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I found a message board thread in which the Airbnb host this article is written about describes the issue and asks for advice. http://www.biggerpockets.com/for

I found a message board thread in which the Airbnb host this article is written about describes the issue and asks for advice. http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/136498-evicting-renter-from-a-vacation-rental-property http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/136498-evictin...

re-anon 12y ago
I'm in real estate and was able to locate the owner's condo. It's part of a HOA. The HOA's CCRs forbids leases for "transient or hotel purposes." The typical meaning of this is leases of under 30 days. The CCRs also require that permitted leases be in writing. The sfgate article says that the owner was renting this out for $450/week to help cover her mortgage and expenses so it is probable that some of her activity was in violation of the CCRs. It also sounds like she didn't actually have a written lease with the squatter tenant who booked a 44 day reservation and therefore has tenants rights. I am not a fan of AirBNB but AirBNB doesn't deserve blame for this. This owner thought it would be cool to become a real estate investor and she didn't know what she was doing. Now shes paying the price...
- calbear81 12y ago
  Sometimes, I think the "friendly" community of AirBnB needs to be a bit more business when dealing with squatter scumbags. Once AirBnB couldn't collect the money, the rental should have been terminated and the host should have immediately call the cops to vacate the property well before the 30 days was up. I'm not sure why they tried to work out something with the renter. Maybe they tried to be "nice" but if some situation starts to smell fishy, handle it quickly.
  - re-anon 12y ago
    You don't get it. The squatter has been in the home for 30 days. On that 30th day he has tenants rights and the owner has to go through the process. If the owner knew what she was doing or hired somebody competent to manage her property she wouldn't be in this situation. AirBNB isn't a property manager. If you don't know what you're doing you shouldn't be renting out your home as a business.
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    the tenants knew what they were doing, they paid for 30 days.
  - 300bps 12y ago
    the host should have immediately call the cops to vacate the property As someone who has been in a similar situation before, the line you will get from any cop is, "This is a civil matter." And the cop is right. Police officers aren't equipped to determine who is right and wrong in a dispute among two parties when one of the parties isn't clearly violating the law. That's what courts are for.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    The cops will not simply evict someone because they didn't pay rent. I have seen multiple cases where it took over 6 month of no rent to evict.
  - calbear81 12y ago
    I agree with the point everyone is making about the cops not wanting to get involved since it's a civil matter but I stand by my statement that AirBnB is trying to be too nice. They offered those guys a hotel instead for 30 days? You don't negotiate with these types of grifters. AirBnB should do everything within it's legal powers to make life a living hell for them.
- larrys 12y ago
  "I am not a fan of AirBNB but AirBNB doesn't deserve blame for this. " Well (I'm not a fan either if that means I use it or have used it - I haven't) Airbnb knows this situation could exist because statistically it almost certainly has happened to a group of people. Consequently, Airbnb may very well decide, for business reasons, (so as not to scare off potential landlords) to not mention risks which they are fully aware of. Which someone who is casually using airbnb might not run into on their own for years, if ever. This is a common business predicament. Say to much and you loose the sale. Say to little and you can get bad publicity. Obviously you have to weigh the pros and the cons. As far as "hiring a professional" although that is certainly better than winging it generally it's not as if professionals will point out all the things that can go wrong, either. If you buy a rental property (as a newbie) the agent is not going to guarantee that they will get you a tenant obviously. But they are also not going to tell you all the things that can go wrong with a tenant unless you happen to ask. (And this isn't limited to realtors it's just a general business thing).
  - re-anon 12y ago
    Its not an agent's job to provide advice about tenant laws. A buyers agent is there to help a buyer find the right property, negotiate a deal and handle the paperwork. This is a property management issue. If the owner hired a local property manager instead of trying to make money as an absentee landlord she would have known the risks of 30+ day rentals and wouldn't have rented the condo so casually through a place like AirBNB. I don't think AirBNB should allow apartment rentals because statistically they know that basically all of the hosts are breaking their lease but this is a condo owned by a host, not an apartment. A lot of CCRs have use restrictions that make AirBNB rentals problematic but not all do.
    - larrys 12y ago
      "If the owner hired a local property manager instead of trying to make money as an absentee landlord she would have known the risks of 30+ day rentals and wouldn't have rented the condo so casually through a place like AirBNB." In "small business" you sometimes end up having to cut corners. The reason is there simply isn't enough profit unless you wing it yourself and learn as you go along. Taking chances. On a larger scale of course it pays to have a property manager. Otoh if you depend on a property manager to take care of repairs (and unless they have their own dedicated crew) you will end up paying money for things that really you don't need a professional for. (Say a stopped up toilet in a commercial condo). Of course you could also save if the people they use are fair and vetted. All depends, right? Now of course at scale all of this changes. Anyway the people on Airbnb are mostly (with some exceptions) looking to make a buck off their homes, condos, whatever. That said it's simply not something that I would ever get involved in personally but I can see why people do use it (both as landlords and renters). Here's a funny story you might appreciate. I rented a vacation property that I owned (through a realtor btw - was yearly rental) and the tenant was told to deposit the rental check directly into a bank account that had been setup for this purpose. (Instead of mailing) He sent a text with this question "is it ok to deposit cash or does it have to be a check"? Now of course maybe there might be a reason why he would want to use a check but to me I didn't care as long as the money was deposited. I got a laugh out of that. Sure cash is always good.

re-anon 12y ago

I'm in real estate and was able to locate the owner's condo. It's part of a HOA. The HOA's CCRs forbids leases for "transient or hotel purposes." The typical meaning of this is leases of under 30 days. The CCRs also require that permitted leases be in writing. The sfgate article says that the owner was renting this out for $450/week to help cover her mortgage and expenses so it is probable that some of her activity was in violation of the CCRs. It also sounds like she didn't actually have a written lease with the squatter tenant who booked a 44 day reservation and therefore has tenants rights. I am not a fan of AirBNB but AirBNB doesn't deserve blame for this. This owner thought it would be cool to become a real estate investor and she didn't know what she was doing. Now shes paying the price...

calbear81 12y ago
Sometimes, I think the "friendly" community of AirBnB needs to be a bit more business when dealing with squatter scumbags. Once AirBnB couldn't collect the money, the rental should have been terminated and the host should have immediately call the cops to vacate the property well before the 30 days was up. I'm not sure why they tried to work out something with the renter. Maybe they tried to be "nice" but if some situation starts to smell fishy, handle it quickly.
- re-anon 12y ago
  You don't get it. The squatter has been in the home for 30 days. On that 30th day he has tenants rights and the owner has to go through the process. If the owner knew what she was doing or hired somebody competent to manage her property she wouldn't be in this situation. AirBNB isn't a property manager. If you don't know what you're doing you shouldn't be renting out your home as a business.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  the tenants knew what they were doing, they paid for 30 days.
- 300bps 12y ago
  the host should have immediately call the cops to vacate the property As someone who has been in a similar situation before, the line you will get from any cop is, "This is a civil matter." And the cop is right. Police officers aren't equipped to determine who is right and wrong in a dispute among two parties when one of the parties isn't clearly violating the law. That's what courts are for.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  The cops will not simply evict someone because they didn't pay rent. I have seen multiple cases where it took over 6 month of no rent to evict.
- calbear81 12y ago
  I agree with the point everyone is making about the cops not wanting to get involved since it's a civil matter but I stand by my statement that AirBnB is trying to be too nice. They offered those guys a hotel instead for 30 days? You don't negotiate with these types of grifters. AirBnB should do everything within it's legal powers to make life a living hell for them.
larrys 12y ago
"I am not a fan of AirBNB but AirBNB doesn't deserve blame for this. " Well (I'm not a fan either if that means I use it or have used it - I haven't) Airbnb knows this situation could exist because statistically it almost certainly has happened to a group of people. Consequently, Airbnb may very well decide, for business reasons, (so as not to scare off potential landlords) to not mention risks which they are fully aware of. Which someone who is casually using airbnb might not run into on their own for years, if ever. This is a common business predicament. Say to much and you loose the sale. Say to little and you can get bad publicity. Obviously you have to weigh the pros and the cons. As far as "hiring a professional" although that is certainly better than winging it generally it's not as if professionals will point out all the things that can go wrong, either. If you buy a rental property (as a newbie) the agent is not going to guarantee that they will get you a tenant obviously. But they are also not going to tell you all the things that can go wrong with a tenant unless you happen to ask. (And this isn't limited to realtors it's just a general business thing).
- re-anon 12y ago
  Its not an agent's job to provide advice about tenant laws. A buyers agent is there to help a buyer find the right property, negotiate a deal and handle the paperwork. This is a property management issue. If the owner hired a local property manager instead of trying to make money as an absentee landlord she would have known the risks of 30+ day rentals and wouldn't have rented the condo so casually through a place like AirBNB. I don't think AirBNB should allow apartment rentals because statistically they know that basically all of the hosts are breaking their lease but this is a condo owned by a host, not an apartment. A lot of CCRs have use restrictions that make AirBNB rentals problematic but not all do.
  - larrys 12y ago
    "If the owner hired a local property manager instead of trying to make money as an absentee landlord she would have known the risks of 30+ day rentals and wouldn't have rented the condo so casually through a place like AirBNB." In "small business" you sometimes end up having to cut corners. The reason is there simply isn't enough profit unless you wing it yourself and learn as you go along. Taking chances. On a larger scale of course it pays to have a property manager. Otoh if you depend on a property manager to take care of repairs (and unless they have their own dedicated crew) you will end up paying money for things that really you don't need a professional for. (Say a stopped up toilet in a commercial condo). Of course you could also save if the people they use are fair and vetted. All depends, right? Now of course at scale all of this changes. Anyway the people on Airbnb are mostly (with some exceptions) looking to make a buck off their homes, condos, whatever. That said it's simply not something that I would ever get involved in personally but I can see why people do use it (both as landlords and renters). Here's a funny story you might appreciate. I rented a vacation property that I owned (through a realtor btw - was yearly rental) and the tenant was told to deposit the rental check directly into a bank account that had been setup for this purpose. (Instead of mailing) He sent a text with this question "is it ok to deposit cash or does it have to be a check"? Now of course maybe there might be a reason why he would want to use a check but to me I didn't care as long as the money was deposited. I got a laugh out of that. Sure cash is always good.