Help! The city wants to fine me $1000 per day

Help! The city wants to fine me $1000 per day

Has anyone ever “beat the system?” Clark County in Nevada is not allowing short term rentals. One of my wonderful neighbors reported me and now if I don’t comply within 2 weeks, I have to pay $1000 per day in fines. I don’t want to shut my page down and cancel over 20 guests for upcoming trips. What do I do? 

28 Replies 28
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Shari157  From what I can see in a brief search, strs under 30 days have been illegal there for years. You decided to ignore that and now you feel like a victim? 

@Shari157  If the authorities have given you the chance to avoid penalties by ceasing-and-desisting, consider yourself lucky. Cancelling 20 bookings is a painful thing to do, but if you get caught breaking a law, you can't really "beat the system" by breaking the same law 20 more times.

 

Airbnb will penalize you for those cancellations, but far less than $1000 per day. If you're passionate about short-term hosting and want to be able to resume your business, I'd encourage you to connect with other people in your city who are using the democratic process to fight for a change in the law. On the community homepage, click "Connect locally" to find the discussion group for Las Vegas. Perhaps some hosts there know of resources that can help.

Mark116
Level 10
Jersey City, NJ

@Shari157   I hate to state the obvious, but hire a lawyer and file suit against the county if the lawyer thinks he/she can find any reasons or loopholes that would void the anti STR law(s).  Otherwise, you will have to cease using airbnb, you might prevail on them to give you a penalty free cancellation, or not. 

Ann489
Level 10
Boise, ID

@Shari157  so let me get this straight; you knew it was illegal in your community, but did it anyway, and now you are mad because a neighbor complained about your illegal Airbnb?

Kelly149
Level 10
Austin, TX

@Shari157  Don’t have an illegal listing. 

“What do I do?” ^^^^^^

Joseph255
Level 2
Las Vegas, NV

Just follow the penality free cancellation option. Then only book one person per month. Be selective and find a guest.  That is willing to rent for a number of days. That is   satisfactory to what you would make monthly. If you were renting the property on a regular bases. Even if they only want to stay 4 nights. But are paying what your property would rent for on a monthly bases. If a guest is willing to pay a fair rate for the month. But only wishes to use 4 days or whatever thats up to them. Just be satisfied and work with that. Just make sure you block off the remaining days on calender. To equal the thirtyone dayes on required by law. Sure you will make less money. But something is better than nothing for now. Hopefully in a year or so they will make it legal everywhere. 

Brian2036
Level 10
Arkansas, United States

@Shari157 

 

I have a bad feeling that this is going to happen soon to many of us in the USA.

 

 The big hotels have a strong interest in shutting us down and they also have a powerful lobby with the money to buy legislators.

 

 The COVID-19 situation is a wonderful excuse. It’s all about safety, you know.

@Brian2036  Which bad thing, exactly? The host who posted this topic last year didn't get shut down - as you can clearly see in her profile, she still has an active listing and has carried on accepting short-term bookings despite being told she was breaking the law and threatened with prosecution. And she's done it openly on an extremely visible website, on the public record, with a visibly identifiable photo of what I assume is herself. She even incriminated herself on this very public forum, as if nobody had ever pulled her aside and explained how the internet works.

 

I don't know what happened there - maybe the law changed, or maybe the host just felt like she could get away with breaking it. But really, if you want to talk about the injustice of people being prosecuted for victimless crimes, I think you can find more egregious examples in the US than Airbnb hosts who got away with a slap on the wrist. 

@Anonymous  I would never host illegally.  With that said, many communities have banned short term rentals outright or made the rules extremely onerous, in effect, regulating them out of existence except for large commercial operators who can absorb the costs of doing business.   My own opinion is that a 'rental' is a 'rental' whether it is for short or long term.  The property is being used as a residence, its intended legal purpose.  So, to me, having to pay the city to the rent out part of my own house, as well as jump through numerous bureaucratic hoops every year is unfair.  In the wider scheme of things, maybe it doesn't rank that high on the unfairness scale.....in the slippery slope department, I guess that remains to be seen.

@Mark116an hotel, or a similar professional structure, can sell a very large room with a kitchen and several rooms, completely comparable to an apartment here on Airbnb: compared to a typical Airbnb user, the professionist has to pay more taxes (almost all over the world) and has many and many more obligations and controls. Finally, in general, he has many more risks: for example we homeowners can when we want to change the type of rent or sell, this is not the case for many tourist facilities.

 

If today some places come to block short-term rentals, I disagree, it is above all thanks to years of web pirates who have flooded the tourist market too easily, too many times with unsafe and illegal homes. The rules are everywhere and what they do most is prevent something or grant it in the face of an obligation. The real injustice is what a lot of professionals have had to suffer.

 

 

Brian2036
Level 10
Arkansas, United States

@Anonymous 

 

Undoubtedly there are more egregious examples of US residents being viciously prosecuted in the US.

 

 I have a suspicion that passing laws that interfere with any person’s right to the quiet enjoyment of their personal property is a constitutional issue, however.

 

Unfortunately mounting a constitutional defense is an expensive and lengthy process.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Brian2036  Doing short term rentals doesn't sound to me like it falls under the category of  "quiet enjoyment of one's personal property".

Brian2036
Level 10
Arkansas, United States

@Sarah977 

 

How about if I invite friends to stay with me for a few days and, in gratitude, they give me a little cash to help out with expenses?

 

Naturally I would avoid inviting friends who are not grateful.

 

My legal argument would be that Airbnb merely provides a platform to make it easier for us to meet friends we don’t know yet.

 

Or would we rather request written permission from the State before we invite grandma to visit for a week or two?

@Brian2036 your legal argument is very bad, completely not corresponding to the facts that can well be seen on the site ... this is the kind of attitude that will destroy us and has already created so many problems for us ...