Testing the waters - applying for a license

Regulations/Tax Issues
1

I am about to start renting my place. I need a licence to rent a holiday premises in my area. This involves getting an architect to draw up plans, submit them to the planning authority, applying for a vat number and paying a license application fee and if this is approved paying a yearly licence fee. Not a small sum of money I’m afraid. Would it make sense to list the place before applying for the license to test the waters? I would like your advice.

Thanks,

2

Wow - those are tough regulations where you live.

The thing about testing the waters with Airbnb is that ABB bookings often come with very short notice. Can you risk renting it out a few times without the proper license to see if it’s really something you want to do? If it helps to know whether or not it’s worth it, the only thing I can say is I’ve never heard of a host say. ‘I started with Airbnb but just didn’t make enough money to make it worth it.’ That of course changes if you need to go through that expensive process to rent, but you could maximise your exposure by listing with a couple of different sites.

I have a granny flat where we lives that operates at 95% occupancy. I paid off the bed, furniture, fridge, sheets etc within 2 months. I also rent our holiday house. The wear and tear is significant as the house sleeps 10 people. So I have a 5 night minimum. I’m not always rented - in fact only a few times a year but the $$$ pays for all the maintenance (plus a little extra) of owning a holiday house.

Hope that helps and Good Luck.

3

I have to say that it really depends on your location. We are “almost” totally compliant with our suite. What I mean is that we have a legal suite, it complies with our building code, the City knows it’s a 2 household situation since we pay extra property tax & garbage removal fees and declare the income on our personal taxes, which is taxed at about 30%. So we “pay the price”. The part of noncompliance is actually getting the permit which adds your name to a list for regular inspections and I really don’t want my life intruded to this degree. Also, then they will watch for the odd time we have a guest stay less than 28 days which is not permitted in homes, to protect the rental stock. Our place is too small for a resident to want & perfect for a holiday rental, but there is no mechanism to permit us to use it in this way.

Good luck with your choice. Most likely you can find a way to successfully use Airbnb and compliance is a great goal to have, we are on that road!