Over the last 2 years our Beach Association in Milford CT has pushed through a change in the bylaws of the Charter to restrict rentals to only 30 days or longer. Laurel Beach Association was based on short term rentals, and even had a hotel on the beach of years. We purchased our home in 2005 and have not had any problems at all. I recently sent the below letter to the board attornies and have not heard anything back.
My question is does Airbnb have funds allocated to help rentors fight these restricitions in court? My attorney has told me that this case will cost between 25K-65K. Please let me know who to contact if Airbnb has legal funds to utilize in this situation.
Regards, Brad
Dear Neighbors: Just to be clear I do disagree with the current short term policy. I still though believe that this policy is detrimental in its current form, and will continue to fight to have this changed as I believe it is detrimental in a number of areas. I want to be able to protect my families ability to keep our home in our family for generations to come.
If you look at this from a non-emotional basis many of our neighbors will at some point in time need the option to rent their homes out to offset increasing property taxes, rising associations fee’s, maintenance, or to simply keep their home in their family because of other financial challenges. For example medical costs, losing your job or having to take care of elders and other family members. Many residents in this association will wish they had fought to change this as their family finances will and can change over the years. As elders need help to stay in their homes having the option of renting in summer months will help them stay in our neighborhood vs. being pushed out. Many families will not be able to hand their homes down from one generation to the next generation without having the ability to rent their homes to offset these costs or life changing situations. Over the last two years we have lost neighbors that decided to sell as they felt they could not rent their homes to cover basic costs.
The most vulnerable will be elders and third generation families that could of kept their homes longer with a less restrictive short term rental policy. When these homes are sold the majority of them will be torn down, and larger more expensive homes will be built. This then drives property taxes even higher for all in the community which further aggravates this problem. The long term owners in this community are at risk, and will continue to be at risk with the current short term policy. There are many communities that have gone through this process, and are adopting more progressive terms to manage the needs of all in their association. There are ways to structure this so that both sides are comfortable moving forward with benefits being delivered to all neighbors within the association.
Creating an association rental agreement, with rules and obligations outlined, such as no rentals for less than seven nights, no more people in a house then beds can accommodate, tennis passes and most importantly a percentage of all rental fee's to be paid back to the association to help offset everyone rising association fee’s. This type of approach is being adopted by many communities that originally moved forward with a strict covenant on rental's as they have learned the hard way that it does not help the overall community, and pushes elders and third generation families out of the community faster. No one in our association ever took the time to analyze possible negative effects to individuals in our association. At the very least there should have been a grandfather rule put into this amendment for homeowners that owned prior to this being adopted. Further the amendment is not legal in a number of area’s and some would argue that our property values have already gone done 10%-15% because of this being adopted.
If you feel similar please reach out as we need to have a constructive conversation around this amendment.
