public services and, including cash benefits.
Can somebody explain to how to reconcile enforcement of one laws and ignoring the second laws, printed on the same paper with the same ink.
The failure to understand why people don't want a different stranger living next to them every week is a sure sign that our society is breaking down. You can only have a functional society if people have some sort of empathy for people.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Laws barring property rental are per se illegal, as the constitution does not give the government, at any level, the explicit right to dictate what one does (or does not do) with their own property. This goes for zoning as well.
The fines were $1000 per incident. Let's assume each unit rents for $1000/wk. And since there are multiple units in these buildings, a single ad could cover several units. I'll make a giant assumption of 10 units per building, and an occupancy rate of 50%.
(10x52x1000)/2 = $260,000. A $17,000 fine may cut into profits a bit, but it is hardly punitive. At $5,000 a pop, that starts to be enough to discourage the behavior. But even then the venture appears, if not wildly profitable, still better than having the units sit empty.
Why is "illegal" in quotation marks in the title of this post?
Those Aibnb rentals are 100% completely illegal.
Even if you think that you're entitled do doing with your home whatever you want to, that's not entirely true.
You live in a society. This has implications regarding what you can and what you should do. The obvious example would be me setting $UNPLEASANT_INDUSTRIAL_PLANT on my own property next to your apartment, effectively killing its worth or your ability to use it.
But there are also finer, albeit none the less important implications. Take the social one for example: in Berlin, Europe rents have climbed by a factor of up to 2-3x in the past 10 years. Living space is at a premium, but there are hundreds of airbnb locations at a walking distance of few minutes of anywhere within Berlin. And I'm not talking the occasional unoccupied a self-sufficient grandma may have to offer in a slightly too-large aparment. Those who offer rooms for rent ofter offer several appartments (up to 40), not only single beds. In fact, average number of beds offered per user are around 3 (see http://airbnbvsberlin.com/). In other words, it's a business. People prefer to not rent their (surplus of) apartments to normal people, but to airbnb customers instead.
Why should you care?
Because that effectively fucks up society as a whole. The same societe *you* live in, and that you're relying on in order to survive. When people who own an apartment choose to rent it at prices similar to hotels, essentially everyone who can't afford to sleep at a hotel every night can't afford to live in a city, period. You think you're unaffected because you happen to own an apartment right now? Well, where do you think your kids are going to live 20 years from now, or their children when their turn comes? (Set up a tent in the woods? You know that wild camping is illegal in large parts of Europe, right?...) Or what do you think your city going to feel like when everyone who lives there is either a tourist, or an amateur hotelier, renting 30-40 apartments to tourists?
It is puzzling that Cuomo rapidly applies the stick here while other disruptive services like UBER get more of the carrot.
UBER reduces the value of the medallion while reducing the tax income from licensed taxis.
Since it is known that Cuomo is taking graft perhaps UBER came up with a better kickback than AirBnB
Last I heard NYC could decide what is and isn't legal with regards to zoning and rentals. Why do we let companies do things that aren't legal without changing the law first? It's nuts. I don't get to break the law and call it 'sharing'.
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"appears to be making money off the vacancies in the building as she attempts to fill the space"
Oh no, a property owner making money off their own property. Stop the presses, won't someone think of the children, it's the end of the world as we know it.
For all that the Progressive Leftists claim to be against big business and for the working people, they sure as hell don't show it. AirBnB gives people the ability to rent out their property for a few extra bucks. It gives consumers a chance for a possibly better price and experience for accommodations when traveling. That takes the money away from Hotel conglomerates and massive union control and puts it back into the hands of the working people. Isn't that what the Left claims to be all for?
I find it very odd that instead of looking at perhaps viable concerns with "Does insurance cover certain events?" or "Do we need a vetting and registration process to ensure users are not criminals?" the politicians on the left move to _ban_ them with a vocal minority supporting them. The leftist followers and ideologues boycott and ostracize anyone who agrees with, works with, or uses the service. We just saw that with Uber, because how dare a person try to make money picking up people from the Airport when Union cabbies went on strike to support the lefts complaints about the immigration moratorium. By the way, a neighbor of mine who is a middle class legal immigrant may not be able to pay rent this month and he drives Uber Black and does not even handle airport pickups normally because #boycottuber (or whatever the hashtag is). Way to be for the little guys!
I think the bigger problem in society right now is a vocal minority of people refuse to have rational dialogue about any issue. The Right may have some past guilt , but the Left is most certainly guilty over the last several years and owns most of the media. Perhaps it's time for the Left to do what we demanded of the Right when they were deemed to be "too Christian", and start listening to the People as a whole instead of being dead set on forcing your ideology down people's throats.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not a measly $1000 per instance fine. Just make Airbnb rentals subject to NYC's rent control laws. Rent out a unit off season for a low rate and you can't raise it or kick the occupants out.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's like when you write something, and people feel what you say may inconvenience them, they just don't comprehend it. Is that an American thing?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If you want to make money off your property, sell it. You don't get to continually get income just from owning something and never actually have to give up your property in return.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
A reasonable cost of doing business.
The law they are fined under is almost certainly in violation of the New York State Constitution's home rule clause and it will be struck down on appeal.
The state passed this law against AirBnB but it only applies to properties in New York City. Properties outside NYC are not subject to this restriction. They didn't want to depress the already depressed earning power of people living in hellscapes like Albany and Buffalo. They just wanted to stick it to rich residents of the city and tourists. This discrimination between property owners in the City and property owners elsewhere in the state without the prior approval of New York City itself is a violation of our state constitution and a pretty glaring one at that. The only way the state can so discriminate in New York is if the local government is okay with it and guess what -- the City of New York would NEVER be okay with it.
We have a fundamental problem in America today and that's ever rising restrictions against the freedom to contract. We have regulators who are in the business of shaking down businesses and citizens for revenues and the way you raise revenues is constantly finding new things to prohibit and restrict. The truth is this kind of legislation should not even pass the lowest level of judicial scrutiny because it doesn't really seek to prevent a single harm. It's just a revenue raising measure masquerading as something else and it is neither reasonable or necessary -- pass a tax if you want money but don't restrict my freedom of contract. AirBnB was perfectly okay until they started feeling a hit in hotel taxes. It's as simple as that. But liberals will invent fake outrages to further restrict you freedoms 24/7 simply because the very idea of people making money in the market place hits a nerve with them and god forbid we don't restrict every possible avenue of money making we can.
All without realizing that their support for overweening government is what gives the government the power and resources to actually perform such surveillance of everyone.
"But, we want an all-powerful government that will give us anything we want or need but we don't want it to affect us personally in a negative way, and/or have the power to take anything away from us! (just those other people we don't like!)" /sarc
The primary thing governments do domestically is enact laws and enforce them. Governments are a necessary evil, and are evil precisely because governments are made up of people with power over others. Human nature comes into play. People just don't get that it means that big governments enact many laws and do a lot of enforcement because they have the manpower & resources. It leads to a 'soft tyranny' until a watershed event triggers either a revolution or a police state.
"That government is best which governs least" - Henry David Thoreau: 'Civil Disobedience'
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Because it isn't really illegeal becasue they changed the law after peoples sstarted doing it that's ENTRAPMENT
You're thinking of "ex post facto" - making an act illegal after it takes place.
I think that would apply to, at least, any rentals that were in progress when the law came into effect. New rentals might be a different matter.
This law amounts to a zoning/land-use law change. If the rentals were actually legal under the previous laws, they might remain legal as a "non-conforming use", despite the new law, until the property is sold to a new owner.
Also: If the new law has the effect of substantially reducing the property's value to its owner, the owner might be able to sue the city for the difference, under the Fifth Amendment's "takings" clause and the doctrine of "partial taking".
But IANAL and even if I were I'm not a New Yorker.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The line in the summary about one of the people running a hotel got me thinking "huh, why would they object to someone renting out hotel rooms?" Well, I found this article: ...which states:
http://www.cntraveler.com/stor...
Freid, owns and manages an Upper West Side hotel called The Marrakech and was reportedly putting some of the rooms and suites on Airbnb and other short-term booking sites instead of listing them as proper hotel rooms.
Basically, he was probably dodging the NYC hotel taxes, but otherwise just renting rooms to tourists same as any other hotel. So in his case at least all the outrage above about innocent neighbors not wanting transient guests is not applicable.
Yawn. If your government is evil, in any way, you've done wrong.
If you call government evil just because it denies your every whim, you're still a toddler.
If you want to drown government in a bathtub, you're that fucktard who is named after a Muppet.
Reality? Individual People are evil, selfish, and thoughtless children who will gladly screw others unless dilligently controlled. That's right, it isn't some nebulous government that is the villain, it is you and me.
Beautiful strawmen you created, and you slay then so well!
Too bad the post you replied to said nothing remotely like what you attempted to 'refute'.
And if you think people are generally evil, why the hell would you want to give any of them any more power over you than you absolutely have to and/or have those in a government that have the most effect on your life thousands of miles away buried away behind layers of bureaucracy and armed security?
A hotel advertising on hotel booking sites is illegal? How is one supposed to visit NYC if it's illegal to book a hotel room?
Is the problem with the BedStuy property that is isn't up to code, or that she's trying to make money off apartments she hasn't rented out yet? You can't even make the claim that there's a lease-violating sublet since it's the building owner doing it.
Seems to me that NYC picked the wrong cases to start with.
Short-term rentals (less than a month) were defined as being in the "hotel" category a long time ago, and a "hotel" faces licensing and taxing and insurance and legal responsibilities and all sorts of things. You could rent rooms in your own home if you were living there - no different from having visitors - but renting out to people when the owner is NOT living there is a "hotel". This is not news. One could argue that a different category would be nice to have; I have rented apartments in Edinburgh and London, both of which were registered with the appropriate tourist boards, licensed and insured appropriately, and had a hefty deposit to dissuade misbehavior. But the various online services don't seek to change or expand the laws, just claim that everyone can bypass them.