Can an HOA restrict individual room rentals when the owner is present?

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Noy0
Level 2
Hollywood, FL

Can an HOA restrict individual room rentals when the owner is present?

Clearly when you live in an HOA governed community there are rules to live by.  

The vast majority of those rules have to do with what you can and can not do with the OUTSIDE of your home.  The HOA can dictate what colors you are allowed to paint the exterior of your home, but certainly not the interior.  

There are also rules reistricting  the rental of the entire property.  

But what if you are not renting out the entire property,  what if you are simply renting out a room as an owner occupied home.  I do not feel the HOA has the right to tell an owner who else can live in the house (for free), nor which roommates he can rent to.  So given that much,  can they really legally dictate what happens with room rentals, in a house that the owner is occupying?  

 

The HOA docs only covers the rental of the house, not rooms, so I just don't see where that that authority comes from.  Would love some feedback on this, as I am about to have an issue with my own HOA.  

1 Best Answer

Seems your issue is one of cars and traffic.  Why blame it on renters?  Blame it on family dynamics.  Do renters only drive cars?  I think many non renter guests also drive cars  and make a community busy.   Isn’t your issue your homes are to big?  For instance, I have a seven bedroom home and 4 kids that each had a vehicle.  Made my place grand central station for about 12 years with them and their friends coming and going.  I Remember complaining about a few neighbors that did the same thing when my kids were younger and not driving.  Now I am an empty nester and do Airbnb and get one vehicle once in awhile from a renter instead of 5, 6, 7 vehicles from my kids and myself every day.  I am sure every one of my neighbors would prefer my renters traffic compared to my kids and their friends or if I sold the home to another family that would have the right family   dynamics for the home size.  The change of family dynamics has changed your neighbourhood.  Your just not at the same stage as your fellow neighbors.

 

Must be the money that bothers you really.  I would prefer having someone that pays rent to make it that I or my neighbor can afford a mortgage and make their place nice and keep thing nice and clean instead of having someone that struggles with a two person working family and the home looks neglected.  Going to create rules that no two person working family is allowed?

 

Share another situation we live in a world today that children seem to return home for many reasons including divorce, separation, hard times, or just don’t move out when they turn 18.  These people also drive cars and make the community busy.  So it is often that home owners keep their bedrooms full with multi family generational living enviroments.  Some people it is just their culture.  My direct neighbor had one of his 6 kids come back with a husband and two children for about 9 months as they built a new house.  The neighbor beside him had a cultural multi family environment with grand parents, parents kids and the kids spouses and the kids kids all in one home.  Why do the HOA’s blame the traffic on renters?  

 

I will share one other thing, one of my neighbors came down with cancer and the activity that went on at his home was a constant flow with relatives visiting, nursing care providers, meal providers and the list goes one.  If you want a quiet place to live why blame it on renters and discriminate them.  Blame it on family dynamics.

 

And who knows maybe someday you will understand why you bought a home that was bigger than what you need and use it totally as we all should feel like we can and be the neighbor that added traffic to the neighborhood.

 

 

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62 Replies 62

I am deciding whether  to enter a legal battle with my HOA over a nearly identical issue.  An attorney advised me that if i occupy my home simultaneouly any renter is a roommate.  Can you please let me know how your case turned out.

My HOA is stating that I am in violation of the covenant which states, "no lease less than 3 months." 

I would argue that the 3 months applies to the rental of the entire property. However, since  you never give up full possession, then anyone staying with you are your GUESTS, whether there is a financial contribution or not.  Our rules here, state that "no portion of the house/property could be leased out without HOA approval."  Additionally, any would-be "residents" need to submit an application with background check to be approved by the board. So it got a little more complicated. Ultimately the HOA has bottomless dollars, and if you don't have a clear case, then you are risking a significant expense, ....and of course they are well aware of that, and will use that to their advantage. 

Tim530
Level 1
Massachusetts, United States

Different situation.  Home based business and home offices are for members of the HOA not outside renters.  Plenty of case law on that.

A home-based business, and a business that brings customers into your home are different kinds of business models. If your housing authority board has decided that individual room rentals are not permitted Then you must abide by that rule. I as a homeowner do not like Airbnb rentals and the extra Transit traffic and cars it brings into my neighborhood. If the Housing Authority decides they don't want that kind of traffic in their neighborhood then you must abide end of story

Extra traffic and cars? How is there extra traffic and cars?

Flavio30
Level 2
Windermere, FL

I live in a new construction community, I just became a super host and my HOA just notified me that I cant rent properties in a short term period. Why there is no position from AirBnb about this matter?

Why should we rely on other hosts opinion instead of on an attorney's legal advice?

I would like to know the difference between rent a property an rent a room, does anyone know?

Thank you

Best regards

Flavio **

 

Duplicate

 

David

Hi David,

Thank you for your quick answer.

I just received a letter from HOA, and did not have time to reply yet.

I am just trying to get a good and preferable legal advice.

I thought, because we are airbnb partners, airbnb had a legal department to help hosts.

I need to understand this situation in order to know what to do and comply with rules and regulations, but a legal advice would be great at this time.

David, your position is what I understand, a room is a room, property is a property.

But I would love to hear from AirBnb what their legal department says about it.

We have seen other startups like Uber hiring attorneys everywhere fighting for their partners and clients, and I would like to see the same attitude with airbnb, I do not expect they hire an attorney to help me, but just a legal device.

Best regards

Flavio Melo

AirBnB are an online booking service, they do not provide legal services, you would need to discuss such issues with your Lawyer.

David

airbnb is not going to offer any host legal advice. It would be silly for them to do so. If you can't rent your place due to HOA rules, they don't care. There are 399,999 other hosts that will make them money. 

FULLY AGREED. I contacted Airbnb for any legal help they could give and all I received was a canned answer to abide by my local, state and HOA rules. They offered absolutely NOTHING. Now that they have created this host advisory board, THIS NEEDS TO BE THE #1 TOPIC since it speaks directly to the survival of the industry. 

@Regina-and-Kelan0  How can you expect Airbnb to offer legal advice on this issue when it is an international platform and local regs would vary from one place to another, even within one US state, depending on that particular HOA's rules?

 

That would be like expecting a US immigration lawyer to be fully conversant with the ins and outs of immigration law for Uruguay.

 

 

@Flavio30

 

AirBnB do clearly have a position on this, clearly stated when you listed.

 

I would never suggest you should rely on opinions on this site, if you have a legal issue you need an Attorney.

 

When you rent a room well you just rent that room, when you rent a property you rent all the rooms.

David

I am under the same issue here in Portland Oregon with my homeowners association. I rent an in laws suite in my home, where I reside, on air bnb.  I did consult and hire an attorney to give me his opinion. I can state that renting an air bnb room does not consitute a "business". The terms of our rules state that we can not have rentals for less than 30 days, however, he could not give me a definite answer about renting a room. 

Herb8
Level 2
Calgary, Canada

Currently have it that though the HOA covenants do not cover partial rentals they have passed new covenants to restrict rentals of any kind and also internet advertising for rentals of any kind.  So be careful you can fight the current covenants and end up in a lawsuit as I a man just for them to change their covenants.