Recently, NYC made it a little tougher for short-term (30 days or less) rental platforms to operate. On July 18, 2018, the New York City Council unanimously approved a new short-term rental legislation. The bill mandates that short-term rental platforms submit addresses to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement on their booked listings, and implement signs on platforms that can run up to $25,000 for each listing they fail to disclose. The required information includes:
- the address of the short-term rental;
- the name of the person listing it;
- the number of days it is listed;
- what the renter collects and what the platform collects;
- the URL of the listing; and
- whether it’s a partial rental or a rental of the entire apartment or unit.
The new legislation might effectively curb short-term rentals for building owners. However, building owners should be cautious not to let their guard down and continue to make a diligent effort to stop short-term rentals in their building. The city still has the ability to issue violations against building owners with a fine.
While the submissions to the Mayor’s office are protected by the Freedom of Information law, it is still safe to assume a database will exist as a result of the submissions. If there is a database listing of where short-term rentals occur, certainly the ability to examine the buildings where they occur is available to anyone who can review that database. This is exactly why building owners, who can be fined by the city for the short term rentals, should be diligent in taking steps to stop it.
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Jordi Fernandez Law, P.C.
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New York, NY 10170
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