Illegal Airbnb rentals

Adam1195
Level 2
Cocoa Beach, FL

Illegal Airbnb rentals

I rent out a house. The renter illegally posted the house on Airbnb and now strangers are living in my house. Airbnb refuses to take down the listing even after I sent proof I own the property and that subleasing is not allowed.  And, my renter isn't paying me rent, and is raking in the money from Airbnb!  

 

I have been trying to get this taken down for 3 days  The latest answer was:   "I’m writing to confirm that we have shared your complaint with the user responsible for the listing and reminded them of their obligations as an Airbnb host."   

 

But the host is breaking the law and I own the property! Airbnb is blatantly facilitating and profiting from illegal activity.

 

I also emailed multiple Airbnb lawyers and no one responded.

 

Plus: I am in Florida.  The governor has made vacation rentals illegal this month - yet Airbnb still has listings up, inviting more illegal activity.

 

Does anyone know how to stop this illegal activity?

21 Replies 21

@Sarah977 In US everything is done by contract and legal acts, especially in real estate field. My wife is a realtor and she was specifically taught when studied for the license. Several hosts doing this doesn't mean it's legal it's just we haven't heard any tenant fight back on it. There are a couple things we need to note here.

 

First, if there's a leasing agreement then landlord cannot disconnect any essential service. It's usually difficult for landlord to prove if the tenant physically lives in the property. And even if the landlord can prove that, disconnecting any service is not the proper way to respond to the tenant's refusal to pay rent. Disconnecting service on purpose is a breach of the lease as well. Tenant can sue landlord for disconnecting service it's just most of time this is not worth the time/money spent on it.

 

Usually the lease between landlord and tenant will allow the tenant to bring in "friends". So in this case the tenant's action to bring in Airbnb guests is kind of in the grey area. The tenant is certainly breaching the lease by listing it on Airbnb, but bringing in "friends" is allowed by the lease so landlord probably cannot ask police to kick them out. 

 

If the owner lists the property on Airbnb, when guest's booking come to an end and guest refuse to leave, that's a completely different story because as long as the length of the guest's stay doesn't reach the threshold defined in the landlord-tenant law (for example 6 months in Philadelphia), the guest is not protected by the landlord-tenant law. In that case, host can define the guest as "trespassing" and can take any action against the guest including disconnecting service, ask police to kick them out, etc. 

 

I think Airbnb should step forward to solve this type of issue, basically by mandating that only property owner or licensed realtor can list the property on Airbnb (by name matching), and if it's the case of agreement between landlord and tenant, the tenant can be added as a co-host to manage it and landlord will distribut the money. In this way the landlord has full control and can also ensure the tenant is paying rent.

@Nanxing0  They could just mandate that if you are not the property owner you have to provide documentation that the landlord agrees that the unit can be used for STR.  Of course airbnb doesn't want to do this because they don't really care about illegal rentals, it would be easy to make such a change.

Most of the lease agreements nowadays list no Airbnb and no subletting with a fine 3 times of the rent and termination of the agreement you check out NAA lease agreement. 

 

@Sarah977  As perverse as it may sound, I would guess that it would be @Adam1195  who gets in trouble if he turns off electricity and water to the unit.  Tenant rights are somewhat crazy in many states these days.  They even recently in NY made it so that the landlord cannot collect a security deposit+last month's rent, which in effect, means that there is no security deposit at all!!  Your tenants can trash the place and then apply last month's rent to their last month,  move out and that's that.  Landlord is left with damages and no leverage. 

Linda108
Level 10
La Quinta, CA

I think long term rentals have a real dark side and @Adam1195  situation is an example of tenant versus landlord rights.  Air BNB as a platform is open to interferring with commerce if the host is not breaking Air BNB rules.  It is my understanding that Air BNB TOS state the host should be operating within the law of their area but if the host is not, it is not Air BNB's role to suspend the listing.  This situation is a civil contract and probably needs to be addressed through the eviction process.  Perhaps @Adam1195  could contact the current occupant of the home and advise of the issue and that steps are being taken to cancel the sublet contract thus warning the occupant he/she should find another place to live.  

I think it always depends on each situation, but yeah, it's definitely all about long term rentals.

A lot of landlords can face such problems in this period of quarantine. I've read a lot of forum threads and articles about it, for example on this website I found recently ( here: https://www.landlordzone.co.uk/ ), where professionals of rental business explain everything, how to react in such situations, and can help with useful tips and tricks.