11 ms·

Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines

99 points by SirLJ 9y ago

jsbernier 9y ago
AirBnB has atrocious customer service. I once booked a $1,607 30-day reservation in NYC that ended up lacking internet, having a smelly mattress, wasn't the same room pictured in the listing, and a host that dismissed my concerns as "lies". After a day and a half of calling their customer service, AirBnB rejected my claim to a cancellation/refund. Then later they offered me a $100 exploding offer that expired in 24 hours. I ended up having to get the supervisor on the line (no easy task), and finally after 3 days I was able to get a refund. Was not worth the hassle, and I refuse to book long-term on AirBnB since this incident. Thank you for this post. I had written a draft of my AirBnB experience, but totally forgot to publish it. This article has reminded me how shitty that experience was, and that these companies need to be held accountable for their bullshit. https://medium.com/@jeremybernier/dont-try-to-live-off-airbnb-my-painful-experience-dealing-with-airbnb-customer-service-5edb232e4fae https://medium.com/@jeremybernier/dont-try-to-live-off-airbn...
justboxing 9y ago
> He emailed Airbnb's trust and safety team that night. Nothing. > Five more days passed, correspondence shows, without Airbnb assigning a dedicated person to his case. Then on March 23, Airbnb wrote Grewal with what amounted to a shrug. 5 days and then a "shrug"? Wow. That's appalling as far as Customer Service goes. I haven't listed on, or rented from AirBnB. But is this kind of customer service normal or is the incident quoted above an outlier? Even if they intended to respond with a shrug, why did it take 5 DAYS for a response?? Has AirBnB become so big that, like Craiglist, they don't give a Sh*t anymore to the issues their users / customers face because they know that they've captured huge chunk of the market and know that their users ain't going anywhere else anytime soon?
- mark212 9y ago
  The problem is that Grewal, the owner of the house that was illegally sublet, isn't and never was Airbnb's customer in any sense of the word. There's no incentive to solve his problem and take down the listing. In fact, the incentives run the other way because the real Airbnb customer -- Grewal's tenants -- are generating revenue for the site. It would be very interesting if one of these municipalities changed their ordinance to make the booking agent (Airbnb, VRBO, etc) liable for any violation. And $20,000 per violation in Miami Beach does seem ridiculously excessive.
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  Imagine it was a newspaper classified ad in your newspaper that someone has paid for all week and someone else phoned up asking you not to reprint it tomorrow. Or the noticeboard in Publix
  - danso 9y ago
    That said, there is precedent for third-parties successfully making takedown requests on content. I think most newspapers would agree to take down an ad if it was proven to sell illegal services or goods.
  - jeffdavis 9y ago
    Imagine somebody placed a classified add saying: "Free wheels. Find them on the car in the driveway at 123 Main St. Also help yourself to the backyard furniture." And you live at 123 Main St.?
    - PeachPlum 9y ago
      or placed an ad for a stolen car https://duckduckgo.com/?q=unknowingly+bought+stolen+car https://duckduckgo.com/?q=unknowingly+bought+stolen+car
Judgmentality 9y ago
Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when presented with evidence of them being illegal, they purposefully make complying with authorities difficult, they got their start by effectively breaking the terms of agreement on craigslist and spamming people like crazy to kickstart traffic to their site. I love the idea of sharing homes. I just hate how AirBnB is doing it, and the more I read about them (obviously the media is writing articles to get clicks, so I'm sure it's somewhat biased) the more I think we'd be better off without them.
- danaris 9y ago
  > Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. I dunno; it seems to me that in these cases, the people who are really to blame are the "tenants" who are actually breaking both laws and rental agreements. I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're talking a $20k fine, I would imagine there's at least a good chance of recovering more than you pay...and it didn't sound like any of the mentioned owners were attempting to do anything to the bad-faith tenants. I totally agree that AirBnB has some serious legal issues looming in its future in most if not all of the jurisdictions it operates in, but I honestly don't see these particular issues as being representative of them.
  - FICO 9y ago
    I'm sure many of them will try to sue later on but that's not an overnight process, it can take years for a lawsuit to make it's way through court. Plus the property owners don't even fully know what their full losses are yet, it's way too soon, the dust hasn't settled. $20,000 is too much for small claims court so it's going to be a big production. Furthermore, these scumbags are the type of people to say "LOL" to a legal judgement instead of paying it. That means more time in court to get wage and bank account garnishments (if they are even working). If they don't have the $20,000+ or a well paying job or assets then the judgement is worth as much as the paper it is written on, you can't get blood from a stone. If you get a wage garnishment you may collect your $20,000 in 10 years if you're lucky. (Ignoring the fact it's a several months process to even evict a tenant in many states in the first place.) You can't let AirBnB off the hook here, they have the moral, if not legal, responsibility to prevent the most egregious abuses of their platform.
tryingagainbro 9y ago
There's a widely accepted concept in land ownership: essentially the land belongs to the person that tills it. You cannot buy 1000 acres, ignore it and expect that your grandson can show up 60 years later with the deed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession Maybe the homeowners should pay more attention to their properties? Not to mention that in most cases they are the ones posting the listings. If the tenant breaks the rules, sue him or keep the deposit. But to be fair: the tenant should pay the fine, provided the landlord didn't give him the OK. The govt can easily find the true violator
- waisbrot 9y ago
  Yeah, I was struck by how both examples in the article were property owners living out of state who never even met their tenants? One of them thought she was renting to a family with two kids, but it was actually some scammers. Meeting your renters in-person once would have cleared that up. These people are buying a property, renting it to cover the mortgage, and planning to sell it at a profit. All without doing any work. Treating real estate as a passive investment rather than an active business does damage to the housing market in some of the same ways people complain AirBnB does.
  - gruez 9y ago
    >Meeting your renters in-person once would have cleared that up. so hire a few actors?
    - chaz6 9y ago
      Would the actors be willing to share their photo ids and accept liability?
abritinthebay 9y ago
Terrible customer service but this seems like something a competent leasing contract should cover, no? The owner should be directly able to pass on these fines to the tenants, assuming they were sensible with the contract. If not... well, I guess there’s always civil court.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Almost all leasing contracts, including the ones you get for free have a no subleasing clause. Even if you win in civil court if they don't pay, your only recourse is to go back to court and try to garnish wages and bank accounts. That takes even more time and money and it's relatively simple to make your assets judgement proof by just "putting everything in your momma's name". If the judgement is too onerous, just file for bankruptcy.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    What happened to the legendary importance of the credit score? I'd assume this kind of thing would make it impossible for someone to rent anything larger than a tent ever again.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Yes you can do background checks that include previous eviction cases, but if you throw enough up front money at a landlord who has a mortgage to pay, they will take you. That whole "putting everything in your mom's name" also applied here. You can probably get a cosigner. If you are a couple, one person gets the lease the first time around, the eviction is only in their name and let the other person get it next time.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
WalterBright 9y ago
One solution would be to have the city levy the fines against the tenant, not the owner, because it is the tenant breaking the law.
- yardie 9y ago
  They leave the notice on the door. Tenant will typically take it down and toss it in the trash. And like a speeding parking tickets the fines get sent to the owner on record. Which is public record.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    The government is more than capable of fining the tenant.
    - URSpider94 9y ago
      Nope. First of all, in many cases, they have no knowledge of who the tenant is. Second, tenants come and go - the city or county has a deed with the landlord's name on it and can put a lien against it to be sure they get paid. I'm a landlord; fines ALWAYS go to the property owner, then you have to go after the tenants to recoup your money.
    - mcculley 9y ago
      How would the government know who the tenant is? I don't know how it works elsewhere, but where I live (Florida), there is no legal registration of tenants for leased properties.
      - WalterBright 9y ago
        Ask the property owner. If the owner can produce a signed contract proving there is a tenant and who the tenant is, then the fine goes to the tenant. This will, of course, motivate owners to use contracts when leasing their properties.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
pjc50 9y ago
It's not great, and I have no sympathy for tenants who trash properties - but this seems like a result of being an absentee landlord with an inadequate local agent. I have to say that in this situation I'd probably change the locks immediately and sort it out in court later; it's not clear what it means to "evict" tenants who aren't living at the property but instead are illegally subletting it. (Also, jurisdictions with good legal drafting should be making Airbnb liable in this situation too)
- arkades 9y ago
  "Changing the locks and sorting it out later" is incredibly illegal. Your "advice" is useless.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    It's not illegal to keep out trespassers. Maybe one wouldn't change the locks on the first day, but after seeing one group of carousing teenagers with whom one had no contractual relationship replaced by a different such group, it would be pretty safe to shut the whole thing down.
    - URSpider94 9y ago
      In most jurisdictions, housing courts are heavily, heavily, heavily biased towards tenants over landlords. Landlords can't change the locks without a valid eviction order. Doing so is likely to delay their eventual success in court - if the scammers can focus the judge on an illegal lock-out, that's going to be the first issue decided.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        Sure, but in the meantime they aren't generating gigantic AirBnB fines. It seems that in this case the locks had already been changed to some sort of remote electronic device by the "tenants" themselves?
    - mjcl 9y ago
yardie 9y ago
As a customer of AirBnB since they first posted here this doesn't surprise me. I live in one of the affected cities, Miami Beach. And it's depressing to see the neighborhood being hollowed out. Early on when it was just a few renters and owners renting out space in the spare bedroom or couch it wasn't a big deal. Half my condo, 24 units, is on airbnb now. We currently don't have a HOA president as the last one was fed up with absentee owners and quit. Everyone is bitter as we're paying a great deal of money to live in a frat house.
- cat199 9y ago
  Just like the person in the article didn't seem to do - I think the only way to deal is via legal means. He didn't threaten them, and he got their runaround. Similarly - I'd imagine this situation you are facing will impact property resale value - no lawyer here but you might look into legal channels - something like a class action or somesuch from all affected owners will definitely get their attention I'm sure of it..
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cperciva 9y ago
I don't understand. The city is levying fines against... the victim of a break and enter?
- lobster_johnson 9y ago
  Illegal subletting isn't breaking and entering, though. A home is ultimately the home owner's responsibility; if your tenants break the law, you're likely responsible, which is why contracts typically disallow subletting (as well as contain many other clauses to prevent putting the owner at risk). This is why absentee owners with no property manager are putting themselves at a risk, as they can't check on the tenants very easily.
  - cperciva 9y ago
    The Airbnb customers had no legal right to be in the property in question. Maybe it's trespassing rather than breaking and entering; but they weren't legal tenants.
    - lobster_johnson 9y ago
      That's still a non-sequitur. Trespassing is a criminal violation, doesn't apply here, and has nothing to do with the terms of a lease. If I'm renting an apartment from a landlord, and you visit me, are you trespassing? No, because I gave you permission. If I'm out of town and let you stay, you're still not trespassing. As a guest, you don't need the owner's permission to be present. As a guest who subleases from me, you wouldn't be violating the terms of the lease, either; I would be. The case in the article happened because a law is being broken by persons who are not legally responsible for it. This whole problem exists because anyone can create AirBnb listings, even if they don't have the right to rent it out.
    - ianburrell 9y ago
      It isn't trespassing. They had the permission of the tenants. It was violation of lease but that is not a crime.
ameister14 9y ago
Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law. Right now they make money from this behavior. It's a poor long term strategy that made sense when they were small and scrappy but is no longer acceptable. Also, they're losing public support - I've used airbnb for years in SF and around the country and they used to have people on their side because they were the underdog. They are no longer the underdog. They are now worth roughly the same as Marriott.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  > Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law In the meanwhile, they'll continue to accept listings in the name of ubiquity. Then they'll settle lawsuits as a cost of doing business. Why else raise 4.4B? Not for infrastructure or developers ....
- 5555624 9y ago
  It's never been acceptable. From the start, Airbnb should have never accepted ads from locations where short-term rentals are against the law. As you said, black list by Zip Code. In addition, they need a way to block addresses on a case-by-case basis where tenants are violating leases/rules (i.e. cases like the one in the article, condo associations, apartment buildings, etc.).
  - ameister14 9y ago
    Technically that shouldn't be difficult, right? I don't know what kind of database they use but the difficulty should come with the review process before blocking and unblocking, not the act of doing it
MichaelBurge 9y ago
Is it feasible to write "Tenant agrees to pay all city-related fines caused by their intentionally renting the property on sites like AirBNB" into the lease, and tell the city they can collect directly from the tenant?
- ryan-c 9y ago
  Why would the city take responsibility for enforcing a contract they are not a party to?
  - MichaelBurge 9y ago
    The goal of making AirBNB rentals a crime in the first place is to reduce the number of them. I claim it would be a more effective deterrent to go after the tenants who are profiting, rather than the homeowners who already have no incentives to allow it. The article mentions the tenant stole some furniture that ended up on two additional listings. If the city went after them, they can nab a serial offender which seems more valuable for reducing the number of illegal AirBNB listings than going after an unaware homeowner. The contract wouldn't be an obligation of the city, but rather a useful tool to enforce the law.
- URSpider94 9y ago
  That's not the way liability works. The city will always collect from the property owner, because they hold the deed. Municipalities don't chase debt, they just seize property or apply liens.
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
I skimmed the article a few times. How did the City of Miami figure out the property was listed on AirBNB? If they're scraping the AirBNB website for images of the front of the buildings, or however their doing it, wouldn't it then make sense to contact the owner to advise them of the unlawful listing. This would give the owner an opportunity make a statutory declaration stating they didn't make this listing.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  Complaints, police knock on door, guests say why they are there. Goes in police report, and the gears of justice grind on based on that.
  - cat199 9y ago
    > and the gears of justice don't forget the invoices of fines..
- djrogers 9y ago
  Why would the city go out of it’s way to avoid charging huge fines?
- korzun 9y ago
  Good luck with that.
- waisbrot 9y ago
  Probably, the city got many complaints about parties, trash, and different people every week. They're not fining for "using AirBnB" they're fining for "short-term rental" or "code violations". But AirBnB is the obvious way that you get short-term renters, so it's not a stretch to name them without any hard evidence.
t1o5 9y ago
I have had bad experience with AirBnB. For me, it was a rental agency posing as a family. The listing had photo of a family which I hoped to meet when I rented. After checking in, I called the phone number and it was picked by a receptionist with the usual courtesy. I asked if I could meet the family, she said "there is no family sir" we are a rental agency. After some days, talking with the next door neighbors, I found that the entire building was AirBnB. I felt sorry for the real tenants of that locality. They wont have any affordable place to rent anymore. I deleted my AirBnB profile after this incident and another security incident in another rental and will never use this again. Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the safety, the standards and a 24 hours reception desk.
- FICO 9y ago
  Some people also rent out their timeshares on AirBnB - https://www.buzzfeed.com/venessawong/airbnb-mega-hosts https://www.buzzfeed.com/venessawong/airbnb-mega-hosts
- skewart 9y ago
  > Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the safety, the standards and a 24 hours reception desk. Yup. I've pretty much only ever had bad experiences with AirBnB. At this point I've just stopped using them. There's a lot to be said for the predictability, comfort and service of a good hotel.
  - t1o5 9y ago
    Agree, when I go for a vacation, its my hard earned vacation. I wont and I dont have time to deal with a myriad of AirBnB problems. Hotels are predictable and guaranteed. Another upcoming is Turo. I used it once and discontinued. The owner cancelled my reservation 4 days before my vacation. So I went back to my old faithful Enterprise. The gist of my experience is, if you value your vacation & time, do yourself a favor and go old school. Let AirBnB and Turo make money for their investors, but they can count me out. The only service that I never had a bad experience is Uber.
fencepost 9y ago
Does AirBnB not have a way to report illegal/unauthorized rentals? I'd think they'd want something like that just to avoid the problem of their renter customers finding themselves locked out, charged with trespass, etc. Or is the notification process paying a process server to deliver a subpoena for "all information you possess about 123 Any Street, all persons or other entities related to that address, including listers, renters or tenants, and any other information on your possession including customer service contacts." Basically enough to say 'you listed this and failed to remove it promptly when advised that it was illegally listed, so we're going after you for all fines accrued after we notified you, plus damages and legal fees.'
atomical 9y ago
I reported a safety issue with an Airbnb rental. All the smoke detectors had been removed. I even sent pictures. They didn't care.
jessaustin 9y ago
This is golden: Vacayo was recently accepted into start-up accelerator 500 Startups. Today Vacayo touts itself as a start-up that "transforms long-term rentals into beautiful, short-term group vacation homes available online." 500 Startups did not respond to requests for comment. After we published this story, Vacayo was no longer listed on 500 Startups' web site. AirBnB are the deep pockets here, and cities that continue to go after landlords instead are leaving money on the table.
appleflaxen 9y ago
The local or municipal government should put the onus on AirBnB. If they made rental illegal, and fined the site for allowing a posting to go up, they would fix it immediately. It's amazing why AirBnB insists on being the antagonist here. There is already a clear bad faith actor, and everybody wants to see them punished / fail. but AirBnB insists on inserting themselves as a side-plot, rather than simply recognizing the situation for what it is, and doing everything they would want someone else to do if they were in that position.
dtien 9y ago
I actually came to the thread expecting a lot of AirBnB hate, but didn't expect ALL of it focused on them. I've used AirBnB many times around the world as a traveller, and have had generally good to great experiences. But I can understand all the arguments from the other side of how their management or inaction results in this type of bad behavior from the public. It's definitely something I think they need to address before it reaches a critical mass, and stories like this and their response certainly do not help. HOWEVER, I'm surprised people here just glossed over Vacayo and their founder's roles in this, which is my bigger gripe. Clearly, based on the 2 different home owners interviewed in this story, Vacayo was simply renting out property and converting it into short term rental property without the owner's knowledge or consent. Then posting them on the AirBnB platform, and likely funneling any inquirers to the same listing onto the Vacayo platform. Then of course, claiming it as their 'traction and revenue'. There's so much illegal, unethical behavior here starting from turning an owner's property into short term rental, going so far as to install new automated locks and cameras. Doing this against the property owner's intent and knowledge, not to mention the city laws. Then funneling another platform's users back to it's own platform. Then taking this arguably shady 'traction' and applying for and getting into 500 startup's program. And I'm sure, if this article didn't make it into the mainstream press that 500 startup would have continued with them, or maybe they are and just not claiming publicly anymore. In any case, 500 startup shares some blame in encouraging or at least willfully ignoring this type of behavior in the startups they fund. ( And yes, yes, I'm aware of AirBnB's own funneling of people from craigslist onto their platform... ) I guess I'm disheartened by this trend of straight up questionable or unethical behavior being passed along as 'hustle'. It's a VERY fine line and I'll be the first to admit and acknowledge some form of 'hustle' is required to get your business traction and running. But some of these cases with Theranos, Vacayo, etc etc really cross way over the line in my view. And it seems some of the major actors in the startup community (YC, 500) are just sort of shrugging their shoulders to it. I realize startup stories can get romanticized in their retellings over time, and that even our standard heroes like Apple(Jobs) and Microsoft(Gates) have their own questionable tactics in their ascent to the top. But there has to be a line drawn, and as a community we should be a bit more discerning and direct about what's not acceptable lest we get over run by grifters and snake oil salesmen.

99 points by SirLJ 9y ago

AirBnB has atrocious customer service. I once booked a $1,607 30-day reservation in NYC that ended up lacking internet, having a smelly mattress, wasn't the same room pictured in the listing, and a host that dismissed my concerns as "lies". After a day and a half of calling their customer service, AirBnB rejected my claim to a cancellation/refund. Then later they offered me a $100 exploding offer that expired in 24 hours. I ended up having to get the supervisor on the line (no easy task), and finally after 3 days I was able to get a refund. Was not worth the hassle, and I refuse to book long-term on AirBnB since this incident. Thank you for this post. I had written a draft of my AirBnB experience, but totally forgot to publish it. This article has reminded me how shitty that experience was, and that these companies need to be held accountable for their bullshit. https://medium.com/@jeremybernier/dont-try-to-live-off-airbnb-my-painful-experience-dealing-with-airbnb-customer-service-5edb232e4fae https://medium.com/@jeremybernier/dont-try-to-live-off-airbn...

justboxing 9y ago

> He emailed Airbnb's trust and safety team that night. Nothing. > Five more days passed, correspondence shows, without Airbnb assigning a dedicated person to his case. Then on March 23, Airbnb wrote Grewal with what amounted to a shrug. 5 days and then a "shrug"? Wow. That's appalling as far as Customer Service goes. I haven't listed on, or rented from AirBnB. But is this kind of customer service normal or is the incident quoted above an outlier? Even if they intended to respond with a shrug, why did it take 5 DAYS for a response?? Has AirBnB become so big that, like Craiglist, they don't give a Sh*t anymore to the issues their users / customers face because they know that they've captured huge chunk of the market and know that their users ain't going anywhere else anytime soon?

mark212 9y ago
The problem is that Grewal, the owner of the house that was illegally sublet, isn't and never was Airbnb's customer in any sense of the word. There's no incentive to solve his problem and take down the listing. In fact, the incentives run the other way because the real Airbnb customer -- Grewal's tenants -- are generating revenue for the site. It would be very interesting if one of these municipalities changed their ordinance to make the booking agent (Airbnb, VRBO, etc) liable for any violation. And $20,000 per violation in Miami Beach does seem ridiculously excessive.
PeachPlum 9y ago
Imagine it was a newspaper classified ad in your newspaper that someone has paid for all week and someone else phoned up asking you not to reprint it tomorrow. Or the noticeboard in Publix
- danso 9y ago
  That said, there is precedent for third-parties successfully making takedown requests on content. I think most newspapers would agree to take down an ad if it was proven to sell illegal services or goods.
- jeffdavis 9y ago
  Imagine somebody placed a classified add saying: "Free wheels. Find them on the car in the driveway at 123 Main St. Also help yourself to the backyard furniture." And you live at 123 Main St.?
  - PeachPlum 9y ago
    or placed an ad for a stolen car https://duckduckgo.com/?q=unknowingly+bought+stolen+car https://duckduckgo.com/?q=unknowingly+bought+stolen+car

Judgmentality 9y ago

Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they refuse to take down listings when presented with evidence of them being illegal, they purposefully make complying with authorities difficult, they got their start by effectively breaking the terms of agreement on craigslist and spamming people like crazy to kickstart traffic to their site. I love the idea of sharing homes. I just hate how AirBnB is doing it, and the more I read about them (obviously the media is writing articles to get clicks, so I'm sure it's somewhat biased) the more I think we'd be better off without them.

danaris 9y ago
> Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of the blame. I dunno; it seems to me that in these cases, the people who are really to blame are the "tenants" who are actually breaking both laws and rental agreements. I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're talking a $20k fine, I would imagine there's at least a good chance of recovering more than you pay...and it didn't sound like any of the mentioned owners were attempting to do anything to the bad-faith tenants. I totally agree that AirBnB has some serious legal issues looming in its future in most if not all of the jurisdictions it operates in, but I honestly don't see these particular issues as being representative of them.
- FICO 9y ago
  I'm sure many of them will try to sue later on but that's not an overnight process, it can take years for a lawsuit to make it's way through court. Plus the property owners don't even fully know what their full losses are yet, it's way too soon, the dust hasn't settled. $20,000 is too much for small claims court so it's going to be a big production. Furthermore, these scumbags are the type of people to say "LOL" to a legal judgement instead of paying it. That means more time in court to get wage and bank account garnishments (if they are even working). If they don't have the $20,000+ or a well paying job or assets then the judgement is worth as much as the paper it is written on, you can't get blood from a stone. If you get a wage garnishment you may collect your $20,000 in 10 years if you're lucky. (Ignoring the fact it's a several months process to even evict a tenant in many states in the first place.) You can't let AirBnB off the hook here, they have the moral, if not legal, responsibility to prevent the most egregious abuses of their platform.

tryingagainbro 9y ago

There's a widely accepted concept in land ownership: essentially the land belongs to the person that tills it. You cannot buy 1000 acres, ignore it and expect that your grandson can show up 60 years later with the deed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession Maybe the homeowners should pay more attention to their properties? Not to mention that in most cases they are the ones posting the listings. If the tenant breaks the rules, sue him or keep the deposit. But to be fair: the tenant should pay the fine, provided the landlord didn't give him the OK. The govt can easily find the true violator

waisbrot 9y ago
Yeah, I was struck by how both examples in the article were property owners living out of state who never even met their tenants? One of them thought she was renting to a family with two kids, but it was actually some scammers. Meeting your renters in-person once would have cleared that up. These people are buying a property, renting it to cover the mortgage, and planning to sell it at a profit. All without doing any work. Treating real estate as a passive investment rather than an active business does damage to the housing market in some of the same ways people complain AirBnB does.
- gruez 9y ago
  >Meeting your renters in-person once would have cleared that up. so hire a few actors?
  - chaz6 9y ago
    Would the actors be willing to share their photo ids and accept liability?

abritinthebay 9y ago

Terrible customer service but this seems like something a competent leasing contract should cover, no? The owner should be directly able to pass on these fines to the tenants, assuming they were sensible with the contract. If not... well, I guess there’s always civil court.

scarface74 9y ago
Almost all leasing contracts, including the ones you get for free have a no subleasing clause. Even if you win in civil court if they don't pay, your only recourse is to go back to court and try to garnish wages and bank accounts. That takes even more time and money and it's relatively simple to make your assets judgement proof by just "putting everything in your momma's name". If the judgement is too onerous, just file for bankruptcy.
- pjc50 9y ago
  What happened to the legendary importance of the credit score? I'd assume this kind of thing would make it impossible for someone to rent anything larger than a tent ever again.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Yes you can do background checks that include previous eviction cases, but if you throw enough up front money at a landlord who has a mortgage to pay, they will take you. That whole "putting everything in your mom's name" also applied here. You can probably get a cosigner. If you are a couple, one person gets the lease the first time around, the eviction is only in their name and let the other person get it next time.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

WalterBright 9y ago

One solution would be to have the city levy the fines against the tenant, not the owner, because it is the tenant breaking the law.

yardie 9y ago
They leave the notice on the door. Tenant will typically take it down and toss it in the trash. And like a speeding parking tickets the fines get sent to the owner on record. Which is public record.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  The government is more than capable of fining the tenant.
  - URSpider94 9y ago
    Nope. First of all, in many cases, they have no knowledge of who the tenant is. Second, tenants come and go - the city or county has a deed with the landlord's name on it and can put a lien against it to be sure they get paid. I'm a landlord; fines ALWAYS go to the property owner, then you have to go after the tenants to recoup your money.
  - mcculley 9y ago
    How would the government know who the tenant is? I don't know how it works elsewhere, but where I live (Florida), there is no legal registration of tenants for leased properties.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Ask the property owner. If the owner can produce a signed contract proving there is a tenant and who the tenant is, then the fine goes to the tenant. This will, of course, motivate owners to use contracts when leasing their properties.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago

pjc50 9y ago

It's not great, and I have no sympathy for tenants who trash properties - but this seems like a result of being an absentee landlord with an inadequate local agent. I have to say that in this situation I'd probably change the locks immediately and sort it out in court later; it's not clear what it means to "evict" tenants who aren't living at the property but instead are illegally subletting it. (Also, jurisdictions with good legal drafting should be making Airbnb liable in this situation too)

arkades 9y ago
"Changing the locks and sorting it out later" is incredibly illegal. Your "advice" is useless.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  It's not illegal to keep out trespassers. Maybe one wouldn't change the locks on the first day, but after seeing one group of carousing teenagers with whom one had no contractual relationship replaced by a different such group, it would be pretty safe to shut the whole thing down.
  - URSpider94 9y ago
    In most jurisdictions, housing courts are heavily, heavily, heavily biased towards tenants over landlords. Landlords can't change the locks without a valid eviction order. Doing so is likely to delay their eventual success in court - if the scammers can focus the judge on an illegal lock-out, that's going to be the first issue decided.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Sure, but in the meantime they aren't generating gigantic AirBnB fines. It seems that in this case the locks had already been changed to some sort of remote electronic device by the "tenants" themselves?
  - mjcl 9y ago

yardie 9y ago

As a customer of AirBnB since they first posted here this doesn't surprise me. I live in one of the affected cities, Miami Beach. And it's depressing to see the neighborhood being hollowed out. Early on when it was just a few renters and owners renting out space in the spare bedroom or couch it wasn't a big deal. Half my condo, 24 units, is on airbnb now. We currently don't have a HOA president as the last one was fed up with absentee owners and quit. Everyone is bitter as we're paying a great deal of money to live in a frat house.

cat199 9y ago
Just like the person in the article didn't seem to do - I think the only way to deal is via legal means. He didn't threaten them, and he got their runaround. Similarly - I'd imagine this situation you are facing will impact property resale value - no lawyer here but you might look into legal channels - something like a class action or somesuch from all affected owners will definitely get their attention I'm sure of it..

deleted 9y ago

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cperciva 9y ago

I don't understand. The city is levying fines against... the victim of a break and enter?

lobster_johnson 9y ago
Illegal subletting isn't breaking and entering, though. A home is ultimately the home owner's responsibility; if your tenants break the law, you're likely responsible, which is why contracts typically disallow subletting (as well as contain many other clauses to prevent putting the owner at risk). This is why absentee owners with no property manager are putting themselves at a risk, as they can't check on the tenants very easily.
- cperciva 9y ago
  The Airbnb customers had no legal right to be in the property in question. Maybe it's trespassing rather than breaking and entering; but they weren't legal tenants.
  - lobster_johnson 9y ago
    That's still a non-sequitur. Trespassing is a criminal violation, doesn't apply here, and has nothing to do with the terms of a lease. If I'm renting an apartment from a landlord, and you visit me, are you trespassing? No, because I gave you permission. If I'm out of town and let you stay, you're still not trespassing. As a guest, you don't need the owner's permission to be present. As a guest who subleases from me, you wouldn't be violating the terms of the lease, either; I would be. The case in the article happened because a law is being broken by persons who are not legally responsible for it. This whole problem exists because anyone can create AirBnb listings, even if they don't have the right to rent it out.
  - ianburrell 9y ago
    It isn't trespassing. They had the permission of the tenants. It was violation of lease but that is not a crime.

ameister14 9y ago

Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law. Right now they make money from this behavior. It's a poor long term strategy that made sense when they were small and scrappy but is no longer acceptable. Also, they're losing public support - I've used airbnb for years in SF and around the country and they used to have people on their side because they were the underdog. They are no longer the underdog. They are now worth roughly the same as Marriott.

bdcravens 9y ago
> Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue to break the law In the meanwhile, they'll continue to accept listings in the name of ubiquity. Then they'll settle lawsuits as a cost of doing business. Why else raise 4.4B? Not for infrastructure or developers ....
5555624 9y ago
It's never been acceptable. From the start, Airbnb should have never accepted ads from locations where short-term rentals are against the law. As you said, black list by Zip Code. In addition, they need a way to block addresses on a case-by-case basis where tenants are violating leases/rules (i.e. cases like the one in the article, condo associations, apartment buildings, etc.).
- ameister14 9y ago
  Technically that shouldn't be difficult, right? I don't know what kind of database they use but the difficulty should come with the review process before blocking and unblocking, not the act of doing it

MichaelBurge 9y ago

Is it feasible to write "Tenant agrees to pay all city-related fines caused by their intentionally renting the property on sites like AirBNB" into the lease, and tell the city they can collect directly from the tenant?

ryan-c 9y ago
Why would the city take responsibility for enforcing a contract they are not a party to?
- MichaelBurge 9y ago
  The goal of making AirBNB rentals a crime in the first place is to reduce the number of them. I claim it would be a more effective deterrent to go after the tenants who are profiting, rather than the homeowners who already have no incentives to allow it. The article mentions the tenant stole some furniture that ended up on two additional listings. If the city went after them, they can nab a serial offender which seems more valuable for reducing the number of illegal AirBNB listings than going after an unaware homeowner. The contract wouldn't be an obligation of the city, but rather a useful tool to enforce the law.
URSpider94 9y ago
That's not the way liability works. The city will always collect from the property owner, because they hold the deed. Municipalities don't chase debt, they just seize property or apply liens.

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

I skimmed the article a few times. How did the City of Miami figure out the property was listed on AirBNB? If they're scraping the AirBNB website for images of the front of the buildings, or however their doing it, wouldn't it then make sense to contact the owner to advise them of the unlawful listing. This would give the owner an opportunity make a statutory declaration stating they didn't make this listing.

bdcravens 9y ago
Complaints, police knock on door, guests say why they are there. Goes in police report, and the gears of justice grind on based on that.
- cat199 9y ago
  > and the gears of justice don't forget the invoices of fines..
djrogers 9y ago
Why would the city go out of it’s way to avoid charging huge fines?
korzun 9y ago
Good luck with that.
waisbrot 9y ago
Probably, the city got many complaints about parties, trash, and different people every week. They're not fining for "using AirBnB" they're fining for "short-term rental" or "code violations". But AirBnB is the obvious way that you get short-term renters, so it's not a stretch to name them without any hard evidence.

t1o5 9y ago

I have had bad experience with AirBnB. For me, it was a rental agency posing as a family. The listing had photo of a family which I hoped to meet when I rented. After checking in, I called the phone number and it was picked by a receptionist with the usual courtesy. I asked if I could meet the family, she said "there is no family sir" we are a rental agency. After some days, talking with the next door neighbors, I found that the entire building was AirBnB. I felt sorry for the real tenants of that locality. They wont have any affordable place to rent anymore. I deleted my AirBnB profile after this incident and another security incident in another rental and will never use this again. Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the safety, the standards and a 24 hours reception desk.

FICO 9y ago
Some people also rent out their timeshares on AirBnB - https://www.buzzfeed.com/venessawong/airbnb-mega-hosts https://www.buzzfeed.com/venessawong/airbnb-mega-hosts
skewart 9y ago
> Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the safety, the standards and a 24 hours reception desk. Yup. I've pretty much only ever had bad experiences with AirBnB. At this point I've just stopped using them. There's a lot to be said for the predictability, comfort and service of a good hotel.
- t1o5 9y ago
  Agree, when I go for a vacation, its my hard earned vacation. I wont and I dont have time to deal with a myriad of AirBnB problems. Hotels are predictable and guaranteed. Another upcoming is Turo. I used it once and discontinued. The owner cancelled my reservation 4 days before my vacation. So I went back to my old faithful Enterprise. The gist of my experience is, if you value your vacation & time, do yourself a favor and go old school. Let AirBnB and Turo make money for their investors, but they can count me out. The only service that I never had a bad experience is Uber.

fencepost 9y ago

Does AirBnB not have a way to report illegal/unauthorized rentals? I'd think they'd want something like that just to avoid the problem of their renter customers finding themselves locked out, charged with trespass, etc. Or is the notification process paying a process server to deliver a subpoena for "all information you possess about 123 Any Street, all persons or other entities related to that address, including listers, renters or tenants, and any other information on your possession including customer service contacts." Basically enough to say 'you listed this and failed to remove it promptly when advised that it was illegally listed, so we're going after you for all fines accrued after we notified you, plus damages and legal fees.'

atomical 9y ago

I reported a safety issue with an Airbnb rental. All the smoke detectors had been removed. I even sent pictures. They didn't care.

jessaustin 9y ago

This is golden: Vacayo was recently accepted into start-up accelerator 500 Startups. Today Vacayo touts itself as a start-up that "transforms long-term rentals into beautiful, short-term group vacation homes available online." 500 Startups did not respond to requests for comment. After we published this story, Vacayo was no longer listed on 500 Startups' web site. AirBnB are the deep pockets here, and cities that continue to go after landlords instead are leaving money on the table.

appleflaxen 9y ago

The local or municipal government should put the onus on AirBnB. If they made rental illegal, and fined the site for allowing a posting to go up, they would fix it immediately. It's amazing why AirBnB insists on being the antagonist here. There is already a clear bad faith actor, and everybody wants to see them punished / fail. but AirBnB insists on inserting themselves as a side-plot, rather than simply recognizing the situation for what it is, and doing everything they would want someone else to do if they were in that position.

dtien 9y ago

I actually came to the thread expecting a lot of AirBnB hate, but didn't expect ALL of it focused on them. I've used AirBnB many times around the world as a traveller, and have had generally good to great experiences. But I can understand all the arguments from the other side of how their management or inaction results in this type of bad behavior from the public. It's definitely something I think they need to address before it reaches a critical mass, and stories like this and their response certainly do not help. HOWEVER, I'm surprised people here just glossed over Vacayo and their founder's roles in this, which is my bigger gripe. Clearly, based on the 2 different home owners interviewed in this story, Vacayo was simply renting out property and converting it into short term rental property without the owner's knowledge or consent. Then posting them on the AirBnB platform, and likely funneling any inquirers to the same listing onto the Vacayo platform. Then of course, claiming it as their 'traction and revenue'. There's so much illegal, unethical behavior here starting from turning an owner's property into short term rental, going so far as to install new automated locks and cameras. Doing this against the property owner's intent and knowledge, not to mention the city laws. Then funneling another platform's users back to it's own platform. Then taking this arguably shady 'traction' and applying for and getting into 500 startup's program. And I'm sure, if this article didn't make it into the mainstream press that 500 startup would have continued with them, or maybe they are and just not claiming publicly anymore. In any case, 500 startup shares some blame in encouraging or at least willfully ignoring this type of behavior in the startups they fund. ( And yes, yes, I'm aware of AirBnB's own funneling of people from craigslist onto their platform... ) I guess I'm disheartened by this trend of straight up questionable or unethical behavior being passed along as 'hustle'. It's a VERY fine line and I'll be the first to admit and acknowledge some form of 'hustle' is required to get your business traction and running. But some of these cases with Theranos, Vacayo, etc etc really cross way over the line in my view. And it seems some of the major actors in the startup community (YC, 500) are just sort of shrugging their shoulders to it. I realize startup stories can get romanticized in their retellings over time, and that even our standard heroes like Apple(Jobs) and Microsoft(Gates) have their own questionable tactics in their ascent to the top. But there has to be a line drawn, and as a community we should be a bit more discerning and direct about what's not acceptable lest we get over run by grifters and snake oil salesmen.