Air BNB Should be Banned

[antelopevalley]

This started off as a lovely idea. A way for people to rent a spare room and show people around their home town.

It has since turned into a way for people to make money without adhering to the minimum legal standards that proper holiday accommodation has to meet. Even basic health and safety standards such as smoke alarms do not have to be met.

And it has created chaos, reducing the amount of accommodation for families to rent, pushing up prices, and hollowing out tourist destinations turning them into a Disneyland where few people live.

A ban would mean that anyone wanting to rent out holiday accommodation would have to do it properly. People doing it well could remain running their business but the amateurs who haven't a clue what they are doing would leave the market.

The whole world revolves around money so
I think this is a ridiculous post.

Yanbu! I agree

No. It should be better regulated. I'd like to see an option where AirBnB send auditors randomly to lets to check health and safety, cleanliness and fairness of policies from the owners.

I am aware there is a cost but I do think if you are renting accommodation to the public, you should have checks similar to a hotel.

Living in Edinburgh, banning airB&B would go a long way to reducing house / flat prices to a more reasonable level. It would massively help ease the current student housing crisis. Definitely agree!

I agree, it was a great idea when it was small, but then it got bigger and greedier and it's ruined itself.

I doubt it will be banned completely though. Money makes the world go round! Which is why it has gone the way it has in the first place, I guess.

The prices are ridiculous too !

I was looking for a room for my mum for a week in January in a local town very off season and a non touristy place with no major transport links and I was shocked 😮

Agree!!! I have never lived in a block of flats that didn't have at least one air BnB. Meanwhile, all our pals are moving to the suburbs because no one can afford to compete. I would ban whole flat rentals, and keep it to a room in an otherwise lived in flat.

They are essentially doing this in Scotland. I have a holiday cottage, a converted outbuilding in a farmyard, it has limited impact on the neighbours. They are at the foot of the drive a few hundred metres away so an extra vehicle or two goes past.

Its probably not the target of this legislation but the cost of energy and new costs for licence that’ll be imposed by the council mean it doesn’t really make financial sense anymore.

Lots of tourist stuff locally, nice shops selling wool and cashmere, art galleries, whiskey distillery, people come and they spend money in the local economy. They need somewhere to stay.

I don’t think it’s as simple as saying ban airbnbs. It would be better to take a more nuanced approach which is area dependent.

I liked the idea of it before a house on my street was turned into one. We are in a small street with permit parking which we pay for as residents but the airbnb property is usually used by tradesmen with big trucks/vans which then stop us residents parking but the council wont do anything as they arent doing anything wrong using the visitor permits

AirBandB is just a booking platform. It’s essentially the internet, and online booking systems etc, responsible for the proliferation of holiday lets. Self catered holiday accommodation has always existed; pre-internet, it was just more difficult to find and navigate (I remember my dad sending away for a paper brochure of Cornwall holiday cottages and then spending hours on end phoning up the providers for our annual holiday) and so more people relied on travel agents and packages holidays in hotels out of necessity.

The genie isn’t going to go back into the bottle. Short term lets and the platforms which host then just need to be better regulated.

Art galleries and shops selling cashmere if you are holidaying there is nice. If you live there you want to buy groceries and practical things.

I wouldn't ban outright, but I would forbid any listings which weren't in the owners own home i.e. genuine spare rooms only. No complete apartments or houses.

My view is that they should amend the planning laws so that converting a residential property to short term letting should require permission for change of use, just as it would if you converted the same property to business premises. This would give councils power to control the amount and location of holiday lets in their local area.

Absolutely this. Otherwise it's just holiday lets on the cheap with no regulation.

I totally agree with the OP.
Power to the Welsh looking into a change to the taxation.

Greedy, greedy, greedy remote platform reducing the ability of local people being able to - gasp- actually live and work in their local area.

100% agree - I live next door to one and opposite another and it’s made my life incredibly stressful. I’m desperate to move but can’t at the moment. The LLs live abroad/out of town so don’t give a fuck, and Airbnb don’t want to know. We’ve even had to report tenants to the police several times due to drugs and violence, yet nothing changes. YANBU!

@Letsgetreadytoblackcurrantcrumble I am guilty of renting a tenement in Edinburgh Old Town via Air BnB. So many flats there are Air BnBs. I didn't know before I went up there for a little holiday. I agree with others, it needs to be better regulated.

Planning permission to use as an airBNB would solve this, because buildings like yours are suitable to be used. So if you needed a certificate or something.

Why aren't people allowed to make a living? The government previously told people to invest in property and not to rely on pensions. Now we're being made to pay 300% council tax if we can't meet the quota of rentals on properties we're we're advised to invest in. Nobody has a problem with caravan sites, holiday camps and b and b's. Just god forbid anyone who wants to make money off a house that most of the general public couldn't afford to buy in the first place.

I understand where you're coming from. I use Airbnb a lot however, we travel often as I family and I love renting a villa with a private pool so that we have plenty space and privacy. We have the pool to entertain us during nap times. If we were in a hotel or whatever then I'd be constantly worried about my toddler making too much noise and disturbing other guests and we'd be stuck sitting in the room while he naps.

It shouldn't be banned but the Government should have a massive social housing/affordable housing building programme and local authorities should be able to put controls and regulations in their area.

Also if other holiday cottage places had better websites with as good a search function and as much choice as AirBnB then they'd have competition. Like Amazon, I will continue to use it while they are the best in their field.

Why should I have to go to a hotel on holiday? People have always rented self-catering accommodation. We are five of us plus a dog, I don't want a hotel and I want to be able to see what pet friendly accommodation is available. Clearly there is huge demand in the market for it as there was for Uber in London- there was never a black cab or minicab when you need one before Uber!

@Orenishiicottonmouth Nobody would stop you running a business. The difference is that people would have to meet legal standards.

I live in Munich where there is as practically everywhere , a massive housing shortage and sky high rent and property prices . The municipality of Munich have now brought in a new rule where any unit ( house or apartment ) cannot be rented out for any longer than six weeks in a calendar year. A room in any unit is still allowed . So it is possible and should be implemented in many cities to stop them becoming theme parks instead of places where people live and raise their families.