Whole of house rental in LA

[Dean74]

Hi,

First contribution to this forum.  Myself and wife are looking at renting a house over christmas in Los Angeles with our 3 kids.  I only realised yesterday via TripAdvisor that it is actually illegal to rent out properties in LA on a short term basis.

I have also read that although it is illegal it is unlikely to be enforceable due to the amount of work involved.  One suggestion is to ensure that when booking the cancellation policy is not "strict" so if there is a crackdown between now and December we won't lose out.  Does anyone have any experience of renting a "whole of house" in LA?  Are there certain areas which are a no go?  What happenes if we book and pay for the propoerty and it gets cancelled by the host (or authorities)?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Dean

[Linda108]

It is very smart of you to bring up this issue when planning your vacation, @Dean74.  Entire home short term rental is becoming problematic in many cities and where there are home owners associations.  Sadly some hosts elect to operate outside the regulations but a traveler would not know that.

Air BNB will help you should there be a change in the status of the listing due to regulatory restriction, but you are coming a long way to have to deal with uncertainty.  An alternative for your consideration would be to select a nearby city that does not have such restrictions and book in that city.  Unless you are seeking to be in downtown LA and your activities require you to be there, perhaps a nearby city would do.  I am happy to help you consider another city if you wish.  Just a thought.

[Dean74]

@Linda108 Appreciate the response.  We are doing a fair amount of travelling in the 2 weeks we are in the states, dirving from Vegas to LA and then onto San Fran.  Would prefer to stay in LA over christmas then venture somewhere else.  The strange thing from my point of view is that if there are restrictions in place, why do AirBNB allow STR's to be listed?  

Is there a list of US Cities where STR's are banned? We were potentially going to look for a propoerty in San Fran as well.

What sort of payment protection is there in place if we have paid all the rent up front and it gets cancelled by the host.  I am not a regular user of AirBNB so these are probably standard question, so apologies 🙂

[Linda108]

It is a complicated matter, @Dean74.  Some municipalities are restricting the number of days per year for STR while some are banning whole house STR unless the house is also the personal residence.  There are many different forms of restriction and even the hosts are confused about how to comply.  Also, many hosts list on multiple sites, so Air BNB tracking is not possible.  I am aware that both San Francisco and Los Angeles have taken some steps to restrict STR but I don't know the details.  Assuming the host is working within regulatory limits of a Home Owners Association or a City, perhaps you could include in your booking inquiry a question about what, if any, regulatory limits could impact the reservation.