London 90 day enforcement; 1-3 month stays ok as "medium term" lets?

[Cabe3]

Hi, we were active London (Islington) hosts for a few years, then took a few years off, now are back.  We are in and out of the property all year (both of us do a lot of work overseas).  In 2018, we applied for planning permission to exempt from the 90 day rule and did not get it; sorry to see that has also been most people's experience.

We are abiding by the rule for not hosting via AirBnB for more than 90 days per calendar year.  We will fill the property for the rest of the year using medium-term lets.

I know the letter of the law is that a single let has to be for greater than 90 days to count as "medium term".  Recently I have heard that councils are being lenient and not enforcing this strictly, and are allowing stays of 31+ days to count as "medium term".  Does anyone have personal experience with this? 

Thank you for any info on any related points too (e.g. your experience dealing with Islington Council on any aspect of this).

[Helen3]

Personally I wouldn't risk it @Cabe3  particularly in somewhere like Islington.

Why don't you check with the Council if you have been told this by a reliable source?

[Ghazala2]

Hi

I have the same question. Have you had any feedback? learnt anything new?

[Ezra39]

Also in Islington and in a very similar position. Let me know if you found anything out about whether 31+ day stays count towards the 90 day rule. Thanks 

[Cabe3 · Accepted solution]

Hi, in the end we have not chanced it; I wasn't able to find any reference to this being OK.  Maybe there are some councils that would look the other way on it, but in Islington they seem very focused on ensuring enough housing for local residents, so my guess would be they are enforcing to the letter of the law.  So that's what we are living up to even though it means our property is often vacant for a lot longer than we'd like.