4 ms·

Yeah… who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with it, eh?

by jikbd 5y ago

srmarm 5y ago
We have planning, zoning and safety laws for a reason. The owners of a flat can decide to do what they like within those parameters.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gerikson 5y ago
A flat owner is not an atomic actor. If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I imagine it is the same in the Netherlands.
- iofiiiiiiiii 5y ago
  > it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. Says who? This is a rather bold assumption to make and does not have any connection with the reality in most of the world.
  - gerikson 5y ago
    My comments were made from my experience as a renter and condo owner in Stockholm, Sweden. I did speculate that similar norms were present in the Netherlands, but I must confess I have not studied the issue deeply.
- yreg 5y ago
  >If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption There might be such implicit assumption somewhere, but it for sure isn't a general one. I for one don't have any such expectations regarding the neighbours in my condo. (I don't live in Sweden/Netherlands though.)
  - V-2 5y ago
    I, for one, am renting, so if my neighbors expected my landlord would live at the flat with his family - then my wife, my newborn son and I are certainly failing to meet their implicit assumptions.
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  In the UK at least, the expectation would be 50/50 that you are buying to let. However, a six month minimum rental period is very different from having new neighbors every weekend.
- dagw 5y ago
  If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it I also live in Sweden and that is a very Sweden specific assumption. Even just across the border in Norway that assumption doesn't hold. Sweden on the whole is very anti small private landlords and have lots of laws making it basically impossible to make money by buying a few flats and renting them out, but that is also a pretty uniquely Swedish take on the property market.
  - gerikson 5y ago
    Thanks for expanding, I do admit writing from a parochial perspective.
  - mrep 5y ago
    So how is there housing for people to rent? Does the government build and maintain all rental property?
    - gerikson 5y ago
      No, there are private and council-owned landlords.
      - mrep 5y ago
        Can you explain more? That still sounds like you are able to "make money by buying a few flats and renting them out" but with extra steps.
        dagw 5y ago
        No, the landlords in these cases own the whole building, not just a few flats. If you own the whole building then you can of course rent out the flats in that building. But if you just own a couple of flats in the building, then you generally cannot easily rent them out.
        gerikson 5y ago
        Expanding on 'dawg, it's generally only profitable to rent if you're a company devoted only to renting, and the regulatory regime punishes the landlord with only a few units. This is because rents are not market-based, but instead are based on "use value" (bruksvärde). A 19th C apartment in the middle of the city can theoretically be worth "less" from a rental perspective than a newly built apartment in the suburbs. Any annual rent increases are set via a form of collective bargaining, and if a landlord charges more, the renter is entitled to their money back. The upshot of this is that it's much more profitable to buy a rental building and flip it to the renters via a bostadsrättsförening (a bit like a condo) or to only build to sell.
- null_object 5y ago
  > I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I don't know why you're using Sweden as a 'good' example of democratic control of Airbnb: the opposite is actually true, where the authorities are very well-disposed to people hiring-out their apartments, and see it as an opportunity to get more tourists visiting locations in Sweden[0] From the article in the citation: "Politicians in Copenhagen want to introduce a maximum limit of 60 rental days per year via Airbnb - but Stockholm is choosing a different path and continues to welcome private rentals via the US giant. According to statistics from Airbnb, there are now over 3,600 listed homes actively offered as tourist accommodation in Stockholm." In that article there are officials saying the same as you - that local restrictions put some sort of 'natural' limit on the number of Airbnb apartments - but the reality is that for people working here in Stockholm and trying to find an apartment to rent, the only option has now become Airbnb or the black-market in rented accommodation - effectively pricing normal people out of the market altogether. As for these supposed restrictions on hiring-out apartments that are in the 'rulebook' of a house, it's perfectly easy to circumvent them. In my house in central Stockholm it's forbidden, but I often meet small groups of Italians, Spaniards or other obvious tourists coming and going in the communal areas of the house, and looking very sheepish at being seen - very obviously hiring an apartment illegally. [0] In swedish: https://www.svd.se/stockholm-gar-emot-airbnb-trenden-inget-prisfall https://www.svd.se/stockholm-gar-emot-airbnb-trenden-inget-p...
  - lampe3 5y ago
    Maybe it is starting now? https://www.thelocal.se/20210916/swedens-first-case-against-an-overpriced-rental-goes-to-court-two-years-after-law-change/ https://www.thelocal.se/20210916/swedens-first-case-against-...
growse 5y ago
> Yeah… who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with it, eh? How do you spell "externalities"?
this-pony 5y ago
Yea... who are the neighbors of those flats to decide to protest loud and rude tourists that disturb the piece and quiet of their homes, eh?
- elzbardico 5y ago
  Exactly. Flat owners can't privatize their gains while their socialized their costs. If a factory pollutes, we agreed that it should pay for the damage and control it. Why it is so difficult to understand that we just want the externalities from Airbnb to be addressed?
- jikbd 5y ago
  We already have laws against that.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    And now we have a new law, I'm sure people were upset about the night time disturbances laws too
buran77 5y ago
The owners still decide what to do with it. They just decided to stop listing their apartments because now it's very conspicuous that they are breaking the law by not paying taxes, having proper insurance, safety conditions, etc. for such an endeavor. The ones who were operating legally still advertise their listings.
hihihihi1234 5y ago
So you'd have no problem if your neighbours turned their flat into a brothel and a meth lab? Because that's the logical extension of your argument.
- V-2 5y ago
  I'd have the exact same problem if the owner of the flat turned into a meth lab (or throwing loud parties or whatever) did pay all the taxes.
dingdongbing 5y ago
The problem is that the locals cannot find housing themselves. Laws like this protect the common people of Amsterdam at the expense of the flat owners inalienable right to exploit them
locallost 5y ago
There are tons of limitations to what you can do with your property. E.g. you can own land but can't build a house if the land is not zoned for it. Even the meaning of property has changed over the centuries. It's no longer acceptable to own a human being, which was a contested idea not too long ago. It's the people that make a society that decide what they want the rules to be. Good for the people of Amsterdam that they don't accept man made "realities" on what can or can't be done.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  If it's no longer acceptable to own a human being, that's going to be a problem for the gimp training and service industry in Amsterdam. https://www.nobleprog.nl/en/gimp/training/amsterdam https://www.nobleprog.nl/en/gimp/training/amsterdam >Gimp Training in Amsterdam >Online or onsite, instructor-led live Gimp training courses demonstrate through interactive discussion and hands-on practice the fundamentals and advanced topics of Gimp and Gimpshop. >Gimp training is available as "online live training" or "onsite live training". Online live training (aka "remote live training") is carried out by way of an interactive, remote desktop. Onsite live Gimp training can be carried out locally on customer premises in Amsterdam or in NobleProg corporate training centers in Amsterdam. https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g188590-d14917717-r190696953-Supperclub-Amsterdam_North_Holland_Province.html https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g188590-d1491... >Different and enjoyable, but expensive >Travelled to the Supper Club with my girlfriend and we had a great time. Waiters in gimp suits, rubber gloves upon arrival and comfy beds to lounge on while we ate, created a unique experience.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Mix ups like this are why I don't mention my experience with the GNU Image Manipulation Program[1] offline. [1] https://www.gimp.org/ https://www.gimp.org/
  - gerikson 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure the waiters are paid competitive rates and are free to seek other employment. So comparing them to literal slaves is disingenuous.
mellavora 5y ago
I might have more sympathy for the flat owners if they: - had proper insurance on their properties to protect the guests - maintained the property according to the health and safety guidelines proscribed by law - had a license for their business activity - paid the appropriate taxes for this additional income
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Yeah! If a landlord wants to put up tourists in leaky slum houses for €250 a night that should be their right! It's their own fault for trusting an online advert, right? Hotels have rules, regulations and need to be inspected according to hotel rules in terms of safety, hygiene and price rules. Rentals have rules and regulations related to basic standards of living, pricing, and again, safety and hygiene. Airbnb allowed landlords to rent out substandard temporary housing, skirting around laws covering both hotels and rentals as well as relevant taxes. In part, they are responsible for the housing crisis.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  Who checks hotels? I've been in some flea bags, and didn't know until I showed up. This is just in the USA though. If they serve food, they are check usually once a year, and that's it, and it's only the kitchen. Hotels/motels are not inspected for anything--sadily. (I've always wondered what counties/towns do with that occupancy tax they collect. I don't like Airbnb though, and agree with you for the most.)
lm28469 5y ago
Ownership isn't freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want, this is a first grade take on the topic. Laws are voted for the interest of the community (ie. country) by elected officials (elected by the people), ownership, freedoms, &c. exist within these boundaries, or as a smart person put it a long time ago: "Obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is freedom". It's always a battle of individual gains vs collective good, if we wanted to live like egoists cavemen we wouldn't have build organised societies.

Yeah… who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with it, eh?

by jikbd 5y ago

Yeah… who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with it, eh?

We have planning, zoning and safety laws for a reason. The owners of a flat can decide to do what they like within those parameters.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

gerikson 5y ago

A flat owner is not an atomic actor. If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I imagine it is the same in the Netherlands.

iofiiiiiiiii 5y ago
> it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. Says who? This is a rather bold assumption to make and does not have any connection with the reality in most of the world.
- gerikson 5y ago
  My comments were made from my experience as a renter and condo owner in Stockholm, Sweden. I did speculate that similar norms were present in the Netherlands, but I must confess I have not studied the issue deeply.
yreg 5y ago
>If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption There might be such implicit assumption somewhere, but it for sure isn't a general one. I for one don't have any such expectations regarding the neighbours in my condo. (I don't live in Sweden/Netherlands though.)
- V-2 5y ago
  I, for one, am renting, so if my neighbors expected my landlord would live at the flat with his family - then my wife, my newborn son and I are certainly failing to meet their implicit assumptions.
VBprogrammer 5y ago
In the UK at least, the expectation would be 50/50 that you are buying to let. However, a six month minimum rental period is very different from having new neighbors every weekend.
dagw 5y ago
If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it I also live in Sweden and that is a very Sweden specific assumption. Even just across the border in Norway that assumption doesn't hold. Sweden on the whole is very anti small private landlords and have lots of laws making it basically impossible to make money by buying a few flats and renting them out, but that is also a pretty uniquely Swedish take on the property market.
- gerikson 5y ago
  Thanks for expanding, I do admit writing from a parochial perspective.
- mrep 5y ago
  So how is there housing for people to rent? Does the government build and maintain all rental property?
  - gerikson 5y ago
    No, there are private and council-owned landlords.
    - mrep 5y ago
      Can you explain more? That still sounds like you are able to "make money by buying a few flats and renting them out" but with extra steps.
      - dagw 5y ago
        No, the landlords in these cases own the whole building, not just a few flats. If you own the whole building then you can of course rent out the flats in that building. But if you just own a couple of flats in the building, then you generally cannot easily rent them out.
      - gerikson 5y ago
        Expanding on 'dawg, it's generally only profitable to rent if you're a company devoted only to renting, and the regulatory regime punishes the landlord with only a few units. This is because rents are not market-based, but instead are based on "use value" (bruksvärde). A 19th C apartment in the middle of the city can theoretically be worth "less" from a rental perspective than a newly built apartment in the suburbs. Any annual rent increases are set via a form of collective bargaining, and if a landlord charges more, the renter is entitled to their money back. The upshot of this is that it's much more profitable to buy a rental building and flip it to the renters via a bostadsrättsförening (a bit like a condo) or to only build to sell.
null_object 5y ago
> I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I don't know why you're using Sweden as a 'good' example of democratic control of Airbnb: the opposite is actually true, where the authorities are very well-disposed to people hiring-out their apartments, and see it as an opportunity to get more tourists visiting locations in Sweden[0] From the article in the citation: "Politicians in Copenhagen want to introduce a maximum limit of 60 rental days per year via Airbnb - but Stockholm is choosing a different path and continues to welcome private rentals via the US giant. According to statistics from Airbnb, there are now over 3,600 listed homes actively offered as tourist accommodation in Stockholm." In that article there are officials saying the same as you - that local restrictions put some sort of 'natural' limit on the number of Airbnb apartments - but the reality is that for people working here in Stockholm and trying to find an apartment to rent, the only option has now become Airbnb or the black-market in rented accommodation - effectively pricing normal people out of the market altogether. As for these supposed restrictions on hiring-out apartments that are in the 'rulebook' of a house, it's perfectly easy to circumvent them. In my house in central Stockholm it's forbidden, but I often meet small groups of Italians, Spaniards or other obvious tourists coming and going in the communal areas of the house, and looking very sheepish at being seen - very obviously hiring an apartment illegally. [0] In swedish: https://www.svd.se/stockholm-gar-emot-airbnb-trenden-inget-prisfall https://www.svd.se/stockholm-gar-emot-airbnb-trenden-inget-p...
- lampe3 5y ago
  Maybe it is starting now? https://www.thelocal.se/20210916/swedens-first-case-against-an-overpriced-rental-goes-to-court-two-years-after-law-change/ https://www.thelocal.se/20210916/swedens-first-case-against-...

growse 5y ago

> Yeah… who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with it, eh? How do you spell "externalities"?

this-pony 5y ago

Yea... who are the neighbors of those flats to decide to protest loud and rude tourists that disturb the piece and quiet of their homes, eh?

elzbardico 5y ago
Exactly. Flat owners can't privatize their gains while their socialized their costs. If a factory pollutes, we agreed that it should pay for the damage and control it. Why it is so difficult to understand that we just want the externalities from Airbnb to be addressed?
jikbd 5y ago
We already have laws against that.
- lm28469 5y ago
  And now we have a new law, I'm sure people were upset about the night time disturbances laws too

buran77 5y ago

The owners still decide what to do with it. They just decided to stop listing their apartments because now it's very conspicuous that they are breaking the law by not paying taxes, having proper insurance, safety conditions, etc. for such an endeavor. The ones who were operating legally still advertise their listings.

hihihihi1234 5y ago

So you'd have no problem if your neighbours turned their flat into a brothel and a meth lab? Because that's the logical extension of your argument.

V-2 5y ago
I'd have the exact same problem if the owner of the flat turned into a meth lab (or throwing loud parties or whatever) did pay all the taxes.

dingdongbing 5y ago

The problem is that the locals cannot find housing themselves. Laws like this protect the common people of Amsterdam at the expense of the flat owners inalienable right to exploit them

locallost 5y ago

There are tons of limitations to what you can do with your property. E.g. you can own land but can't build a house if the land is not zoned for it. Even the meaning of property has changed over the centuries. It's no longer acceptable to own a human being, which was a contested idea not too long ago. It's the people that make a society that decide what they want the rules to be. Good for the people of Amsterdam that they don't accept man made "realities" on what can or can't be done.

DonHopkins 5y ago
If it's no longer acceptable to own a human being, that's going to be a problem for the gimp training and service industry in Amsterdam. https://www.nobleprog.nl/en/gimp/training/amsterdam https://www.nobleprog.nl/en/gimp/training/amsterdam >Gimp Training in Amsterdam >Online or onsite, instructor-led live Gimp training courses demonstrate through interactive discussion and hands-on practice the fundamentals and advanced topics of Gimp and Gimpshop. >Gimp training is available as "online live training" or "onsite live training". Online live training (aka "remote live training") is carried out by way of an interactive, remote desktop. Onsite live Gimp training can be carried out locally on customer premises in Amsterdam or in NobleProg corporate training centers in Amsterdam. https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g188590-d14917717-r190696953-Supperclub-Amsterdam_North_Holland_Province.html https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g188590-d1491... >Different and enjoyable, but expensive >Travelled to the Supper Club with my girlfriend and we had a great time. Waiters in gimp suits, rubber gloves upon arrival and comfy beds to lounge on while we ate, created a unique experience.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Mix ups like this are why I don't mention my experience with the GNU Image Manipulation Program[1] offline. [1] https://www.gimp.org/ https://www.gimp.org/
- gerikson 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure the waiters are paid competitive rates and are free to seek other employment. So comparing them to literal slaves is disingenuous.

mellavora 5y ago

I might have more sympathy for the flat owners if they: - had proper insurance on their properties to protect the guests - maintained the property according to the health and safety guidelines proscribed by law - had a license for their business activity - paid the appropriate taxes for this additional income

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

Yeah! If a landlord wants to put up tourists in leaky slum houses for €250 a night that should be their right! It's their own fault for trusting an online advert, right? Hotels have rules, regulations and need to be inspected according to hotel rules in terms of safety, hygiene and price rules. Rentals have rules and regulations related to basic standards of living, pricing, and again, safety and hygiene. Airbnb allowed landlords to rent out substandard temporary housing, skirting around laws covering both hotels and rentals as well as relevant taxes. In part, they are responsible for the housing crisis.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
Who checks hotels? I've been in some flea bags, and didn't know until I showed up. This is just in the USA though. If they serve food, they are check usually once a year, and that's it, and it's only the kitchen. Hotels/motels are not inspected for anything--sadily. (I've always wondered what counties/towns do with that occupancy tax they collect. I don't like Airbnb though, and agree with you for the most.)

lm28469 5y ago

Ownership isn't freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want, this is a first grade take on the topic. Laws are voted for the interest of the community (ie. country) by elected officials (elected by the people), ownership, freedoms, &c. exist within these boundaries, or as a smart person put it a long time ago: "Obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is freedom". It's always a battle of individual gains vs collective good, if we wanted to live like egoists cavemen we wouldn't have build organised societies.