I would be interested to learn from hosts in other countries what their experience has been in relation to Airbnb hosting being classified as a commercial or private activity.
Let me give you some background to the reason for my question. My wife and I are retired and we rent two rooms in our home in the Philippines. There is very little awareness of what Airbnb is here within regulatory authorities (they are still battling trying to understand apps like Uber) so there are no rules or regulations currently relating to Airbnb activities (or even conventional bed & breakfast for that matter).
Whether you can do Airbnb comes down to whether the barangay (the smallest local government entity) permits it (but most barangay officials have never heard of it) or if in a more upmarket gated community, whether the land developer and/or community association permits it. Most developers and community associations have a Deed of Restrictions which sets out what you can and cannot do within that community.
We fall into the second category. Our house is in a gated community. The community association hasn't been formed yet, so we are still governed by the land developer's Deed of Restrictions. That Deed doesn't mention anything about Airbnb or residents doing bed & breakfast.
Our developer knows we are doing Airbnb because we provide a letter to the security guards at the gate with the full names of all the guests and their vehicle model and registration number. We also don't accept guests unless they have verified their government-issued ID with Airbnb, so both we and our community's security force know the identity in advance of each guest. If a booking enquiry comes from someone who hasn't verified their ID with Airbnb, we ask for a copy of their ID and social media links before deciding whether to pre-approve them. None of our prospective guests have ever had a problem with that (we explain that we are in an isolated location and therefore have to be very strict in relation to security) and we've never had any problems with any guests who have stayed with us.
However, recently one of the other residents in our community complained to the developer about us doing Airbnb because they said they were concerned about being robbed by our guests. Of course, that's a paranoid view because if a guest wanted to rob anyone, it would be much easier for them to rob us than a neighbour's house. The complaining resident claims that Airbnb is a commercial activity, which under our Deed of Restrictions is a prohibited activity in our residential community.
At this stage the developer is only asking us to respond to the complaint. Whether or not they deem us to be in breach of the Deed of Restrictions will depend on how they interpret "commercial activity". We have argued that renting two rooms in a private home in which we live is not a commercial activity, compared to someone renting out a condo or whole house in which they do not live. As there does not appear to be any legal precedents or other documents which I can use as a guide in defining what is a commercial activity here in the Philippines, I am wondering whether any hosts in other countries have faced similar situations and how the issue was resolved. That information could be helpful in formulating my response to the developer.
Thanks for your time in reading this.
