Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
Under a newly announced deal with Los Angeles city officials, Airbnb will soon start collecting lodging taxes from rental hosts, providing millions of dollars in revenue to the city annually. Angelenos who rent out rooms or whole homes for short stays are already supposed to pay the same kind of lodging taxes as hotels, but L.A. tax officials have struggled to track down hosts and make sure they pay. Now Airbnb, one of many websites that help people rent out their homes to travelers, will facilitate that process by collecting the taxes and handing them over to the city of Los Angeles. The deal, which was worked out with city budget and tax officials, would go into effect in August. Los Angeles had been banking on more than $5 million in tax revenue from such rentals for the budget year that began in July — money that would help pay for homeless programs….
Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
As it has in cities that include San Francisco; Portland, Oregon, and Newark, New Jersey, Airbnb has signed an agreement with city officials in Los Angeles to collect and remit lodging taxes on behalf of its hosts. As we’ve noted before, these city tax agreements are at the core of Airbnb’s strategy for legalization in various jurisdictions around the world. The move by Los Angeles city officials to agree to a voluntary collection agreement with Airbnb comes at a time when the city is currently considering new legislation to regulate the types of short-term rentals offered by platforms such as Airbnb, HomeAway, and FlipKey….
Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
Airbnb has agreed to start remitting hotel taxes to the city of Los Angeles on behalf of its hosts in the area, the company said on Monday. As part of the deal, the home-sharing company will collect lodging taxes from its Los Angeles hosts and hand the proceeds over to the city, similar to its existing agreements with San Francisco and nearly 200 other cities worldwide. The deal will go into effect in August, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported about the agreement….
Discrimination
July 19, 2016
Airbnb knows it has a housing discrimination problem. The company has made that clear on Twitter, in the media, on stage at its OpenAir event, and, most recently, at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference. It says it has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind. And when discrimination does occur on its platform — as it has dozens of times this year, the company is quick to tout its anti-discrimination policy as evidence of this. Yet a BuzzFeed News tour of the company’s registration process for new hosts reveals that policy is — at best — extremely difficult to find. At no point during Airbnb’s roughly15-minute, 24-part registration process does the company detail it, or even inform potential hosts of its existence….
Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
Few cities have taken such a hardline against Airbnb as Berlin. In May, a new law went into effect there that makes renting out entire apartments on sites like Airbnb illegal. Two months later, though, there are still hundreds of “entire homes” available to rent within the city’s borders on Airbnb. So Berlin residents who blame the city’s rising rental prices on Airbnb’s growth have launched a #BoycottAirbnb movement, placing graphic ads around the city urging tourists not to use the site. The ads feature Airbnb’s logo transformed into a noose and naughty parts of the human anatomy….
Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
The Mirador 1000 is a massive, white condominium building fronted by palm trees in Miami’s South Beach neighborhood. It’s got a pool that looks directly out onto the ocean, a beautiful lobby and its own workout room. It’s within walking distance of South Beach’s best restaurants, shopping and clubs. A unit in the building is, in other words, a prime find on Airbnb if you’re booking a weekend trip to Miami. The problem though is that short-term rentals aren’t allowed, both due to condo rules and because the building is in an illegal zone for such rentals, says Arianna Aguero, president of the Mirador 1000’s condominium association. Aguero says that the 400-plus-unit building doesn’t like short-term renters through Airbnb, VRBO, or HomeAway because you have people coming into the building “with no information about who they are,” as opposed to long-term renters who have filled out applications and had background checks. Plus, the people who vacation in South Beach for the weekend are the type of party people likely to disrupt the community of year-round residents….
Discrimination
July 19, 2016
A professional dominatrix says Airbnb suspended her account because of her job—even though she wasn’t using the app to do sex work. According to experts, this is completely legal….
Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
Airbnb has been getting a lot of criticism with complaints also escalating on several issues —from taxes, to security to hygiene and now, discrimination. Critics say Airbnb’s business has gone beyond the simple act of mostly middle class homeowners renting out their homes (or rooms) to strangers and earning extra income in the process, because home sharing has become a highly commercialized enterprise….
Housing Issues
July 19, 2016
The relationship between Airbnb and New York state and city officials has,
historically, not always been on the best of terms. And a new law awaiting New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature threatens to strain that relationship even further, and it could have lasting effects on how other cities choose to regulate short-term rentals….
Fairbnb News
July 19, 2016
Under the Los Angeles rule, rental hosts who fail to register with the city or otherwise
break the rules would face $200 in fines per day of rental. However, this should be made steeper in order to act as a serious deterrence. For example, the city’s $2,000 per day penalty for hosts who rent their properties beyond the maximum number of days allowed
is much more intimidating and would act as a serious financial disincentive. Before Los Angeles enacts new short-term rental regulation, it needs to make sure it’s able to back up strict new rules with equally strict penalties….