Depressing New York City Hosts Meeting

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This is a very alarming thread indeed. I am hoping to be lost in the numbers, and to scoot by unnoticed. What some of the people above don’t understand about the law, is that police can arrest you for suspicion of almost anything, and if a prosecutor wants they can continue to charge you for that offense, regardless of whether you did anything, and regardless of whether the prosecutor actually believes you did anything. Not until you get in front of a judge can you argue your side of the story, and if it is a frivolous charge, the judge can dismiss the case there (and reprimand the prosecutor).
Legal consensus has been that renting to ‘boarders’ is perfectly fine. That doesn’t mean OSE can’t drag you to court and otherwise intimidate/threaten/scare you.

In reading mainstream articles about NYC hosts being caught, it seems like people with egregious violations were the first targeted, probably because they were easiest and the city can earn the most $$ off of fines from them. (i.e. the person who turns an entire apartment building into only AirBnBs. )
My next thought along the lines of self-preservation, is assuming/hoping enforcement will be targeted to those who AirBnB rent-controlled buildings. Rent controlled places are subject to a variety of additional regulations, and it is probably harder to defend in court if you’re paying $500 rent but making $10k in monthly profit.
Now, I’d love to talk to the people at this meeting and hear what their situations are and see if it comports with what I thought previously.

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It’s hard to imagine they could even make a dent in the thousands of Air hosts in NYC. The odds of getting caught by one of them seem about the same as being a victim of a terror attack. They’d have to put millions of dollars into this effort if they’re really going to make a dent. What are there, something like 40,000 hosts in New York?

But, we had an inquiry this morning from a guy who stayed with an NYC host this past November. I clicked into his host’s page to see if he had written a review for her.

The first thing I saw were those notices from Air saying “the host” had cancelled about 25 reservations. And she had no new reviews after that and her listings were all gone.

She apparently had 4-5 different places, so looks like she surely wasn’t living in all of them. It made me wonder if she had gotten caught by them.

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@JonYork I agree that the are a vast amount of listings, and it is somewhat unlikely that any particular host will be targeted.

However, if there are 5 teams in the OSE, and they each work on 10 listings/day, that’s 250 listings a week, or 13,000/year. That is significant. In a very specific pool of people. And they make MUCH more money from the fines than it costs to run the agency so it is a positive cash flow for them!

Also, as I mentioned, I was in a meeting of 100 people, and at least 20 had been fined and are in court fighting the OSE. These were all people who had a SINGLE listing. As I mentioned, I have little sympathy for people with multiple listings.

The population of the US is 325M, so the chance of being a victim of a terror attack is 1/325M. The chance a host will be fined by the OSE is 1/40,000,. You have an 8,000 times better chance of being fined than being a victim.

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All of this is good research, but the hotels are not the only people opposing Airbnb. Residents in both rental buildings, co-ops and condos have big issues with running of illegal hotels. The fact of the matter is, short term rentals less than 30 days have been illegal in New York City long, long, long before Airbnb or HomeAway came along.

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Yes, that’s very true. And I totally understand why people in large buildings have a problem with Air - especially with whole home rentals.

But that’s something each building can make its own rules about. It’s not something the city should pass a citywide law about. Let every building decide what to do for itself.

Maybe some buildings would ban Airbnb altogether. Maybe some would (intelligently) say, if you live in the apartment, then it’s okay. Because I find guests who stay with you when you live in the place - are extremely well behaved. NONE of our thousands of guests have ever done anything to bother one of our neighbors. (Thank God)!

But for the city to pass a blanket law - treating every kind of host exactly the same - is absolutely absurd.

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Short term rentals of last than 30 days has been against the law for a very, very, very long time. Folks who ran headfirst into Air and then cried “foul!” were simply ignoring the law.

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I am so sorry to hear that NY is being so draconian! How can they be so hostile to a poor resident just trying to supplement their income and meet a few people?

In Nashville, our city is trying to limit the number of rentals to 1 or owner occupied houses. I am all for that. Airbnb has become a monster with complete old apartment buildings now off the market…8-12 apartments in a single building next to a university removed from the moderate rental market.
The company has become like Uber…flood the market with promises and sign up so many hosts that no one makes money.

The investors have flocked in buying up new condos to Abnb them. Airbnb is lobbying hard and now the regulation will confine the corporate people to the downtown essentially and no native goes into that tourist mess so fine, leave me the intelligent guests.

I love Abnb but they are really disrupting local economies and need to be controlled. I just hate that New York is killing it all.

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@LetsShareThoughts
Berlin banned strp completely and so have a few other cities.
It not hotels, it is about neighbors and apt availability and safety and liability (which affects the building’s owner).

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This is from the Office of Special Enforcement website.

Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement

NOTICE OF ADOPTION OF FINAL RULES GOVERNING UNLAWFUL ADVERTISEMENT FOR CERTAIN OCCUPANCIES

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN in accordance with the requirements of section 1043 of the New York City Charter and exercising the authority vested in the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (“MOSE”) by Section 1043 of the New York City Charter and chapter 396 of the Laws of 2016 (section 27-287.1 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York) MOSE adopts the following rules governing unlawful advertisement for certain occupancies. OSE published a Notice of Opportunity to Comment on the proposed rules in the City Record on November 18, 2016. On December 19, 2016, OSE held a public hearing on the proposed rules.

Statement of Basis and Purpose of Rule

Chapter 396 of the Laws of 2016, enacted on October 21, 2016, establishes two new provisions of law: section 212 of the New York State Multiple Dwellings Law, and section 27-287.1 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York (the City’s Building Code). Both provisions prohibit the advertising of dwelling units in a Class A multiple dwelling, as defined in the Multiple Dwelling Law, for any purpose or use other than permanent residential occupancy. This prohibition applies to all forms of advertising, including electronic and printed materials, television, and radio. The statute specifies that it is to be enforced in New York City by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement.

The purpose of this rule is to implement chapter 396 of the Laws of 2016 by specifying the penalties for violation of the statutory prohibition. Persons found to have violated the prohibition will be fined $1,000 for the first violation, $5,000 for the second violation and $7,500 for the third and subsequent violations. Like all violations of the City’s Building Code, notices of violation relating to the new prohibition will be returnable at the Environmental Control Board within the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.

The authority of the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement for these rules is found in section 1043 of the New York City Charter and section 27-287.1 of the New York City Administrative Code.

Effective Date:
Mon, 01/30/2017
http://rules.cityofnewyork.us/tags/office-special-enforcement

What was made illegal in 2016 was the “advertising of certain occupancies.” The short term letting of less than 30 days was already illegal, but the 2016 law gave NYC the teeth to go after illegal hosts for the act of advertising “certain occupancies” rather than having to wait and catch guests occupying the property. Of particular interest is this section: Both provisions prohibit the advertising of dwelling units in a Class A multiple dwelling, as defined in the Multiple Dwelling Law, for any purpose or use other than permanent residential occupancy. That sounds, to me, like all Airbnb activity - shared and whole apartment - is out.

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But it is still illegal.
NY needs to make a policy and regulate these rentals as Nashville, San Francisco and a huge number of the locations have. There are safety issues as well as financial reasons to control listings…

And it is illegal.

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That is how it works in Nashville…apply…fire inspection,license, prove extra insurance, get permit, collect and pay hotel taxes.

Actually easy and affordable and I am all for it.

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The average hotel in NYC may be $400 but there are many, many more with $ 200 or less price tags. i know, I stay in them. And you can go right through the tunnel and pay $100.(La Quinta)

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@CatskillsGrrl, I think you may have some misinformation.

From my understanding, the law prohibiting short-term rentals went into effect in 2011.

This is an excerpt from this article

What the Law Says
Contrary to what many may think, New York laws about short term rentals are pretty clear, thanks to a new law went into affect in 2011. “Under the New York State multiple dwelling law, a residential multiple dwelling can only be used for what is termed ‘permanent resident purposes,’” explains attorney Robert Braverman. “What that means under the statute is that it has to be occupied by the same person or family for 30 or more consecutive days.” So anything less than 30 days, no matter how you swing it, is violating the law, unless of course, the place is zoned to be a hotel or hostel.

It also goes on to say It’s not illegal to rent a room if you are occupying your apartment at the same time and all parts of the apartment are available to the paying guest.

Granted, this is an older article, and some things may have changed. But the fact is, prior to the 2011 law (which in my opinion is not a very, very, very long time ago), short-term rentals were not illegal.

As @JonYork pointed out, this is ALL about the hotel industry; the amount of affordable housing that has been “consumed” by Airbnb is absolutely minimal. Co-ops and condos can make their own rules. Whole house rentals abusing landlords apartments is unacceptable. A host with multiple apartments should be banned. But a 2-family home in Queens, where the family lives in one part and rents the other should be acceptable; it currently isn’t. And there are many other exceptions as well that fit into this category.

If your town suddenly decided to ban Airbnb rentals, would you stand by and let that happen without a fight, especially if you depended upon it for your income? What about if a hotel chain came into town, and lobbied hard to make it illegal for STRs for their own benefit? This is exactly what is happening in NYC.

I said in my first post that the meeting I attended were with hosts that had a single rental, often attached to their own home. At least 20 of these were fined $10,000 - $100,000 and are in court with the OSE. They are just like you and I, not corporations, not hosts with multiple listings, not people looking to deprive others affordable housing.

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The law targeting the advertising went into effect Jan 1 2017. It was a bill sponsored by Linda Rosenthal, my NYS representative for the Upper West Side. What I quoted above is directly off the site of the Office of Special Enforcement. There were already OTHER laws on the books addressed short term rentals.

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@CatskillsGrrl, I’m not disagreeing about the info you posted about the law targeting advertising and the OSE. I am taking exception to your statement that STRs in New York City have been made illegal a “very, very, very long time ago”.

2011 is when it became illegal, and that is not a long time ago. And it was made illegal by the lobbying from the hotel industry.

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Got these in the mail today:

20180409_190800
20180409_190800.jpg2138×2851 1.74 MB
20180409_190806
20180409_190806.jpg2851×2138 2.07 MB

So depressing.

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@Alia_Gee. The hotel cartel are “cherry-picking” these (likely made-up listings) to their advantage. Completely, 100%, deceptive. It is awful. See anything listings from Queens there? Of course not; yet they target them the same way.

These ads and postcards are COMPLETELY paid by the Hotel Industry. Don’t think for a moment they originate from anywhere else.

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Well even it is just since 2011, seven years is quite a long time, if you are listing your place on Airbnb.

I would imagine that many Airbnb hosts in NYC, have only listed in the last seven years or so, so would have been aware of this legislation, when they set up their listings.

It’s rather like when people get a ticket for speeding or drink driving. You know you are breaking the law, but take a risk anyway.

In London we had the same situation where thousands and thousands provided STRs illegally in the Capital.

I think it’s a shame that Airbnb hosts lobbying against the introduction of legislation, focus on the hotel industry and don’t take into account the wider legitimate community concerns of those working and living in an area about the impact STRs has on their communities.

Your arguments would be much stronger if you worked with local communities and took their concerns into account.

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@bigappledude you are not correct. The laws were strengthened with the arrival of Airbnb but those laws have been on the books since the 20s. I quote from Law360:

The New York State Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL) establishes the standards for all buildings containing three or more dwelling units. Since the 1920s, the MDL has distinguished between Class A and Class B dwellings. A Class A dwelling is a residential building that is occupied for 30 days or more, while a Class B dwelling is a transient building (i.e. a hotel, hostel or other short-term stay) that is occupied for less than 30 days. The MDL prohibits un-hosted rentals of less than 30 days in “Class A” multiple dwellings, a building occupied by three or more families living independently. In 2010, the MDL was amended to provide that Class A multiple dwellings can only be used for “permanent resident purposes.” This means that the units in such dwellings must be occupied for at least 30 or more consecutive days by the same person or family. Thus, one cannot rent out an apartment in a “Class A” multiple dwelling for less than 30 days, unless a “permanent resident” is present during the rental period. Essentially, any intent to occupy a Class A dwelling for less than 30 days, regardless of the circumstances, is violating the law. The only exception is if the building has been zoned to be a hotel or hostel.

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I know.

But do my neighbors know?