Post by High Priestess on Sept 20, 2015 7:25:16 GMT
Deborah shared May 2015 on New Hosts Forum
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-135131
Airbnb renters refuse to leave: host forced out of her own home
I am posting this here so that hosts can be aware of the kinds of problems that can occur with Airbnb guests. This situation occurred recently (is still occurring) in California, a state which seems to see more than its share of rental-scammers.
A host rented a bedroom in her home to a couple. They paid for the reservation through AIrbnb, but then wanted to extend their stay and asked to pay cash. The host unfortunately agreed to do both -- extend their stay (mistake) and accept direct payment (big mistake). Once the couple had stayed over 30 days, they obtained "tenant's rights" (code word here for "legal permission to abuse the law and perpetrate massive bullying of the landlord") and now are refusing to pay and refusing to leave the property. See the video in the link below -- the property owner says it feels like having burglars living at your own home. Because the rental extension was done direct, and not thru Airbnb, the host now has NO assistance from AIrbnb, and is now considering paying the renters to get them to leave her home! (If the reservation were thru Airbnb, it's likely AIrbnb would cover all legal costs to evict these malicious scammers).
See the article here:
bit.ly/1JP9fZa
While we are on that subject, I'll also post a link to another similar situation faced by another California AIrbnb host, this one occurred in Palm Springs last year. Again, it involved an AIrbnb guest who refused to leave.
bit.ly/1t8uQXh
And here is one more story from California of a guest who refused to leave, this one in San Francisco:
bit.ly/1tUOGBi
Moral of the story: take care, be prepared!
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Javier and Kym
Javier and Kym9 months ago
Never let them stay long enough to be tenants. Most especially in a bleeding heart pro-tenant place like California.
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
hard to do. In France , somebody staying more than 2 days have tenants right!
Rachel
Rachel9 months ago
I had a couple recently who booked via Airbnb for 5 nights and stayed 5 nights. However, they were very keen to negotiate with me privately for their next trip to London. I refused POINT BLANK to do this, and they seemed to accept it. Hosts have to understand that once they start doing things on a private basis they do not have the support and back up of Airbnb and it is just not worth the risk. I do feel sorry for the person in question above, but really she got herself into this mess by being stupid and greedy.
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
I also think, as I have said before, that anyone who intends to be an Airbnb host needs to know the landlord-tenant laws in their area. Or tenant-tenant laws. As bad as things can be for a landlord who has an Airbnb guest who refuses to leave, a tenant host could face an even worse situation, in that quite often tenants are not legally able to evict their other tenants. I actually have an acquaintance who had to move out of her rented home for just this reason. She rented her extra bedroom to someone, who then refused to leave when she told him it wasn't working out. He actually began to bully her and threatened to sue her over some completely made-up allegations, and he had a lawyer friend who participated in this harassment of her. She found that as a tenant, she had no legal right to evict him. So, she had to move out of her own rented residence, leaving the nasty tenant there to take over her house.
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Mario
Mario9 months ago
Texas has similar law which is why my max stay is 28 days to avoid tenant rights. Even if Abnb steps in, eviction process takes a while so best not to pass tenant threshold deadline.
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Vicky
Vicky9 months ago
Gosh it's amazing the differences in law depending on where you are! In the UK you can have a 'lodger' in your spare room for however long you want and you can legally kick them out whenever you feel like it with no notice regardless of what any agreement says (although obviously that's not nice and is standard to give one month notice). If they don't get out you can change the locks and throw their stuff out.
It's a very different situation when someone rents a whole space though. Not sure whether a long term rental of a whole space in airbnb would start attracting rights
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Your UK laws sound a whole lot more reasonable than ours! Really I consider it something like "cruel and unusual punishment" to force a property owner to endure harassment, abuse, bullying, vandalism, threats and all the other malicious behavior that many of these scammers perpetrate on the poor landlords. To call a person's bullying of the landlord whose house they are dwelling in illegally, "tenant's rights", is to stretch the concept of "rights" to a point of absurdity.
Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
In France, an old lady went to the hospital.
When she came back home , people were in.
She cannot evict them without a legal procedure which can last months or years (and she has to pay the lawyer and legal fees to do it).
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Horrible! Even worse than in the US -- maybe. Incredible that one cannot even remove trespassers in France without going through a lengthy court procedure................... I think that old lady is going to need to go to the hospital again. And then maybe she can sue the trespassers for putting her there.
Mario
Mario9 months ago
Can you behead then, like in your French Revolution?
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
In the 50's, the law was too much on landlords side. They could evict anyone , anytime. Some people died of coldness for having been evicted in winter (corpses found dead in street). So the law is now completly in the tenants side. It is very difficult to evict them (even when they do not pay or are trespassers). And when you win , you have to wait springtime to get them out by force as it is completly prohibited to evict someone in winter.
Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Wow, Nathalie, thank you for sharing so much about the situation in France, as well as the history of these laws. It does seem that in many places the pendulum tends to swing too far to one side or the other -- that happy middle ground where fairness lies, not being found. Even in the litigious USA we can lock out trespassers, or have police remove them. WIth the law being so extreme in France, I am surprised there has not developed a whole popular practice of law-abusers breaking into people's homes when they aren't looking, just to squat there for months or years. It would seem that your present law would really invite such crimes and that quite anyone could easily obtain free housing that way.
Andrew
Andrew9 months ago
It's a tricky one, because housing security is an enormous problem in California, where affordable units are scarce and precarious for people whose lives desperately depend on them. One former flatmate spend the final year of his life, while dying painfully of AIDS, in a nasty legal battle with a landlord eager to get rid of his rent-controlled tenants for profit. You could almost say he was lucky to have lost both battles at once, as the streets of SF are absolutely covered with people with similar tragedies. To become suddenly homeless in a place where market-rate rents are astronomically high is a horrifying situation, and with an ever-increasing homeless population the state has to take drastic measures to stabilize housing for people at risk. There's a very strong case against housing being a free-market system in general, but the slightest whisper of socialism in the US is political suicide.
Yet for every grey area and loophole in a policy, there are going to be dozens of dodgy opportunists ready to exploit it. Those include squatter guests such as these, for sure, though I can understand the point of anti-Airbnb activists who believe many of us are also such opportunists. We tend to be having our cake and eating it too. We don't want to be regulated like hotels, as it might be far too expensive or logistically impossible to comply with all the zoning, safety, and public-accommodation restrictions. However, we also don't want to be regulated as housing providers, as that gives our guests rights that we are not prepared to extend. So, what are we? Very few places have a regulatory framework for the specific nature of our business models, and both the hotel industry and the affordable housing lobby have a clear vested interest in keeping it that way. For the latter, I can appreciate their perspective a lot.
Most city governments don't have a clue how to define the rights of a guest and the responsibilities of a host in these short-term arrangements, and complicate the matter by applying ill-fitting policies designed for other purposes. But even with a legal provision custom-made for Airbnb hosts, the need to keep us in compliance doesn't mix well with the company's need to keep constantly expanding and disavow all responsibility. (In fact, when Berlin was passing a ban on some types of short-term rentals, Airbnb persistently denied my many pleas for more information, despite having an office in this very city. Over a year later they still have not supplied one scrap of communication to hosts outlining the parameters for compliance with the law - only a link to a Group dedicated to opposing it.)
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Andrew, I hope you're not justifying squatting as being in part a legitimate response to a lack of affordable housing!. The use of the term "opportunist" for these criminals, and then the suggestion that Airbnb hosts may also be "opportunists", seems to whitewash this situation where a moral, social and interpersonal wrong is being done, by violently imposing oneself in someone else's home, even to the point that that resident/homeowner is forced to leave. This is very different from a situation where a tenant is being evicted from a place where he has lived for some time. Squatting (at least as it is depicted in these stories -- certainly there are other, more benign types -- such as squatting in abandoned buildings) isn't a "housing security" issue, it is a malicious behavior, and I don't see this kind of behavior as something that should lead us to collective questioning about affordable housing. Rather , I see it as something that should lead us to ask how such atrocious behavior and the trauma and costs that it causes, can be prevented.
I don't view squatters as opportunists any more than I view those who hack into other's bank accounts and steal funds, as opportunists.
It would appear that in France, at least, housing is not on a free-market system, but rather housing is there a "free for trespassers/criminals" system!!.
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
Maybe i have to be more precise. Trespassing is illegal and the lady will win. But eviction must be decided by a court where both parties will show their evidence. You cannot ask the police to evict someone as it could be a regular tenant. but the procedure take time and money. nevertheless trespassers are an exception as they know they will loose in the end. The main consequence of having law in tenant side is a big housing crisis as nobody wants to rent.
Rick
Rick9 months ago
I will say that squatting is a time honored "right" in parts of Europe...Amsterdam & Berlin come to mind. Unused buildings in areas where housing is tight...not saying it is right...but has been fairly common...
Andrew
Andrew9 months ago
In both cities, a huge amount of the counterculture, art scene, and nightlife that still draws millions in tourist revenue originated in the squatter culture. Much of what made these cities the interesting places they are wouldn't have been possible without it. So it's been depressing in recent years, watching the state violently throwing the occupants of long-abandoned buildings into the streets, and murdering what's left of the alternative culture with it, to make room for luxury condos. I also see this as a very, very different issue from trespassing in a flat that hasn't been abandoned.
Rick
Rick9 months ago
Andrew, you edgy host, you!! (I agree, mostly-- this was the premise for the Broadway show "Rent")
Pamela
Pamela9 months ago
Okay after reading this, I'm revising my rental agreement
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Andrew
Andrew9 months ago
I use the term "opportunists" because, if there's not an existing law against what these shady people are doing, we can't legitimately call these types of squatters criminals. (Whereas it is absolutely illegal to hack into people's banks accounts and steal funds).
Guests who refuse to leave and take over our homes are every Airbnb host's worst nightmare, so of course it's a matter that we're especially sensitive to - especially when we don't have the law on our side. What I don't want to do is demonize the tenant protections themselves, as they are crucial for allowing for people to stay a long time in the place where they live in the first place. It would be a terrible situation if landlords in cities with housing shortages had the right to keep residential renters stuck in Airbnb-style, rent-at-will contracts, with fixed terms that have to be renewed every month and the right to evict on the spot at any time. It would also be a terrible situation if the tourist accommodation market chipped so deeply into the limited stocks of centrally-located residential housing that urban dwellers got forced outward to locations farther and farther from jobs. So I do believe that local governments have a responsibility to close the loopholes that make these scenarios possible, even though those loopholes obviously have a great benefit to Airbnb hosts.
But I'm not sure what the best alternative is. It's most easy and lucrative for us when we're working in a grey zone and doing as we please, but like any black-market economy that means we also don't have any rights ourselves when things go wrong. Drug dealers can't sue a customer who steals their stash, and similarly Airbnb hosts operating outside of an established framework for short-term rentals have limited means to fight the abuse of our terms.
I applaud you for consistently posting on these issues, because hosts take some very real risks that Airbnb would rather pull the wool over our eyes about so we feel "safe."
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Lou
Lou9 months ago
That's right, we cannot have our cake and eat it too. While we take advantage of the flexibility of the holiday and short term rentals, we have to accept that an overstaying guest is no different from a regular tenant refusing to leave and that national or local laws for tenant's rights apply. Even if we sign a proper rental agreement. It's the risk that we have to take as hosts/renters.
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
I see what you are saying, Andrew.
I don't think though that many if any of us believe that tenants shouldn't have any rights/protections.
In the political climate in the region where I live, it's not "tenant protections" which are insufficient or demonized, but rather property owner protections/rights which are often insufficient or being demonized, so that is my concern. It's true that tenants in San Francisco sometimes lose their residences and are left in a very expensive housing market which can be very difficult to negotiate -- but keep in mind the context in which this occurs -- namely one with perhaps the most extreme tenant rights/protections on the planet (except perhaps for France!) So it can't really be argued that in San Francisco, it's a lack of tenant protections which leads to evictions. For instance, in order to prevent Ellis Act evictions,which involve the right of the owner to evict tenants if they decide to go out of the rental business, you would really have to give the tenant more rights to the ownership of the property, than you do to the landlord, and to go that far would be quite absurd, and essentially entail a total confiscation of private property and/or enslavement of the property owner into a business they no longer have interest in pursuing.
There are quite a large number of types of "tenant protections" and, particularly in large metropolitan areas in the US (the places with rent/eviction controls and also, ironically, often the highest rents in the nation), tenants tend to have many more protections/rights than landlords do, particularly those who rent entire apartments/houses, rather than a room in a house. In fact, apart from eviction over nonpayment of rent, it is more often the case that it is next to impossible to evict a tenant from an apartment in a rent controlled city. Which has given rise to quite horrible situations for property owners, because, as I say, rather than "tenant protections" being demonized in my area, landlord protections/rights are the rights that are demonized, so in eviction proceedings, the "bias" (as reflected in the media), seems to be against the landlord.
Here is an example, a situation where a property owner is finding it next to impossible to evict a long term tenant who has been abusive (and racist) and whom he lives in fear of, and so is having to move in his elderly Mother to get that tenant out.
tinyurl.com/k5o298a
It's my opinion that the rights which tenants have when they rent out entire apartments, need not and in fact should not be the same as the rights tenants have when they rent a room in someone's home -- and in fact they aren't the same rights. Even in cities with rent and eviction control, one can at the present time evict a tenant from a room in one's own home, without cause, simply by giving notice. The eviction will eventually take place -- the problem is the amount of time it may take, and the burden --financial as well as the emotional toll -- this can pose to the property owner. My argument is -- if the law clearly allows a tenant to be evicted, why should the tenant be able to game the system to make this process take 3 to 8 months, and potentially cost the landlord $40,000 if the tenant opts for a jury trial, instead of simply taking 1 month, and going before a judge rather than a jury, if in court at all, and cost no more than $500. I fail to see the rationale for allowing jury trials in eviction cases. Small claims court cases of up to $10k in value are routinely heard before a judge (juries aren't used or permitted in such cases) and a similar procedure could easily be used for eviction cases, which would reduce their cost enormously -- and the potential for the eviction to cost $40k is what is used by some unscrupulous lawyers to extort the landlord into a forced settlement, eg an agreement that the tenant gets to live there another 6 months for free, an arrangement which has in fact cost more than one property owner,( in the case of a squatter refusing to pay rent) to lose their property in foreclosure.
It's my opinion, that in contrast to the situation for a tenant renting an apartment, or whole house, in a situation of a tenant renting a room in a property owner's house, the tenant should be protected by requiring to be given 30 days or 7 days' notice (depending on whether they are paying monthly or weekly), but the owner should be protected in that they do not have to go to court to get the tenant out, should the tenant fail to leave by the required date. In fact, if the owner is renting a room to only ONE tenant, this actually already is the law -- under California Civil Code section 1946.5, and CA Penal Code Section 602.3, the owner need only give the tenant 1, 7 or 30 days' notice, depending on the interval at which rent is paid, and if they have not left by that time, the owner can have the tenant removed as a trespasser, or simply lock them out of the building.
That law is presented here
www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml
ANd is summarized as follows:
"Single lodger in a private residence
A lodger is a person who lives in a room in a house where the owner lives. The owner can enter all areas occupied by the lodger and has overall control of the house. Most lodgers have the same rights as tenants.
However, in the case of a single lodger in a house where there are no other lodgers, the owner can evict the lodger without using formal eviction proceedings. The owner can give the lodger written notice that the lodger cannot continue to use the room. The amount of notice must be the same as the number of days between rent payments (for example, 30 days). (See "Tenant's notice to end a periodic tenancy".) When the owner has given the lodger proper notice and the time has expired, the lodger has no further right to remain in the owner's house and may be removed as a trespasser."
So it's my view that this law should be applied to all situations of tenants renting rooms in the property owner's home, instead of just to situations where there is only one such tenant. ( Eg -- Why should a tenant renting out a room in a house with 1-2 other tenants, and the owner, have more rights than a tenant renting a room with just the owner? )It would then cover the abusive situation that the AIrbnb host in Watsonville CA is currently facing.
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Jeannette
Jeannette9 months ago
The usual direct relationship exists between "strong tenant's rights" and LACK of affordable housing (as the market has no incentive to provide additional housing that is below market).
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Jeannette
Jeannette9 months ago
Andrew -- re: "There's a very strong case against housing being a free-market system in general" < hopefully you are kidding, but I suspect you are not.
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Deborah
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-135131
Airbnb renters refuse to leave: host forced out of her own home
I am posting this here so that hosts can be aware of the kinds of problems that can occur with Airbnb guests. This situation occurred recently (is still occurring) in California, a state which seems to see more than its share of rental-scammers.
A host rented a bedroom in her home to a couple. They paid for the reservation through AIrbnb, but then wanted to extend their stay and asked to pay cash. The host unfortunately agreed to do both -- extend their stay (mistake) and accept direct payment (big mistake). Once the couple had stayed over 30 days, they obtained "tenant's rights" (code word here for "legal permission to abuse the law and perpetrate massive bullying of the landlord") and now are refusing to pay and refusing to leave the property. See the video in the link below -- the property owner says it feels like having burglars living at your own home. Because the rental extension was done direct, and not thru Airbnb, the host now has NO assistance from AIrbnb, and is now considering paying the renters to get them to leave her home! (If the reservation were thru Airbnb, it's likely AIrbnb would cover all legal costs to evict these malicious scammers).
See the article here:
bit.ly/1JP9fZa
While we are on that subject, I'll also post a link to another similar situation faced by another California AIrbnb host, this one occurred in Palm Springs last year. Again, it involved an AIrbnb guest who refused to leave.
bit.ly/1t8uQXh
And here is one more story from California of a guest who refused to leave, this one in San Francisco:
bit.ly/1tUOGBi
Moral of the story: take care, be prepared!
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Javier and Kym
Javier and Kym9 months ago
Never let them stay long enough to be tenants. Most especially in a bleeding heart pro-tenant place like California.
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
hard to do. In France , somebody staying more than 2 days have tenants right!
Rachel
Rachel9 months ago
I had a couple recently who booked via Airbnb for 5 nights and stayed 5 nights. However, they were very keen to negotiate with me privately for their next trip to London. I refused POINT BLANK to do this, and they seemed to accept it. Hosts have to understand that once they start doing things on a private basis they do not have the support and back up of Airbnb and it is just not worth the risk. I do feel sorry for the person in question above, but really she got herself into this mess by being stupid and greedy.
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
I also think, as I have said before, that anyone who intends to be an Airbnb host needs to know the landlord-tenant laws in their area. Or tenant-tenant laws. As bad as things can be for a landlord who has an Airbnb guest who refuses to leave, a tenant host could face an even worse situation, in that quite often tenants are not legally able to evict their other tenants. I actually have an acquaintance who had to move out of her rented home for just this reason. She rented her extra bedroom to someone, who then refused to leave when she told him it wasn't working out. He actually began to bully her and threatened to sue her over some completely made-up allegations, and he had a lawyer friend who participated in this harassment of her. She found that as a tenant, she had no legal right to evict him. So, she had to move out of her own rented residence, leaving the nasty tenant there to take over her house.
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Mario
Mario9 months ago
Texas has similar law which is why my max stay is 28 days to avoid tenant rights. Even if Abnb steps in, eviction process takes a while so best not to pass tenant threshold deadline.
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Vicky
Vicky9 months ago
Gosh it's amazing the differences in law depending on where you are! In the UK you can have a 'lodger' in your spare room for however long you want and you can legally kick them out whenever you feel like it with no notice regardless of what any agreement says (although obviously that's not nice and is standard to give one month notice). If they don't get out you can change the locks and throw their stuff out.
It's a very different situation when someone rents a whole space though. Not sure whether a long term rental of a whole space in airbnb would start attracting rights
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Your UK laws sound a whole lot more reasonable than ours! Really I consider it something like "cruel and unusual punishment" to force a property owner to endure harassment, abuse, bullying, vandalism, threats and all the other malicious behavior that many of these scammers perpetrate on the poor landlords. To call a person's bullying of the landlord whose house they are dwelling in illegally, "tenant's rights", is to stretch the concept of "rights" to a point of absurdity.
Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
In France, an old lady went to the hospital.
When she came back home , people were in.
She cannot evict them without a legal procedure which can last months or years (and she has to pay the lawyer and legal fees to do it).
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Horrible! Even worse than in the US -- maybe. Incredible that one cannot even remove trespassers in France without going through a lengthy court procedure................... I think that old lady is going to need to go to the hospital again. And then maybe she can sue the trespassers for putting her there.
Mario
Mario9 months ago
Can you behead then, like in your French Revolution?
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
In the 50's, the law was too much on landlords side. They could evict anyone , anytime. Some people died of coldness for having been evicted in winter (corpses found dead in street). So the law is now completly in the tenants side. It is very difficult to evict them (even when they do not pay or are trespassers). And when you win , you have to wait springtime to get them out by force as it is completly prohibited to evict someone in winter.
Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Wow, Nathalie, thank you for sharing so much about the situation in France, as well as the history of these laws. It does seem that in many places the pendulum tends to swing too far to one side or the other -- that happy middle ground where fairness lies, not being found. Even in the litigious USA we can lock out trespassers, or have police remove them. WIth the law being so extreme in France, I am surprised there has not developed a whole popular practice of law-abusers breaking into people's homes when they aren't looking, just to squat there for months or years. It would seem that your present law would really invite such crimes and that quite anyone could easily obtain free housing that way.
Andrew
Andrew9 months ago
It's a tricky one, because housing security is an enormous problem in California, where affordable units are scarce and precarious for people whose lives desperately depend on them. One former flatmate spend the final year of his life, while dying painfully of AIDS, in a nasty legal battle with a landlord eager to get rid of his rent-controlled tenants for profit. You could almost say he was lucky to have lost both battles at once, as the streets of SF are absolutely covered with people with similar tragedies. To become suddenly homeless in a place where market-rate rents are astronomically high is a horrifying situation, and with an ever-increasing homeless population the state has to take drastic measures to stabilize housing for people at risk. There's a very strong case against housing being a free-market system in general, but the slightest whisper of socialism in the US is political suicide.
Yet for every grey area and loophole in a policy, there are going to be dozens of dodgy opportunists ready to exploit it. Those include squatter guests such as these, for sure, though I can understand the point of anti-Airbnb activists who believe many of us are also such opportunists. We tend to be having our cake and eating it too. We don't want to be regulated like hotels, as it might be far too expensive or logistically impossible to comply with all the zoning, safety, and public-accommodation restrictions. However, we also don't want to be regulated as housing providers, as that gives our guests rights that we are not prepared to extend. So, what are we? Very few places have a regulatory framework for the specific nature of our business models, and both the hotel industry and the affordable housing lobby have a clear vested interest in keeping it that way. For the latter, I can appreciate their perspective a lot.
Most city governments don't have a clue how to define the rights of a guest and the responsibilities of a host in these short-term arrangements, and complicate the matter by applying ill-fitting policies designed for other purposes. But even with a legal provision custom-made for Airbnb hosts, the need to keep us in compliance doesn't mix well with the company's need to keep constantly expanding and disavow all responsibility. (In fact, when Berlin was passing a ban on some types of short-term rentals, Airbnb persistently denied my many pleas for more information, despite having an office in this very city. Over a year later they still have not supplied one scrap of communication to hosts outlining the parameters for compliance with the law - only a link to a Group dedicated to opposing it.)
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
Andrew, I hope you're not justifying squatting as being in part a legitimate response to a lack of affordable housing!. The use of the term "opportunist" for these criminals, and then the suggestion that Airbnb hosts may also be "opportunists", seems to whitewash this situation where a moral, social and interpersonal wrong is being done, by violently imposing oneself in someone else's home, even to the point that that resident/homeowner is forced to leave. This is very different from a situation where a tenant is being evicted from a place where he has lived for some time. Squatting (at least as it is depicted in these stories -- certainly there are other, more benign types -- such as squatting in abandoned buildings) isn't a "housing security" issue, it is a malicious behavior, and I don't see this kind of behavior as something that should lead us to collective questioning about affordable housing. Rather , I see it as something that should lead us to ask how such atrocious behavior and the trauma and costs that it causes, can be prevented.
I don't view squatters as opportunists any more than I view those who hack into other's bank accounts and steal funds, as opportunists.
It would appear that in France, at least, housing is not on a free-market system, but rather housing is there a "free for trespassers/criminals" system!!.
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Nathalie et Claude
Nathalie et Claude9 months ago
Maybe i have to be more precise. Trespassing is illegal and the lady will win. But eviction must be decided by a court where both parties will show their evidence. You cannot ask the police to evict someone as it could be a regular tenant. but the procedure take time and money. nevertheless trespassers are an exception as they know they will loose in the end. The main consequence of having law in tenant side is a big housing crisis as nobody wants to rent.
Rick
Rick9 months ago
I will say that squatting is a time honored "right" in parts of Europe...Amsterdam & Berlin come to mind. Unused buildings in areas where housing is tight...not saying it is right...but has been fairly common...
Andrew
Andrew9 months ago
In both cities, a huge amount of the counterculture, art scene, and nightlife that still draws millions in tourist revenue originated in the squatter culture. Much of what made these cities the interesting places they are wouldn't have been possible without it. So it's been depressing in recent years, watching the state violently throwing the occupants of long-abandoned buildings into the streets, and murdering what's left of the alternative culture with it, to make room for luxury condos. I also see this as a very, very different issue from trespassing in a flat that hasn't been abandoned.
Rick
Rick9 months ago
Andrew, you edgy host, you!! (I agree, mostly-- this was the premise for the Broadway show "Rent")
Pamela
Pamela9 months ago
Okay after reading this, I'm revising my rental agreement
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Andrew
Andrew9 months ago
I use the term "opportunists" because, if there's not an existing law against what these shady people are doing, we can't legitimately call these types of squatters criminals. (Whereas it is absolutely illegal to hack into people's banks accounts and steal funds).
Guests who refuse to leave and take over our homes are every Airbnb host's worst nightmare, so of course it's a matter that we're especially sensitive to - especially when we don't have the law on our side. What I don't want to do is demonize the tenant protections themselves, as they are crucial for allowing for people to stay a long time in the place where they live in the first place. It would be a terrible situation if landlords in cities with housing shortages had the right to keep residential renters stuck in Airbnb-style, rent-at-will contracts, with fixed terms that have to be renewed every month and the right to evict on the spot at any time. It would also be a terrible situation if the tourist accommodation market chipped so deeply into the limited stocks of centrally-located residential housing that urban dwellers got forced outward to locations farther and farther from jobs. So I do believe that local governments have a responsibility to close the loopholes that make these scenarios possible, even though those loopholes obviously have a great benefit to Airbnb hosts.
But I'm not sure what the best alternative is. It's most easy and lucrative for us when we're working in a grey zone and doing as we please, but like any black-market economy that means we also don't have any rights ourselves when things go wrong. Drug dealers can't sue a customer who steals their stash, and similarly Airbnb hosts operating outside of an established framework for short-term rentals have limited means to fight the abuse of our terms.
I applaud you for consistently posting on these issues, because hosts take some very real risks that Airbnb would rather pull the wool over our eyes about so we feel "safe."
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Lou
Lou9 months ago
That's right, we cannot have our cake and eat it too. While we take advantage of the flexibility of the holiday and short term rentals, we have to accept that an overstaying guest is no different from a regular tenant refusing to leave and that national or local laws for tenant's rights apply. Even if we sign a proper rental agreement. It's the risk that we have to take as hosts/renters.
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Deborah
Deborah9 months ago
I see what you are saying, Andrew.
I don't think though that many if any of us believe that tenants shouldn't have any rights/protections.
In the political climate in the region where I live, it's not "tenant protections" which are insufficient or demonized, but rather property owner protections/rights which are often insufficient or being demonized, so that is my concern. It's true that tenants in San Francisco sometimes lose their residences and are left in a very expensive housing market which can be very difficult to negotiate -- but keep in mind the context in which this occurs -- namely one with perhaps the most extreme tenant rights/protections on the planet (except perhaps for France!) So it can't really be argued that in San Francisco, it's a lack of tenant protections which leads to evictions. For instance, in order to prevent Ellis Act evictions,which involve the right of the owner to evict tenants if they decide to go out of the rental business, you would really have to give the tenant more rights to the ownership of the property, than you do to the landlord, and to go that far would be quite absurd, and essentially entail a total confiscation of private property and/or enslavement of the property owner into a business they no longer have interest in pursuing.
There are quite a large number of types of "tenant protections" and, particularly in large metropolitan areas in the US (the places with rent/eviction controls and also, ironically, often the highest rents in the nation), tenants tend to have many more protections/rights than landlords do, particularly those who rent entire apartments/houses, rather than a room in a house. In fact, apart from eviction over nonpayment of rent, it is more often the case that it is next to impossible to evict a tenant from an apartment in a rent controlled city. Which has given rise to quite horrible situations for property owners, because, as I say, rather than "tenant protections" being demonized in my area, landlord protections/rights are the rights that are demonized, so in eviction proceedings, the "bias" (as reflected in the media), seems to be against the landlord.
Here is an example, a situation where a property owner is finding it next to impossible to evict a long term tenant who has been abusive (and racist) and whom he lives in fear of, and so is having to move in his elderly Mother to get that tenant out.
tinyurl.com/k5o298a
It's my opinion that the rights which tenants have when they rent out entire apartments, need not and in fact should not be the same as the rights tenants have when they rent a room in someone's home -- and in fact they aren't the same rights. Even in cities with rent and eviction control, one can at the present time evict a tenant from a room in one's own home, without cause, simply by giving notice. The eviction will eventually take place -- the problem is the amount of time it may take, and the burden --financial as well as the emotional toll -- this can pose to the property owner. My argument is -- if the law clearly allows a tenant to be evicted, why should the tenant be able to game the system to make this process take 3 to 8 months, and potentially cost the landlord $40,000 if the tenant opts for a jury trial, instead of simply taking 1 month, and going before a judge rather than a jury, if in court at all, and cost no more than $500. I fail to see the rationale for allowing jury trials in eviction cases. Small claims court cases of up to $10k in value are routinely heard before a judge (juries aren't used or permitted in such cases) and a similar procedure could easily be used for eviction cases, which would reduce their cost enormously -- and the potential for the eviction to cost $40k is what is used by some unscrupulous lawyers to extort the landlord into a forced settlement, eg an agreement that the tenant gets to live there another 6 months for free, an arrangement which has in fact cost more than one property owner,( in the case of a squatter refusing to pay rent) to lose their property in foreclosure.
It's my opinion, that in contrast to the situation for a tenant renting an apartment, or whole house, in a situation of a tenant renting a room in a property owner's house, the tenant should be protected by requiring to be given 30 days or 7 days' notice (depending on whether they are paying monthly or weekly), but the owner should be protected in that they do not have to go to court to get the tenant out, should the tenant fail to leave by the required date. In fact, if the owner is renting a room to only ONE tenant, this actually already is the law -- under California Civil Code section 1946.5, and CA Penal Code Section 602.3, the owner need only give the tenant 1, 7 or 30 days' notice, depending on the interval at which rent is paid, and if they have not left by that time, the owner can have the tenant removed as a trespasser, or simply lock them out of the building.
That law is presented here
www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml
ANd is summarized as follows:
"Single lodger in a private residence
A lodger is a person who lives in a room in a house where the owner lives. The owner can enter all areas occupied by the lodger and has overall control of the house. Most lodgers have the same rights as tenants.
However, in the case of a single lodger in a house where there are no other lodgers, the owner can evict the lodger without using formal eviction proceedings. The owner can give the lodger written notice that the lodger cannot continue to use the room. The amount of notice must be the same as the number of days between rent payments (for example, 30 days). (See "Tenant's notice to end a periodic tenancy".) When the owner has given the lodger proper notice and the time has expired, the lodger has no further right to remain in the owner's house and may be removed as a trespasser."
So it's my view that this law should be applied to all situations of tenants renting rooms in the property owner's home, instead of just to situations where there is only one such tenant. ( Eg -- Why should a tenant renting out a room in a house with 1-2 other tenants, and the owner, have more rights than a tenant renting a room with just the owner? )It would then cover the abusive situation that the AIrbnb host in Watsonville CA is currently facing.
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Jeannette
Jeannette9 months ago
The usual direct relationship exists between "strong tenant's rights" and LACK of affordable housing (as the market has no incentive to provide additional housing that is below market).
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Jeannette
Jeannette9 months ago
Andrew -- re: "There's a very strong case against housing being a free-market system in general" < hopefully you are kidding, but I suspect you are not.
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Deborah