SCRAP - Stop Campaign for Registration Airbnb Policy in UK

Rebecca1029
Level 1
England, United Kingdom

SCRAP - Stop Campaign for Registration Airbnb Policy in UK

The proposed Airbnb policy for Registration in the UK is a Bad Idea.  If successful it will add costs and bureaucrasy with no real benefits.  There will be registration fees, inspections and other costs.  

10 Replies 10
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Rebecca1029 I am intending to attend a webinar to hear about this tonight. Do you have details of the proposal that you could share please?

Hi 

 

The only information I have is in the 'announcement' about the Webinar.   This appears to be a prolicy proposed by Airbnb's UK branch - this may add kudos to Airbnb's presence in the UK but who needs more government interference.  They say they have consulted but clearly they have ignored Superhosts who are probably responsible for most of Airbnb's income.  You can imagine local government inspectors, new rules and of course evetually taxes to pay for this... 

 

You may wish to support the SCRAP campaign

 

B and R 

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Brian2012 So you are fighting against something and yet you do not actually know what that something is. Interesting approach. Why not just wait and see what is being proposed?

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom


I don't think Airbnb should be positioning themselves to introduce a UK registration scheme - they are doing this to avoid our government's introducing a meaningful one with much better checks of hosts. 

I think proper registration systems are a good idea and long overdue in the UK to help weed out the bad hosts. @Rebecca1029 

 

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Helen3 

Great comment Helen, Airbnb's rhetoric is to protect Airbnb, not their hosts level of compliance.

Good on you mate!

 

Cheers......Rob 

Rebecca1029
Level 1
England, United Kingdom

Thks Helen - independent reviews are the way to 'weed out poor hosts' - not some arbitrary government inspection scheme that you will have to pay for a 'license'.  Airbnb charge hosts ~18% for finding guests and this includes the independent review tools and database.  This works fine globally - why would anyone want some kind of government grading - this isn't required for hotels - please vote to SCRAP this silly idea.. oops we haven't been asked to vote.... BW  

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Helen3 Where is your info coming from that Airbnb are positioning themselves to introduce a UK registration scheme?

If it is purely an Airbnb registration scheme how would that be any different to registering a hosting account with Airbnb?

Again I suggest we wait and see what the actual proposal is.

Because @Mike-And-Jane0 that’s what they said when they first started lobbying for this in Sept 2019. 

they have recently published a report about this and held a webinar around this last week for some UK hosts

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

Having listened to the Webinar my takeaway is that Airbnb are trying to influence the government to go for a simple, digital registration scheme that will be zero or very low cost to hosts. This is instead of letting each town/city/county coming up with rules similar to Edinburgh/Scotland where there is an extremely onerous and expensive scheme planned.

It would cover ALL STR platforms and properties.

In true Airbnb style it would mean hosts attesting to their compliance with fire regulations, planning etc. The onus on enforcement would then fall to the existing bodies such as the Fire Brigade for fire safety and the local authority for planning issues. I guess the advantage of the scheme is that bodies such as these will have a list of properties if they wish to challenge planning etc.

It will also give the taxman a nice list to check peoples tax returns against.

All seems relatively sensible to me for those hosts that are behaving responsibly and legally

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Rebecca1029  "... independent reviews are the way to 'weed out poor hosts' "

 

Theoretically, yes. In practice, no.

There have been many cases of so-called hosts, with a portfolio of scores or even hundreds of listings continuing to play bait-and-switch, offering places which are completely misrepresented in photos, being filthy dumps, etc., continuing to host for years. They are somehow adept at getting bad reviews removed, and Airbnb turns a blind eye to all the guest complaints because the listings bring in so much money to Airbnb coffers.

 

While I don't think hosts should be made to suffer financially from over-regulation, inspections are something I see as a positive thing, as long as the inspectors aren't jerks just looking for any little reason to close people down.