I am actually celebrating my second dismissal from OATH. I’m sure they are going to appeal, I have appeared 6 times in OATH Hearings Division w/ Inspector Vaklinov. March 13, 2019 will be one year I have been in court.
The bottom line is 90%, maybe even 98% of Airbnb hosts are operating illegally. But that 2% doesn’t have a chance in court either if the mayors office has anything to do with it. It’s a witchhunt! The mayors office have even been cited as saying “ he’d rather see NY’ers on public assistance than doing home sharing. It has been 10 months since Inspector Vaklinov came to my door & he’s still stating , when he testifies, that he remembers me & every thing he saw & that was said even though they take NO NOTES, NO RECORDINGS & NO NOTATIONS AT THE END OF THE DAY. But he remembers it all crystal clear... lol
i have overhead sprinklers, a wired fire alarm system to the fire department and secondary egress. I also brought blueprints of the building showing the internal staircase to my downstairs where I reside when I have guests. Including rental pics from 2011 from the internet ( the ad I rented my loft from ) pulled up on my phone in the court office to show the judge
that i have an internal staircase. And still the DOB lawyer tries to say there’s no sharing going on.
And that’s what they don’t tell you, on your first visit the inspector will not show up. They will ask you if you’d like to pay your fine or come back at another date to state your case against the inspector. At no time do they tell you that the inspector will be showing up represented by a DOB attorney.
The attorney that appeared for this dismissal was just a guy there doing his job. The first attorney was trying this case like it was the death penalty. He fought with the judge on every word he said… LOL
The bottom line is the hotel industry donated the money to the mayors budget to put this Anti AirBnB task force in place. They don’t give you straight answers and will not make a clear and concise guideline on what is the legal way to run AirBnB because they do not want it here. You would think they would be happy that many Hosts have dropped out since their gorilla tactics. But no they want it out of NY 100%.
Im sure they will appeal this decision as well. But I’m happy to go in fighting again!
Airbnb saved my home when I was going thru radiation treatment after cancer.
The biggest thing they are getting hosts on Is occupancy. In New York you are only allowed to host 2 Guests no matter what size apartment you have. And that’s in black-and-white you cannot fight that. I do believe Airbnb should make it a two person maximum to make it a fair playing field since that is the law.
If they come to your door I would videotape them with your phone so you have the entire conversation as it happened. In my case the inspector told the judge that he asked me where do I go when I have guests and I answered oh I travel extensively. Luckily I had medical records to show them that I was sickly enough I was traveling nowhere. And what put me over the top was that I had documentation that I had a medical aid that came to my house and the dates matched the dates I had guests. What he actually said was “ what’s down there? “ because he saw the staircase from the front door. When they knocked I had no idea who or why they were knocking on my door. There was 3/4 men with badges around there necks I thought something was wrong at the time I hadn’t even heard about them. And if I did I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong because I was in the apartment when the guests stayed. The one thing that played to their favor was I did say somewhere that nothing is shared. I had seen a few ads where the hosts advertised private house but in the ad it said they had to share a kitchen or bathroom. I have a loft that’s a duplex so they can be alone & private if they choose. Downstairs I have my own door in & out of apt & my own full bath.
They make a case against you that’s hard to argue with. Most people can prove that they weren’t home but it’s hard to prove that you were home… LOL believe me I called the phone co. To see if they could see my phone being at my address, no luck. I tried to print out my seamless record to show I had food delivered charged to my personal credit card. But by the time I thought of it I was on my 2nd go round. My case had been dismissed. The judge was so angry with the DOB lawyer after 3.4 hours of all of us arguing he dismissed the ticket on the first 3 mins of testimony, the inspector didn’t fill out the min & max fine on the ticket. They had the police serve me with the same exact ticket again, so by this time it was August & the seamless records don’t go back that far. So be smart keep any records that will show 100% you are on the premises when your guests are.
I went in there fighting for my life!!!! Because when they ticket you they also ticket your landlord for housing a illegal transient hotel. So the Only way to get your landlord out of the ticket is for you to be found a legal Airbnb or your case dismissed. So if I was found guilty my landlord could’ve said I broke lease & evicted me.
So in the end the mayor doesn’t care if this ruins your life your credit getting thrown out of your Apartment. And if your turning over your apt & leaving while guests are there then you have no defense, it’s subletting & that’s against every nyc lease
