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> In some ways, this is the dark side of disrupting established industries: legal protections aren't in place yet... That's simply not true. The homeowner volu

> In some ways, this is the dark side of disrupting established industries: legal protections aren't in place yet... That's simply not true. The homeowner voluntarily agreed to rent her home to someone for more than 30 days. On the 30th day, that person became a tenant and gained certain rights under the law. The homeowner still has legal rights of her own, but the nature of the rental she agreed to means that she will have to engage in a more involved process to evict the tenant. If the homeowner did not want to deal with this type of scenario, she had every right not to rent her home for 30+ days. In short, this has nothing to do with disruption or a lack of legal protections. Notwithstanding the fact that some AirBnB properties are being rented in violation of local laws and leases, AirBnB is simply a channel for marketing rental properties. The law already provides landlords and tenants with protections and obligations and every serious party engaged in the rental business is familiar with these laws. This story has everything to do with a homeowner engaging in a business she clearly knew nothing about.

sanderjd 12y ago
> every serious party engaged in the rental business is familiar with these laws AirBnB's disruption is to enable unserious parties to engage in the rental business, so the negative effects of unserious parties engaging in the rental business can pretty reasonably be laid at the feet of that disruption.
- _delirium 12y ago
  For really casual renters I can see that: I think the "couchsurfing for money" type of AirBnB really is new, and brings in casual renters looking to rent out a couch or a spare room, or occasionally a spare apartment while they themselves are gone. But dabbling into full-time landlording, where you buy an apartment just to rent it out, is not really new or newly enabled by AirBnB. It's not like VRBO checks your sanity either; if you want to not pay attention to rental laws and get screwed on VRBO you could do that, too. Probably that has even happened, but nobody cares, because there's a cultural expectation that if you're renting an investment property on VRBO, you have an idea of what you're doing, and if not, that's your problem.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    Yeah, maybe regulators will be able to figure out how to rein in the second use case without messing up the first. But that sounds pretty idealistic.
- aikah 12y ago
  Airbnb,Uber,Kickstarter... shift all the risk on users/owners/renters/drivers/backers. That's what make their business model very profitable. Very low risk,they are not providing any real service but connecting 2 people,while still taking a good chunk of each transaction. "It's just a market place,just like an ad in a newspaper",at least,that's what they say. So their business is not illegal per say.Only those who actually provide the real service face risks.
jonnathanson 12y ago
Airbnb makes it easier for naive or unsophisticated "landlords" to rent out their properties. Yes, those would-be landlords should educate themselves about what they are getting into. But you could argue that Airbnb, by dint of its existence and its success, is lowering the barriers to entry for the would-be landlords of the world -- and thus bears a social and ethical, if not necessarily a legal, responsibility to educate or protect those people from common mistakes. And besides, it's just good business to watch out for your customers. The woman in question was not aware of the problems involved in 30+-day leases. We can fall back on the idea that she was ignorant, and that she got what was coming to her. True. But that's victim-blaming, and it's only half satisfactory. She is the kind of person who would not have invested in, and rented out, a property without the existence of a hand-holding site like Airbnb. Accordingly, Airbnb should do its part to ensure that people like her -- people entering the market because of Airbnb, and who are presumably unsophisticated -- are reasonably protected from rookie mistakes. I don't think Airbnb is to blame here. I don't think Airbnb owes her any money. But I do think it should be thinking very carefully about how to retool its process, so that situations like these don't pop up again. Not for legal reasons, but for UX reasons. Airbnb operates a two-sided marketplace, and maintaining that two-sided marketplace means balancing the needs of both sides of the market. It seems that Airbnb is offering to assist her with her legal expenses, and I applaud them for that. No, they probably don't have to do that. But "We don't have to" is a pretty lousy excuse to fall back on. Customer service matters, even if it means protecting your customers from their own mistakes (within reason).
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  If you read some of my previous comments[1] on AirBnB, you'll see that I question many of the company's practices. AirBnB has constructive knowledge that some of its "hosts" are violating the law in certain cities where it is well-publicized that short-term rentals are illegal. And it has constructive knowledge that there are virtually no apartment leases that permit renters to turn their apartments into hotel rooms through short-term sublets. But this story doesn't fall into those categories and your line of reasoning is not convincing. From what has been published, the so-called "victim" purchased a condo hundreds of miles away from her actual residence as an investment with the intention of producing income through vacation rentals. She was marketing its availability on multiple sites, not just AirBnB. AirBnB and the current crop of sites like it didn't create the vacation rental market. This market existed well before the advent of the internet. Before AirBnB emerged, there was no shortage of unsophisticated individuals trying their hand at real estate. Making the landlord a particularly unsympathetic character here is the fact that, in the original article about this situation, she admitted to seeing warning signs early on. Instead of terminating the rental well before 30 days had elapsed when her gut told her that there was something off about her "guest", she decided to let the guest stay. There's a saying, "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." I have absolutely no doubt that AirBnB could "retool its process" as you suggest and it still wouldn't prevent situations like this because no "process" is going eliminate greed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7896538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7896538

sanderjd 12y ago

> every serious party engaged in the rental business is familiar with these laws AirBnB's disruption is to enable unserious parties to engage in the rental business, so the negative effects of unserious parties engaging in the rental business can pretty reasonably be laid at the feet of that disruption.

_delirium 12y ago
For really casual renters I can see that: I think the "couchsurfing for money" type of AirBnB really is new, and brings in casual renters looking to rent out a couch or a spare room, or occasionally a spare apartment while they themselves are gone. But dabbling into full-time landlording, where you buy an apartment just to rent it out, is not really new or newly enabled by AirBnB. It's not like VRBO checks your sanity either; if you want to not pay attention to rental laws and get screwed on VRBO you could do that, too. Probably that has even happened, but nobody cares, because there's a cultural expectation that if you're renting an investment property on VRBO, you have an idea of what you're doing, and if not, that's your problem.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  Yeah, maybe regulators will be able to figure out how to rein in the second use case without messing up the first. But that sounds pretty idealistic.
aikah 12y ago
Airbnb,Uber,Kickstarter... shift all the risk on users/owners/renters/drivers/backers. That's what make their business model very profitable. Very low risk,they are not providing any real service but connecting 2 people,while still taking a good chunk of each transaction. "It's just a market place,just like an ad in a newspaper",at least,that's what they say. So their business is not illegal per say.Only those who actually provide the real service face risks.

jonnathanson 12y ago

Airbnb makes it easier for naive or unsophisticated "landlords" to rent out their properties. Yes, those would-be landlords should educate themselves about what they are getting into. But you could argue that Airbnb, by dint of its existence and its success, is lowering the barriers to entry for the would-be landlords of the world -- and thus bears a social and ethical, if not necessarily a legal, responsibility to educate or protect those people from common mistakes. And besides, it's just good business to watch out for your customers. The woman in question was not aware of the problems involved in 30+-day leases. We can fall back on the idea that she was ignorant, and that she got what was coming to her. True. But that's victim-blaming, and it's only half satisfactory. She is the kind of person who would not have invested in, and rented out, a property without the existence of a hand-holding site like Airbnb. Accordingly, Airbnb should do its part to ensure that people like her -- people entering the market because of Airbnb, and who are presumably unsophisticated -- are reasonably protected from rookie mistakes. I don't think Airbnb is to blame here. I don't think Airbnb owes her any money. But I do think it should be thinking very carefully about how to retool its process, so that situations like these don't pop up again. Not for legal reasons, but for UX reasons. Airbnb operates a two-sided marketplace, and maintaining that two-sided marketplace means balancing the needs of both sides of the market. It seems that Airbnb is offering to assist her with her legal expenses, and I applaud them for that. No, they probably don't have to do that. But "We don't have to" is a pretty lousy excuse to fall back on. Customer service matters, even if it means protecting your customers from their own mistakes (within reason).

7Figures2Commas 12y ago
If you read some of my previous comments[1] on AirBnB, you'll see that I question many of the company's practices. AirBnB has constructive knowledge that some of its "hosts" are violating the law in certain cities where it is well-publicized that short-term rentals are illegal. And it has constructive knowledge that there are virtually no apartment leases that permit renters to turn their apartments into hotel rooms through short-term sublets. But this story doesn't fall into those categories and your line of reasoning is not convincing. From what has been published, the so-called "victim" purchased a condo hundreds of miles away from her actual residence as an investment with the intention of producing income through vacation rentals. She was marketing its availability on multiple sites, not just AirBnB. AirBnB and the current crop of sites like it didn't create the vacation rental market. This market existed well before the advent of the internet. Before AirBnB emerged, there was no shortage of unsophisticated individuals trying their hand at real estate. Making the landlord a particularly unsympathetic character here is the fact that, in the original article about this situation, she admitted to seeing warning signs early on. Instead of terminating the rental well before 30 days had elapsed when her gut told her that there was something off about her "guest", she decided to let the guest stay. There's a saying, "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." I have absolutely no doubt that AirBnB could "retool its process" as you suggest and it still wouldn't prevent situations like this because no "process" is going eliminate greed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7896538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7896538