
Squatter doesn't sit well with Airbnb host - kqr2
http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Squatters-don-t-sit-well-with-Airbnb-hosts-5631952.php
======
DanBlake
I wrote about this exact situation and the legality's regarding it in 2012.

[http://harknesslabs.com/post/32179239260/gaming-airbnb-in-
sa...](http://harknesslabs.com/post/32179239260/gaming-airbnb-in-san-
francisco-courtesy-of-rent-control)

The gist of it, is that San Francisco and California's rental and rent control
laws will supersede any private contract you can write. No way around it. If
there was a way around it, you can bet that landlords would simply be
including clauses in all new leases they say "rent control not valid here".

What I wrote in the above article amazingly still stands today. You can even
find a 1bedroom in Nob Hill for a affordable 2200 a month!
[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1605304](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1605304)?

There is so much education AirBnB should be doing for their hosts in CA and SF
especially.

Did you know that if someone rents a airbnb listing in SF for more than 30
days, they can stay there _forever_ , so long as they keep paying rent? Yeah,
no mention of that when you create a new listing on the site.

~~~
YokoZar
Well not exactly. If the AirBNB host is a tenant themselves, then the
subtenant relationship will end when the AirBNB host vacates the property.

Not all SF landlords are opposed to their tenants rerenting the units on
AirBNB. Some even deliberately rent for minimums of 30 days, to avoid running
into zoning regulations against short term stays. AirBNB promised to start
collecting hotel taxes in SF, but such taxes wouldn't apply in this case
either.

~~~
DanBlake
That is not entirely accurate. If you were renting a room in a apartment (you
being the master tenant) and you still resided in the apartment in another
bedroom AND also showed/informed the new tenant a copy of San Francisco Rules
& Regulations 6.15C- then yes, you could evict them.

Otherwise, you cant- and the tenant takes over the defacto 'lease' from you.

Costa Hawkins (which I believe you are referring to) is a landlord/owner
option. You as a tenant cannot initiate it and would be shit out of luck. You
might be able to get your landlord to initiate the lawsuit for you, but I
doubt they want to come out of pocket on legal expenses on your behalf.

------
gabemart
I found a message board thread in which the Airbnb host this article is
written about describes the issue and asks for advice.

[http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/136498-evictin...](http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/136498-evicting-
renter-from-a-vacation-rental-property)

~~~
re-anon
I'm in real estate and was able to locate the owner's condo. It's part of a
HOA. The HOA's CCRs forbids leases for "transient or hotel purposes." The
typical meaning of this is leases of under 30 days. The CCRs also require that
permitted leases be in writing.

The sfgate article says that the owner was renting this out for $450/week to
help cover her mortgage and expenses so it is probable that some of her
activity was in violation of the CCRs. It also sounds like she didn't actually
have a written lease with the squatter tenant who booked a 44 day reservation
and therefore has tenants rights.

I am not a fan of AirBNB but AirBNB doesn't deserve blame for this. This owner
thought it would be cool to become a real estate investor and she didn't know
what she was doing. Now shes paying the price...

~~~
calbear81
Sometimes, I think the "friendly" community of AirBnB needs to be a bit more
business when dealing with squatter scumbags.

Once AirBnB couldn't collect the money, the rental should have been terminated
and the host should have immediately call the cops to vacate the property well
before the 30 days was up. I'm not sure why they tried to work out something
with the renter. Maybe they tried to be "nice" but if some situation starts to
smell fishy, handle it quickly.

~~~
re-anon
You don't get it. The squatter has been in the home for 30 days. On that 30th
day he has tenants rights and the owner has to go through the process. If the
owner knew what she was doing or hired somebody competent to manage her
property she wouldn't be in this situation. AirBNB isn't a property manager.
If you don't know what you're doing you shouldn't be renting out your home as
a business.

------
padobson
This seems to be as much a problem with eviction laws as with Airbnb.

In Ohio, the eviction process isn't exactly landlord friendly, but it doesn't
require a lawyer either. And in most cases, deadbeat tenants aren't going to
show up at the court date anyhow - then it's trivial to get a ruling in your
favor. You'll lose out on 60-90 days of rent, but if that bankrupts you, your
margins are too tight.

And Airbnb has, by far, returned me the highest margins I've ever gotten, so
it's certainly worth the risk of squatters.

~~~
spiritplumber
In San Antonio, TX I was surprised to find the shotgun-wielding landlady
telling me to get out before midnight exactly the day before my rent was
due... turns out she wanted to kick out a delinquent tenant in the unit with
the same letter but one civic number over, but I can't blame her for taking
direct action. Scared the piss out of me though! At least I got a free month
out of it.

~~~
bdcravens
Probably was an illegal eviction however, one that she could have received
criminal charges for.

~~~
spiritplumber
Maybe (I don't know what TX law looks like) but that's not a lot of comfort
once you've been shot.

------
mikeash
I'm baffled at how people rent out houses without doing the research first.

I bet that if you asked to rent their _car_ , they'd go check it out first.
Call their insurance company, find out what the legal requirements are, etc.

Yet do the same thing with an item that costs 10, 20, 30 times as much money
and people's approach seems to be, hey, free money, woooooo.

Maybe it's just a case of only hearing about the rare fools.

~~~
bronson
It's because AirBNB makes becoming a landlord point-and-click simple. "It's so
popular and easy! It's a big website, it must be legal!"

The moment an AirBNB site for cars comes along, you'll see it.

~~~
frostmatthew
> The moment an AirBNB site for cars comes along, you'll see it.

[https://relayrides.com/](https://relayrides.com/)

~~~
jbigelow76
It came along... 14 years ago when Zipcar was founded.

~~~
mikeash
Not remotely similar. Zipcar owns and maintains the cars they rent.

------
klenwell
Title (article's own) makes it sound like this is some sort of trend. But
unless I missed something, this is just one unfortunate host's struggles with
a jerk tenant.

~~~
dang
In that case maybe we'll change the title to use the singular instead of the
plural.

~~~
nathanb
I like the new title better, thanks.

------
fiatmoney
The historical solution to this (illegal tenant in an illegal short-term
sublet doesn't want to move out) would be to have some vowel-suffixed friends
encourage them to move out. Which isn't exactly "nice", but at least has the
virtue of being nicely economically efficient.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was thinking something similar, the AirBnb host however doesn't think of
themselves as doing anything illegal so they constrain their thinking in that
way. I have certainly met people over the years who exploit this in others.

------
zyxley
This isn't really Airbnb's problem, though I imagine they could do a better
job of showing what lengths of stay would make tenant rights' laws or other
legal complications kick in.

------
danso
So...help me out here. The host met a stranger and rented out the apartment
(even after herself seeing warning signs) in such a way that her renter has
renter's rights under California law?

I'm relatively young and have never been a landlord: in the pre-Internet days,
did landlords _not_ rent to people they didn't know well? Did they not have to
comply to certain state laws? If we switched "Airbnb" with "Craigslist" or
"San Francisco Chronicle's Classifieds Section"...would this be a story in the
SF Chronicle?

~~~
dobbsbob
Yep, media usually hypes these delinquent tenant stories though they are
probably rare. Lot's of "Freeman-on-the-land" stories of squatters refusing to
pay rent for 1-3 mos and landlord's can't evict them. Every story they
interview some shady property management corp who insists all renter laws must
be weakened.

A story the media hasn't done yet is how often traveling sex workers use
Airbnb for incall. 2-3 workers will travel to different cities together and
then use the apartment to turn tricks. Perfect incall solution instead of
using hotels which charge extra for guests or clamp down on visitors. I'm sure
there's a small minority of tenants using Airbnb to import narcotics or fraud
hardware like ATM skimmers too, can always claim the previous tenant ordered
the box full of drugs and you had no knowledge.

~~~
fred_durst
Airbnb as an address to get illegal things shipped and dropped off sounds just
too easy. So easy to deny responsibility. Even just for using a courier
service.

------
ForHackernews
I have very little sympathy for Airbnb landlords: they want to make a quick
buck without following the laws to run a real hotel, then they don't get the
legal protections of hotels.

~~~
seanflyon
When honest people fall victim to scam artists, I do sympathize even if they
could have avoided it with better legal knowledge.

------
leot
Sounds like the guy might be using the host's electricity to do bitcoin
mining.

Super scammy. This kind of thing should be criminal.

~~~
espringe
If the tenant is supposedly blasting the aircon, with the windows open in 114
degree heat ... I'm not sure an alternate explanation is needed. (Not to
mention, bitcoin mining requires a lot more than cheap-to-free electricity)

------
analog31
Do hotels have different eviction laws?

~~~
cowsandmilk
yes.

This is why many chains have separate long-term stay places and hotels. Most
hotels will not let you stay long enough to be a "tenant".

------
kaivi
I remember reading a story in the recent Priceonomics book about a similar
tenant conflict in SF. Tl;dr, a 75-yr-old lady was thrown out into the cold,
but only after months of hearings and lots of money wasted on lawyers. Why do
such laws exist at all in CA? Why not just send out several warnings in
advance, explaining whole situation and the available options for tenant?

These two guys are just asking for a good old ass whooping. Throw them out,
then let them try and prove that they were renting the place to begin with.
Whatever the premises, you could certainly make it be your words against
theirs.

------
malandrew
AirBnB could just suggest to people to only rent a unit for 29 days, find
another AirBnB property for 2-3 days to "break the streak" and the have the
person in question return to the unit for another 29-day streak. I would
imagine that all you really need to do is break the the contractual
relationship into 29-day chunks with a provable different contractual
relationship (another AirBnB host) for the interim between sub one month
stays.

------
mershad
Could someone explain why he is still considered a tenant even though he pays
no rent or utilities at the property? I am curious as to why he can't just be
considered a trespasser and removed by police.

~~~
MattGrommes
After you are allowed to stay in a home more than 30 days you become a
"tenant" and are subject to renter protection laws. I'd imagine these short
term rental companies will get much stricter about 30+ stays real soon now.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Does this apply even to people I would allow to stay in my home for free? Or
does this only kick in when money changes hands?

~~~
sjg007
Yep, even free.

------
NPMaxwell
This highlights how staff who handle emails or calls needs to be part of the
business plan of a b-to-c startup. Or at least an explanation of why it's OK
to NOT handle customer contacts.

------
batbomb
Why can't she so 3 day pay or quit (plus eviction) and/or give 30 day notice
for chronically late payments?

------
Stealx
First thought was a meth lab or grow house.

------
trhway
obligatory educational material -
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100318/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100318/)

------
alixander
That first sentence is so poorly written.

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aaron695
Similar situation with a nanny refusing to leave.

[http://time.com/2941176/nightmare-nanny-
leaving/](http://time.com/2941176/nightmare-nanny-leaving/)

Like any business decision you do need to risk manage it. Extremes like this
are rare, which is why it's in the news but you do need to be aware of what
you're investing in and the risks involved.

