
Homeowners faced an Airbnb nightmare as renters left them facing huge fines - SirLJ
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-fined-after-renters-illegal-listings.html
======
yardie
As a customer of AirBnB since they first posted here this doesn't surprise me.
I live in one of the affected cities, Miami Beach. And it's depressing to see
the neighborhood being hollowed out. Early on when it was just a few renters
and owners renting out space in the spare bedroom or couch it wasn't a big
deal. Half my condo, 24 units, is on airbnb now. We currently don't have a HOA
president as the last one was fed up with absentee owners and quit. Everyone
is bitter as we're paying a great deal of money to live in a frat house.

~~~
cat199
Just like the person in the article didn't seem to do - I think the only way
to deal is via legal means.

He didn't threaten them, and he got their runaround.

Similarly - I'd imagine this situation you are facing will impact property
resale value - no lawyer here but you might look into legal channels -
something like a class action or somesuch from all affected owners will
definitely get their attention I'm sure of it..

------
justboxing
> He emailed Airbnb's trust and safety team that night. Nothing.

> Five more days passed, correspondence shows, without Airbnb assigning a
> dedicated person to his case. Then on March 23, Airbnb wrote Grewal with
> what amounted to a shrug.

5 days and then a "shrug"? Wow. That's appalling as far as Customer Service
goes. I haven't listed on, or rented from AirBnB. But is this kind of customer
service normal or is the incident quoted above an outlier? Even if they
intended to respond with a shrug, why did it take 5 DAYS for a response??

Has AirBnB become so big that, like Craiglist, they don't give a Sh*t anymore
to the issues their users / customers face because they know that they've
captured huge chunk of the market and know that their users ain't going
anywhere else anytime soon?

~~~
PeachPlum
Imagine it was a newspaper classified ad in your newspaper that someone has
paid for all week and someone else phoned up asking you not to reprint it
tomorrow.

Or the noticeboard in Publix

~~~
jeffdavis
Imagine somebody placed a classified add saying:

"Free wheels. Find them on the car in the driveway at 123 Main St. Also help
yourself to the backyard furniture."

And you live at 123 Main St.?

~~~
PeachPlum
or placed an ad for a stolen car

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=unknowingly+bought+stolen+car](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=unknowingly+bought+stolen+car)

------
Judgmentality
Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to
fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they
understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason. Beyond that though,
what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the profits and accept none of
the blame. They fought to avoid paying taxes and whined when they lost, they
refuse to take down listings when presented with evidence of them being
illegal, they purposefully make complying with authorities difficult, they got
their start by effectively breaking the terms of agreement on craigslist and
spamming people like crazy to kickstart traffic to their site.

I love the idea of sharing homes. I just hate how AirBnB is doing it, and the
more I read about them (obviously the media is writing articles to get clicks,
so I'm sure it's somewhat biased) the more I think we'd be better off without
them.

~~~
danaris
> Beyond that though, what I despise is that AirBnB seems to reap all the
> profits and accept none of the blame.

I dunno; it seems to me that in these cases, the people who are really to
blame are the "tenants" who are actually breaking both laws and rental
agreements.

I'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all the
money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're
talking a $20k fine, I would imagine there's at least a good chance of
recovering more than you pay...and it didn't sound like _any_ of the mentioned
owners were attempting to do anything to the bad-faith tenants.

I totally agree that AirBnB has some serious legal issues looming in its
future in most if not all of the jurisdictions it operates in, but I honestly
don't see these particular issues as being representative of them.

~~~
scarface74
_I 'm puzzled as to why the property owners aren't suing them to recover all
the money they lost. I mean, yeah, lawsuits cost money, too, but when you're
talking a $20k fine, I would imagine there's at least a good chance of
recovering more than you pay...and it didn't sound like any of the mentioned
owners were attempting to do anything to the bad-faith tenants._

It sounds like you have never been a landlord. It's a five step process that
takes at least two months just to evict someone in my landlord friendly state.
I've heard it's worse in many other states. After that, it's possible to sue
someone but that costs money and time and even after you do win it can take
years to actually get your money and go through garnishment procedures once
you track down their income. It's seldom worth the effort.

Yes most of the fault lies with AirBnb but being a distant landlord without a
local property manager is crazy anyway. I sold my properties because the
expense of getting a property manager or the hassle of managing it myself from
across town wasn't worth it.

~~~
eh78ssxv2f
So, it seems that regulations governing the relationship between the landlord
and tenants is the real problem here. If it was easier to recover money from
the tenants, and kick them off the property, this would not be a problem.

~~~
FICO
Here's the deal: Tenants have rights because it's extremely easy for slumlords
to take advantage of tenants - the power is completely in the landlord's hands
without regulations. Poor tenant protections often leads to very serious
negative externalities to society as a whole. History is filled with examples.

Unfortunately, tenants do take advantage of landlord-tenant laws sometimes,
and that is terrible. Savvy swindlers can use the system to their advantage.

Being hard to recover money from individuals has absolutely nothing to do with
landlord-tenant law and everything to do with the fact most individual people
don't have tens of thousands of dollars sitting around to pay legal
judgements. You'd have these sorts of issues anytime you sue someone else for
anything. Best case scenario is that the person who you are suing has the
proper liability insurance that will pay the judgement for them. (Liability is
included with homeowners insurance and renters insurance but doesn't usually
cover intentional actions)

------
ameister14
Behavior like this will lead to Airbnb being sued until a point where they
recognize it is cheaper to put a zip-code blacklisting system in than continue
to break the law. Right now they make money from this behavior. It's a poor
long term strategy that made sense when they were small and scrappy but is no
longer acceptable.

Also, they're losing public support - I've used airbnb for years in SF and
around the country and they used to have people on their side because they
were the underdog. They are no longer the underdog. They are now worth roughly
the same as Marriott.

~~~
5555624
It's never been acceptable. From the start, Airbnb should have never accepted
ads from locations where short-term rentals are against the law. As you said,
black list by Zip Code. In addition, they need a way to block addresses on a
case-by-case basis where tenants are violating leases/rules (i.e. cases like
the one in the article, condo associations, apartment buildings, etc.).

~~~
ameister14
Technically that shouldn't be difficult, right? I don't know what kind of
database they use but the difficulty should come with the review process
before blocking and unblocking, not the act of doing it

------
tryingagainbro
There's a widely accepted concept in land ownership: essentially the land
belongs to the person that tills it. You cannot buy 1000 acres, ignore it and
expect that your grandson can show up 60 years later with the deed.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession)

Maybe the homeowners should pay more attention to their properties? Not to
mention that in most cases they are the ones posting the listings. If the
tenant breaks the rules, sue him or keep the deposit.

But to be fair: the tenant should pay the fine, provided the landlord didn't
give him the OK. The govt can easily find the true violator

~~~
waisbrot
Yeah, I was struck by how both examples in the article were property owners
living out of state who never even met their tenants? One of them thought she
was renting to a family with two kids, but it was actually some scammers.
Meeting your renters in-person _once_ would have cleared that up.

These people are buying a property, renting it to cover the mortgage, and
planning to sell it at a profit. All without doing any work. Treating real
estate as a passive investment rather than an active business does damage to
the housing market in some of the same ways people complain AirBnB does.

~~~
gruez
>Meeting your renters in-person once would have cleared that up.

so hire a few actors?

~~~
chaz6
Would the actors be willing to share their photo ids and accept liability?

------
t1o5
I have had bad experience with AirBnB. For me, it was a rental agency posing
as a family. The listing had photo of a family which I hoped to meet when I
rented. After checking in, I called the phone number and it was picked by a
receptionist with the usual courtesy. I asked if I could meet the family, she
said "there is no family sir" we are a rental agency. After some days, talking
with the next door neighbors, I found that the entire building was AirBnB.

I felt sorry for the real tenants of that locality. They wont have any
affordable place to rent anymore. I deleted my AirBnB profile after this
incident and another security incident in another rental and will never use
this again.

Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the safety,
the standards and a 24 hours reception desk.

~~~
skewart
> Now I know, there is a reason why hotels charge more, you pay for the
> safety, the standards and a 24 hours reception desk.

Yup. I've pretty much only ever had bad experiences with AirBnB. At this point
I've just stopped using them. There's a lot to be said for the predictability,
comfort and service of a good hotel.

~~~
t1o5
Agree, when I go for a vacation, its my hard earned vacation. I wont and I
dont have time to deal with a myriad of AirBnB problems. Hotels are
predictable and guaranteed. Another upcoming is Turo. I used it once and
discontinued. The owner cancelled my reservation 4 days before my vacation. So
I went back to my old faithful Enterprise. The gist of my experience is, if
you value your vacation & time, do yourself a favor and go old school. Let
AirBnB and Turo make money for their investors, but they can count me out. The
only service that I never had a bad experience is Uber.

------
fencepost
Does AirBnB not have a way to report illegal/unauthorized rentals? I'd think
they'd want something like that just to avoid the problem of their renter
customers finding themselves locked out, charged with trespass, etc.

Or is the notification process paying a process server to deliver a subpoena
for "all information you possess about 123 Any Street, all persons or other
entities related to that address, including listers, renters or tenants, and
any other information on your possession including customer service contacts."
Basically enough to say 'you listed this and failed to remove it promptly when
advised that it was illegally listed, so we're going after you for all fines
accrued after we notified you, plus damages and legal fees.'

------
pjc50
It's not great, and I have no sympathy for tenants who trash properties - but
this seems like a result of being an absentee landlord with an inadequate
local agent.

I have to say that in this situation I'd probably change the locks immediately
and sort it out in court later; it's not clear what it means to "evict"
tenants who aren't living at the property but instead are illegally subletting
it.

(Also, jurisdictions with good legal drafting should be making Airbnb liable
in this situation too)

~~~
arkades
"Changing the locks and sorting it out later" is incredibly illegal. Your
"advice" is useless.

~~~
jessaustin
It's not illegal to keep out trespassers. Maybe one wouldn't change the locks
on the first day, but after seeing one group of carousing teenagers with whom
one had no contractual relationship replaced by a different such group, it
would be pretty safe to shut the whole thing down.

~~~
URSpider94
In most jurisdictions, housing courts are heavily, heavily, heavily biased
towards tenants over landlords. Landlords can't change the locks without a
valid eviction order. Doing so is likely to delay their eventual success in
court - if the scammers can focus the judge on an illegal lock-out, that's
going to be the first issue decided.

~~~
jessaustin
Sure, but in the meantime they aren't generating gigantic AirBnB fines. It
seems that in this case the locks had already been changed to some sort of
remote electronic device by the "tenants" themselves?

------
TheSpiceIsLife
I skimmed the article a few times.

How did the City of Miami figure out the property was listed on AirBNB?

If they're scraping the AirBNB website for images of the front of the
buildings, or however their doing it, wouldn't it then make sense to contact
the owner to advise them of the unlawful listing. This would give the owner an
opportunity make a statutory declaration stating they didn't make this
listing.

~~~
bdcravens
Complaints, police knock on door, guests say why they are there. Goes in
police report, and the gears of justice grind on based on that.

~~~
cat199
> and the gears of justice

don't forget the invoices of fines..

------
jsbernier
AirBnB has atrocious customer service. I once booked a $1,607 30-day
reservation in NYC that ended up lacking internet, having a smelly mattress,
wasn't the same room pictured in the listing, and a host that dismissed my
concerns as "lies". After a day and a half of calling their customer service,
AirBnB rejected my claim to a cancellation/refund. Then later they offered me
a $100 exploding offer that expired in 24 hours. I ended up having to get the
supervisor on the line (no easy task), and finally after 3 days I was able to
get a refund. Was not worth the hassle, and I refuse to book long-term on
AirBnB since this incident.

Thank you for this post. I had written a draft of my AirBnB experience, but
totally forgot to publish it. This article has reminded me how shitty that
experience was, and that these companies need to be held accountable for their
bullshit.

[https://medium.com/@jeremybernier/dont-try-to-live-off-
airbn...](https://medium.com/@jeremybernier/dont-try-to-live-off-airbnb-my-
painful-experience-dealing-with-airbnb-customer-service-5edb232e4fae)

------
WalterBright
One solution would be to have the city levy the fines against the tenant, not
the owner, because it is the tenant breaking the law.

~~~
yardie
They leave the notice on the door. Tenant will typically take it down and toss
it in the trash. And like a speeding parking tickets the fines get sent to the
owner on record. Which is public record.

~~~
tryingagainbro
Yeah, but eventually it will have to be cleared. This day my car was being
driven by XX, or my apt was being leased to John Smith.

While landlords can be more proactive, this goes against all common sense and
fairness. If my tenant grows weed or kills a person in the basement, should I
go to jail?

~~~
yardie
The owner will have their day in court and can clear it up about the tenant.
I'm just telling you what I see. There were a few notices posted in our
building. The owners have no idea until they get a court summons.

If someone grows weed in your house and no one is there when the cops come
knocking guess who's getting a warrant?

~~~
cat199
> If someone grows weed in your house and no one is there when the cops come
> knocking guess who's getting a warrant?

You do, which is then thrown out when you show that you are renting. Unlike
the fines mentioned here, which stick.

------
cperciva
I don't understand. The city is levying fines against... the victim of a break
and enter?

~~~
lobster_johnson
Illegal subletting isn't breaking and entering, though.

A home is ultimately the home owner's responsibility; if your tenants break
the law, you're likely responsible, which is why contracts typically disallow
subletting (as well as contain many other clauses to prevent putting the owner
at risk). This is why absentee owners with no property manager are putting
themselves at a risk, as they can't check on the tenants very easily.

~~~
cperciva
The Airbnb customers had no legal right to be in the property in question.
Maybe it's trespassing rather than breaking and entering; but they weren't
legal tenants.

~~~
ianburrell
It isn't trespassing. They had the permission of the tenants. It was violation
of lease but that is not a crime.

~~~
cperciva
If I give you permission to walk into the Y Combinator offices, you're still
trespassing. The tenants had no ability to grant legally meaningful
permission.

~~~
URSpider94
Criminal trespass doesn't work that way. For the most part, you have to have
clear knowledge that you are on someone else's property without permission -
for example, climbing over a fence, or walking past a "No Tresspassing" sign.
If someone invites you into the Y Combinator offices and gives you the door
code, you're not trespassing.

------
appleflaxen
The local or municipal government should put the onus on AirBnB. If they made
rental illegal, and fined the site for allowing a posting to go up, they would
fix it immediately.

It's amazing why AirBnB insists on being the antagonist here. There is already
a clear bad faith actor, and everybody wants to see them punished / fail. but
AirBnB insists on inserting themselves as a side-plot, rather than simply
recognizing the situation for what it is, and doing everything they would want
someone else to do if they were in that position.

------
jessaustin
This is golden:

 _Vacayo was recently accepted into start-up accelerator 500 Startups. Today
Vacayo touts itself as a start-up that "transforms long-term rentals into
beautiful, short-term group vacation homes available online." 500 Startups did
not respond to requests for comment. After we published this story, Vacayo was
no longer listed on 500 Startups' web site._

AirBnB are the deep pockets here, and cities that continue to go after
landlords instead are leaving money on the table.

------
atomical
I reported a safety issue with an Airbnb rental. All the smoke detectors had
been removed. I even sent pictures. They didn't care.

------
abritinthebay
Terrible customer service but this seems like something a competent leasing
contract should cover, no?

The owner should be directly able to pass on these fines to the tenants,
assuming they were sensible with the contract.

If not... well, I guess there’s always civil court.

~~~
scarface74
Almost all leasing contracts, including the ones you get for free have a no
subleasing clause. Even if you win in civil court if they don't pay, your only
recourse is to go back to court and try to garnish wages and bank accounts.
That takes even more time and money and it's relatively simple to make your
assets judgement proof by just "putting everything in your momma's name". If
the judgement is too onerous, just file for bankruptcy.

~~~
pjc50
What happened to the legendary importance of the credit score? I'd assume this
kind of thing would make it impossible for someone to rent anything larger
than a tent ever again.

~~~
scarface74
Yes you can do background checks that include previous eviction cases, but if
you throw enough up front money at a landlord who has a mortgage to pay, they
will take you.

That whole "putting everything in your mom's name" also applied here. You can
probably get a cosigner. If you are a couple, one person gets the lease the
first time around, the eviction is only in their name and let the other person
get it next time.

------
MichaelBurge
Is it feasible to write "Tenant agrees to pay all city-related fines caused by
their intentionally renting the property on sites like AirBNB" into the lease,
and tell the city they can collect directly from the tenant?

~~~
ryan-c
Why would the city take responsibility for enforcing a contract they are not a
party to?

~~~
MichaelBurge
The goal of making AirBNB rentals a crime in the first place is to reduce the
number of them. I claim it would be a more effective deterrent to go after the
tenants who are profiting, rather than the homeowners who already have no
incentives to allow it.

The article mentions the tenant stole some furniture that ended up on two
additional listings. If the city went after them, they can nab a serial
offender which seems more valuable for reducing the number of illegal AirBNB
listings than going after an unaware homeowner.

The contract wouldn't be an obligation of the city, but rather a useful tool
to enforce the law.

------
dtien
I actually came to the thread expecting a lot of AirBnB hate, but didn't
expect ALL of it focused on them. I've used AirBnB many times around the world
as a traveller, and have had generally good to great experiences. But I can
understand all the arguments from the other side of how their management or
inaction results in this type of bad behavior from the public. It's definitely
something I think they need to address before it reaches a critical mass, and
stories like this and their response certainly do not help.

HOWEVER, I'm surprised people here just glossed over Vacayo and their
founder's roles in this, which is my bigger gripe. Clearly, based on the 2
different home owners interviewed in this story, Vacayo was simply renting out
property and converting it into short term rental property without the owner's
knowledge or consent. Then posting them on the AirBnB platform, and likely
funneling any inquirers to the same listing onto the Vacayo platform. Then of
course, claiming it as their 'traction and revenue'.

There's so much illegal, unethical behavior here starting from turning an
owner's property into short term rental, going so far as to install new
automated locks and cameras. Doing this against the property owner's intent
and knowledge, not to mention the city laws. Then funneling another platform's
users back to it's own platform. Then taking this arguably shady 'traction'
and applying for and getting into 500 startup's program. And I'm sure, if this
article didn't make it into the mainstream press that 500 startup would have
continued with them, or maybe they are and just not claiming publicly anymore.
In any case, 500 startup shares some blame in encouraging or at least
willfully ignoring this type of behavior in the startups they fund.

( And yes, yes, I'm aware of AirBnB's own funneling of people from craigslist
onto their platform... )

I guess I'm disheartened by this trend of straight up questionable or
unethical behavior being passed along as 'hustle'. It's a VERY fine line and
I'll be the first to admit and acknowledge some form of 'hustle' is required
to get your business traction and running. But some of these cases with
Theranos, Vacayo, etc etc really cross way over the line in my view. And it
seems some of the major actors in the startup community (YC, 500) are just
sort of shrugging their shoulders to it.

I realize startup stories can get romanticized in their retellings over time,
and that even our standard heroes like Apple(Jobs) and Microsoft(Gates) have
their own questionable tactics in their ascent to the top. But there has to be
a line drawn, and as a community we should be a bit more discerning and direct
about what's not acceptable lest we get over run by grifters and snake oil
salesmen.

