Wellington Florida Limits Short Term Rentals under 31 Days?

[Matthew147]

Hi everyone - I'm posting this here so that any other hosts in the Wellington, Florida area might be able to collaborate to figure out what the hell is going on with our Village of Wellington.  I was just getting home from walking the dogs when I opened up a message from AirBnB that I have confirmed MANY (if not all) hosts in Wellington received.

"We had to take your listing down-update your minimum stay requirement to host again

As a host in Wellington, Airbnb only allows you to host guests for long-term stays (31 nights or longer). To start hosting again, just update your listing’s minimum stay to 31 nights.

If you have any questions about hosting in Wellington you can always learn more in our Help Center."

Currently if you look at the Village of Wellington and try to book any stays for under 31 days you get a blank map (below).

4 night search in Wellington FL

If you adjust your search to include a stay of OVER 31 days you do get results.  So I figured that there must be an issue with my BTR or TDT numbers (this happened before and blocked my listing for over 5 months while they figured things out with Palm Beach County).  Nope - everything was ok.  However when I went to reactivate my listing it says "Your minimum stay must be above the short term stay threshold to comply with local regulations"

Confirmed BTR and TDT numbers

A quick chat with AirBnB support provided me with little information but informed me that this was indeed a local ordinance put in place by the Village of Wellington and they recommended that I seek legal assistance.

Anyone have any insight on this - please share your findings below as I "think" we can send links within AirBnB to other hosts.  Thanks!

[Leanne172]

Thank you for the updates very helpful as I’ve been given the runaround by Airbnb which is upsetting.

[Leanne172]

Do they believe that Airbnb will change their decision makes no sense they allow 31 nights only? 

[Leanne172]

Any updates?  This is unreal.

[Matthew147]

@Leanne172 @James---Michael0 @Shanan1 @Lorena525 @Linda705 - 

here is the most recent update from Laurie Cohen - head legal council for the Village of Wellington. I don't have any other information but I would make sure that you have a BTR for BOTH Palm Beach Co. and Wellington.

"I spoke today with a representative of AirBnB. As we thought, the company initially misinterpreted our Vacation Rental ordinance. To get things back on track, and to assist their users in complying with Wellington’s ordinance, AirBnB will be adding a field to their Wellington listings that will require the host to update their profile to add their WELLINGTON BTR number. Once their profile is updated, the property owner will be able to use the AirBnB platform. AirBnB expects to have this done in the next day or two so that rentals may resume for the upcoming weekend. "

[Leanne172]

They had said they would compensate hosts if wrong when will this happen thank you! 

[Leanne172]

Any luck I still can’t rent 

[Sylvia635]

@Matthew147 @Hey Mathew, I m in the same boat, I have my TDT number, BTR number from county, vacation license, but now I need to apply for BTR number base on I walk to Wellington city hall find out we need that, but the air bnb request a Wellington permit number, what is that? I got lost!!!

[Cindy1273]

Hi, I only found this information today through your threads, I have been trying to figure this out with so many phone calls with airbnb still have no progress, they put me under 180 rental days, can someone tell me what happen in the end? I have all the licenses from City of West Palm Beach and City of Wellington. How do I go about?

Thank you in advance!

Cindy

[Matthew147]

Hi Cindy - When you say "the city of WPB" do you mean Palm Beach County?  That's where your TDT and BTR numbers come from I believe.  Although you DO need to get a number from the village of wellington now as well.  The other thing is that I know Wellington has passed an ordinance stating that if you live in ANY gated community or subdivision with an HOA that you are required to rent for 180 days +.  That's one of the reasons why we bought our home outside of one.  I cant think of anything else that we did - I just was on the phone for about 2 weeks with both Wellington and PBC until it finally was a change that came down from AirBnB.  Good luck!