For those of you who are hosting on Airbnb as a tenant (renting their home from a landlord)… what clauses do you have in your lease that protect you (as a host and tenant) and allow you to host Airbnb guests? The obvious one is not having any restrictions or verbiage that prohibits subletting… but there must be other things to consider too, especially around liability, local laws, income, etc. I am not looking for thoughts from or about tenants who are violating their leases and hosting on Airbnb without their landlord’s written or verbal permission. I am about to sign a lease with a landlord who is OK with me subletting and listing their home on Airbnb. Now I just need to put that in writing and make it legal in the lease we are about to sign. So how should we edit our lease? If anyone has had experience with such leases, please let me know what worked and did not work for you? If you prefer to share your thoughts privately, please feel free to direct message me too.
Well, tenant/landlord laws vary widely from country to country, from town to town. Seems to me that the most direct clause would be “with this lease, i grant Skylar the right to use this property [address] as a short term rental unit” and then a description of whole apartment/house or when the tenant, you, is in residence. There will be a clause somewhere that says “If laws change to make one clause invalid, the rest of the lease remains intact.”
@anon67190644 I agree about saying I’ll have a right to lease as a short-term rental unit, but what else should be included? I don’t think this is enough…
If I were your landlord I would require proof of commercial insurance, but I am not a lawyer. You might need to consult with one. Mostly, you want explicit permission, as opposed to assumption of permission based on no exclusions.
Hey @anon67190644, good point… yea just removing the “no subletting” clause is probably not as strong as explicitly saying STR’s are allowed. Thank you for your feedback. Agree about insurance. I think there are more complexities there in terms of liability protection for both the landlord and the tenant, but it’s just not a lease contract that is common. You know, I can’t google it and simply download a template for an Airbnb-friendly lease off of Legalzoom or anywhere on the Internet… at least as far as I know. I don’t even think many real estate attorneys would have experience with this sort of agreements… yet. But maybe someone here, in this forum, does… Any feedback would be helpful to me and I’d be very appreciative of everyone’s thoughts.
I agree speak to a lawyer who specialises in tenancies and landlord/tenant law in your area. Let them know what you and your landlord have agreed to and ask them to draft up relevant clauses and review your lease to ensure you are protected. Of course specialist lawyers will have experience of drawing up tenancy clauses and advising on these sort of issues.
Make sure you have relevant insurance to protect the landlord’s property and that you take a decent deposit to cover any potential damage.
Vet your potential guests rather than using instant book to help avoid problem guests. The last thing you want are guests who upset your neighbours/damage the property.
Don’t try and take shortcuts by using on the shelf templates which won’t be tailored to your needs.
You are running a business, so getting the right legal advice is just an expense of running your business.