Are any other New Orleans hosts having an issue with the new operator license requirements? I filled out the application on OneStop when I got the notification from Airbnb that Orleans Parish required a new license. Then Whammo! City hall was hacked. My husband went down to apply in person since they couldn’t pull up my application. We have been given a hand written temporary license while they process everything by hand. Fine. Until I go to update on airbnb and it won’t let me because I don’t have an expiration date for the temporary license. I call air thinking they will allow me to scan my license and send it to them to show that as far as the city is concerned, I am in compliance. The agent I spoke to was absolutely unhelpful. I tried to explain the permit office is down. You can’t do anything, check anything, etc until they are up and running again. I was told to call them and get an expiration date. There isn’t even a space for expiration date on the temporary license. How is everyone navigating this. I can’t be the only one having issues with this. Feb.1 is fast approaching and I don’t know how to proceed here. I was told my listing would be flagged if I put in a date that “didn’t match what is on file” I’m ready to pull my hair out.
I will do that if I can’t figure anything else out. It literally says “The temporary Operator number can be used to keep listings compliant until our offices begin issuing Operator permits.” But because it doesn’t fit into the month/date/year category, Air doesn’t want to accept it. I’m just wondering if ANYONE in New Orleans has actually received a permit or are we all in the temporary boat together? It is a very weird scenario.
Can you just make up a date? Then if it is flagged and they contact you, you can explain why?
I will do that if it comes down to the wire and I can’t get a sensible person on the phone. The thing is, they cannot check on the status of any permit-at all- in the city of New Orleans right now, short of going in person. So they can’t see any date that would be conflicting. My actual STR license is up on March 1st so I’m tempted to use that as a temporary date. The city offices are coming back on line slowly- one at a time. Safety and Permits should be a priority. I imagine there is a mind boggling amount of illegal construction/renovations being done while the office is offline. Another friend who is also a host is going down tomorrow to reapply or check. She, like me, applied before the hacking, and thought that would be good enough. Such a frustrating situation
I also think that everyone is being given the same generic permit code. I’m surprised Air hasn’t figure out something.
Ok. I’m just posting this here now in case someone finds themselves in the same boat. In a local facebook group for hosts, people have posted that they are putting dates a year from the date the permit is applied for. We can change the dates later as needed. This seems to be the consensus as it is just a mess at city hall and no one can check anything yet. Obviously double check this information for your own sanity in case anything changes. A realtor friend was told to do this by someone in the STR office. That is good enough for me
This is what happens when governments and businesses try to save money by not hiring properly trained IT personnel and giving them a budget high enough to provide proper security, including security training for users. Almost all of these ransomware hackings could have been prevented with proper software and training.