Commerical property owner "hosts" complain about other hosts

POsted on New HOsts Forum:

Deborah

This Commerical host who is complaining about small hosts needs some flak back

So on the new Airbnb groups, I noticed there is a post by a large commerical "host" whose name is "Manager? (!?!?!) who is complaining that he is legal in doing short term rentals on his large 9 unit apartment building in France, but those little hosts renting out a room in their home are not legal. THe nerve of him!!

I think this "Manager" has quite some nerve and really needs some feedback about his attitude. Really, as if Airbnb were intended for large commerical operations, and not small hosts!!!!

I also think that in general we should be discouraging hosts from policing other hosts, as this is so divisive.

Please go here and say what you think, I started by posting my view on that:
community.airbnb.com/t5/General-Hosting/Sorting-out-approved-tourism-rentals-from-non-approved/m-p/4170#M664

Andrew
Completely agree with you, Deborah. I would jump in myself, but his post is in the open areas that anyone can view, and I won't be participating in those. If mister "Manager" makes his way into the restricted zone, he'll be hearing from me too.


Jessa
aaargh I just had to comment, tried to resist but was itching to badly... one public comment and I'm out though, promise to myself.

Deborah
Thanks Jessa, your comment is great!!

Carmen and Jim
I guess he doesn't like the competition and his argument sounds so much like the major chains complain about. But I do agree that you should be as legal as possible and pay the taxes to the state and cities where you are hosting.


Jessa
I think that with his 3(!) star average he is just pissed that his competition in his (truly wonderful btw) region is welcoming much happier guests with or without approval from the French tourism board. That said the hurdles to renting out strictly legal vacation rentals are not nothing in Southern France and this bloke passed the hurdles whilst most casual renting-out-the-spare-room people probably did not.


Rosanne
I may have read it wrong, but it sounds to me like he was talking about people that are living in low-income-housing, moving out and renting their homes for short term, while living elsewhere. That must be illegal?
As far as hotels using Airbnb - if ABB wants to make more money and is opening up there site to hotels, maybe they should have two other sites called AirHotel and AirFlats. Because I dont think either of these fall under Air BNB.
I thought Airbnb was for people sharing their homes, not for realtors renting empty homes and Hotels renting rooms.


Carrie
Yes, that was my reading as well. Renters who are sub-letting their apartments, not homeowners renting out a room while said owner is on the premises.

Rosanne
I dont even think he meant realtors renting out empty flats - I think he was talking about people that have low income housing, leaving their homes - going to live with someone else and renting out their houses to make money. If the state is giving them low income housing, I'm sure it must be illegal for them to go live somewhere else, rent their home and make money.

Deborah
It sounded like he meant not tenants in general, but those who are on the equivalent of welfare in the US -- receiving government housing. I got the impression such hosts were a subset of his overarching complaint, which was against all those who dont' have the right papers in order. ---------------------------------------My view on those who are Airbnb-ing out the units they get as charity or which are paid for in part by the government -- let the government be concerned with that. That is an issue for the government, not for other hosts. THose in their community might want to warn such hosts about the consequences they may face if they are found out by the government, to be turning around and selling what they recieve on subsidy or as charity (in the USA the consequences can be quite serious, as this would be viewed as Fraud) , but ultimately their choices are their own and they are the ones who need to live with those choices.

Deborah
I recall , a while back , there was a host in a city in my area, who was a recipient of government funded housing. She was listing her place on Airbnb. The building was seedy, and there were some low-lifes around. Consequently, she got some bad reviews , right off the bat, from a couple indignant guests, who pointed out what she had failed to mention in her listing --- that she had put them up at a residence for low income people. She whined on the groups about her bad reviews. She received feedback that she had not been honest with guests in her listing description, and also received the feedback from one host that she was "playing a dangerous game" in Airbnb-ing out her apartment that she received as a government subsidy. One could easily lose one's apartment by such a game. Shortly thereafter I saw her unlist her listing -- which just goes to show that sometimes those who aren't really meant to be hosts, do finally realize that.


Anne21 hours ago
Deborah and others, I work for a housing authority and any tenant subletting their unit will lose the subsidy (voucher) or their public housing unit. I've seen this happen. We are quite vigilant!

Deborah
Deborah8 hours ago
What you're saying, Anne, demonstrates that the government is fully capable of monitoring this situation itself , without help from Airbnb hosts. So this too supports my point that Airbnb hosts don't need to put police hats on -- the government employees can do that.

Anne
Anne8 hours ago
Yep, plenty of friends, neighbors and relatives plus their landlords ready to make the fraud public

Monica
We all should be "legal"....if it comes right down to it. Proper insurance for liability, safety inspections and endorsement by our municipalities is essential.


Jeannettea day ago
NO NO NO NO. Safety inspections are just ridiculous nanny-state harassment pushed by hotels.

Deborah
Deboraha day ago
Exactly my opinion on the matter, Jeannette. I can't understand the preoccupation some cities have with safety inspections -- this isn't a view shared by all cities, but some have a bee up their behind about it. And what does it come down to ? A smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector? Guess what -- if the house doesn't have one, and guest wants one, guest can easily go and purchase one and put it in their room. I think we need a new movement, #StopTheNannying

Deborah
Deboraha day ago
I meant to add also -- one of the reasons why I think mandatory safety inspections in private homes are stupid, is because of all people who are most likely to care about the safety of a homeowner's home, wouldn't you think it's the homeowner themselves? I mean, doesn't the government think we might be more invested in protecting our property than they are? So stop bullying us.

Anne
Anne21 hours ago
YES YES! I have a state license to maintain so all my taxes, licensing, etc are going to be current.



Deborah
"Manager" does make a comment about how some hosts are renting out places in government housing, but those appear to be a subset of his complaint -- his main point seems to be that anyone who doesn't have the official documentation and permitting that he has (as the owner of a large commercial operation) is somehow not right, and refers to several or all of these as "Scammers" (not sure if he means just the ones renting out their government housing on Airbnb, or all those who dont' have the proper forms in order like he does) .

I have two difficulties with his point: first, I think it's all out of line for commerical operators to sign up as Airbnb hosts and then get on the soapbox about what is or isn't legal in hosting. Secondly, I think can it create divisiveness in the host community when hosts post threads complaining about other hosts in their city not being legal. People don't like being policed and monitored and I think the host forums are better and more open without policing posts.

My own personality is such that I really dislike the "legalistic" or "literal-minded" perspective on life, as I believe that orientation thoroughly lacks imagination. I was trying to make the point that we are only here today, on this website talking about this, because Brian, Joe and Nate were not "legalistic" people who were very careful to make sure everything they did was strictly legal before they went and did it.

Laws certainly are useful and necessary, but they are not the be-all, end-all of life, and many laws are unjust. And in my opinion there are a whole lot of better things to put energy into making laws about, than what people do with their bedrooms.

As some famous guy in the ancient Middle East once said, "THe letter of the law kills, but the spirit giveth life."

Jeannettea day ago
1,000 likes.

Jeannette
That O.P. is too stupid to even weigh in on.



Rebecca
Um...I'm not sure a biblical quote counts as a defence against defying local laws. Particularly in a global community.


Olivier François
Hi Deborah, I'm in holidays, generally airbnb off and just have a look on your post. And I have to admit I'm totally agree with this guy, agree about the content not about the form. In France airbnb is totally legal for owner and illegal for tenant, even more if it's social housing. It's the law and just the law. I'm paying taxes, part of them are used to give social housing to people who need it. If these people are renting on airbnb and have 4 or 5 more money renting than they pay for it's unfair ! Don't have many time to explain all the bad impacts but in France it's a problem to solve. I don't think he's policing anybody, just express his frustration, and mine, to see people breaking rules while we work hard to do everything respecting them.


Deborah
Thank you Olivier for explaining the situation in France, in terms of the distinction between owners and tenants, which the original poster did not do. I am curious, these laws in France on short term rentals, are they new, modern laws which have been developed with Airbnb in mind, or are they old laws, which were developed before the rise of Airbnb?

The issue of "legality" tends to be so often oversimplified, and I wanted to bring back some perspective on its complexity.

One of the primary points I was trying to make was that if the Airbnb founders and a huge number of Airbnb hosts, had always followed laws and rules about short term renting, we would not be on this website today, talking to each other. Because there would be no Airbnb.

An example: doing short term rentals in San Francisco was not only illegal, but was in many cases CRIMINAL, prior to February, 2015. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk started doing short term rentals in San Francisco in 2009, when doing so was often criminal (it was a misdemeanor, if I recall correctly). All Airbnb hosts doing hosting in San Francisco prior to February, 2015, were violating the law. So all those 4000 to (currently) 7000 San Francisco listings were illegal. A similar situation actually either exists or existed, in many US cities (I know much less about Europe).

One of my main points, therefore, is -- who feels that it would have been appropriate to scold all those thousands of San Francisco Airbnb hosts, prior to Feb 2015, and tell them to quit it, that what they were doing was illegal, and they should not be breaking the law? Anyone who suggested that someone should do Airbnb hosting in San Francisco, prior to Feb 2015, was basically "telling someone to violate the law."

Point being, that particular law was unjust, it was outdated, it was in need of being violated -- and violated by large numbers of people -- in order to demonstrate to the city that, in fact, the law was wrong, and the city needed to catch up to meet the modern world.

There is a difference between situations where a city has already visited this issue in modern times, and situations where it has not.

Even so, given the size of this phenomenon, something suggests to me that municipalities which are too restrictive on this matter of hosting and short term rentals, will end up having to revisit the issue again and again until they can accept the modern world.

I hope that helps a little to clarify the point I've been trying to make (and Andrew has made too) about why issues of "legality" in Airbnb hosting are far from as simple as some make them out to be.

I dont know. I have seen a few very dodgy listings and a friend of mine lived beside one in Nice (an illegal hostel for Korean people). Safety inspections may be a pain but I have seen someone posting with a listing for a not huge house in which she had 8 people already living full time and was also letting upstairs full time a room with 2 beds where she said you could put 4 people. There was one bathroom upstairs. (I happened to see her both on the renting sites in Dublin and on the airbnb group)
Downstairs she had turned the sitting room into a bunk room where she was putting 8 airbnb people in bunks.  Reviews said cheap and dilapidated, a hostel was better, clean but too crowded. There was a downstairs bathroom. The people staying airbnb had no use of the kitchen.
Thats 22 people in crowded conditions. What if there was a fire. What about fire exits and safety. That is what safety inspections should be for, unscrupulous people like this. Furthermore the host was making an absolute fortune out of both airbnb and her I suspect illegal subletting and was posting on the forums should she be paying tax .....
There was another listing where someone fell off a bed platform and had to go to hospital. The host was on airbnb complaining that the people left without clearing up. They said the listing was dangerous. It looked dangerous to me. I showed it to my residents association (it happened to be on my road). They said it was an illegal apartment it should have had railings on the steps up the the platform. 
My friend in Nice had a terrible time trying to get the multibed (in a small apartment) airbnb hostel closed. In the end she sold her apartment and moved. She did finally get them out. 

For all the good hosts these dodgy ones are coming in putting people in actual physical danger. 

The other thing I noticed in the SF Homesharers forum is that as soon as someone obtained an STR, all of a sudden that person starts scolding everyone else who doesn't have one. A few of these STR hosts just got their license very recently and they became an authority voice as if they now work for the Planning Department. I obtained my STR permit back in February and I honestly don't think it is any of my business whether or not other hosts have theirs.
And I am watching in horror now as Airbnb starts deleting listings as they please, even when it is unjustified. I surely hope there is a new company soon that would take the opportunity of embracing hosts like me, who started getting tired of playing this political game.