Short term lets new licensing scheme

[Markedforsl]

Can I ask whether anyone is having to deal with this? We have a spare room we advertise on AirBnb (occupied for a few months a year at most) and are considering using it for a lodger at some stage to provide a little retirement income. We're caught by these rules. If you have a lodger, rent a room out on AirBnb, or want to save money by doing a house swop for your holiday, you now have to comply with a large number of onerous and expensive rules to apply for a licence (the application is expected to cost a few £100s, not refundable if it's rejected). Gas safety checks, electrical checks and improvements, environmental inspection report, a check and certificate for every electrical device the lodger can access, taking photos of all fire safety labels on all furniture they can access, even more fire safety stuff than the new fire safety rules brought in recently, having to inform the neighbours and give them the chance to object, house inspections including potentially unannounced visits and even forcible entry, lots of paperwork. And then having to apply for renewals. Plus my area is considering making obtaining planning consent a requirement for everyone caught by the new rules.
This is surely the end of the road for people who just want to make use of a room in their house, and will mean higher prices and less availability for visitors? Scotland is very full this summer, with people complaining about accommodation prices. What will it be like when the rules kick in? Everyone is skint and getting skinter. This has to be seriously bad news for the tourism industry and for Scottish people who like holidaying in Scotland.

There was a lot of discussion about this legislation in the Scottish Parliament, with Conservatives and Labour both being against it, so it's pretty clear that the problems with the legislation are deliberate. For instance, the house swop thing is spelled out - it's discussed in the published guidance.

Usual SNP shambles ,bringing forward legislation without thinking through the consequences ,or taking on board the experience of people with knowledge of the particular industry

Was interested to see it reported that only 20% have registered so far.

Has there been much talk about whether owners will switch to long term lets or sell, or is a deferred deadline expected?

Those who let an entire property may switch to long-term rental but b&b and guest house owners, caravan owners and those who rent a room in their own home for 3 or 4 nights per week to someone working in the area on a short-term contract for example won't switch.

We have a single property which we've spent most of last year refurbishing and is now let long-term. We were reluctant to let long-term as it is now almost impossible to evict people so we considered short-term but the cost of planning permission, providing floorplans showing all doors and fire escape routes, location of extinguishers and smoke alarms etc plus the licence fee meant we decided against it. We have got a long-term tenant but plan to move into it ourselves in the next year or so - one of the very few grounds for which eviction is allowed.

I don't have an issue with eviction being restricted. Tenants in England have too few rights (been a landlord).

Yep, if you let a home to someone but are already planning to evict them, you shouldn't have let it in the first place. Unless they know in advance or want a fairly short-term let, it is not fair or ethical. I'm selling but I wait for tenants to vacate.

I don't actually even have a problem with reasonable rent capping, problem is that there's less hassle, lower cost alternatives now for investment.

We're planning to move into the property when we retire but that won't be for another couple of years. We did consider not letting it at all but we would have had to pay double council tax. We are comfortable financially but not loaded. The property was my late dad's home which we inherited when he died suddenly
The previous tenants were there for 8 years and left as they bought a house.

Also @Wombat27A in Scotland you now cannot specify the length of the tenancy and once the tenant has been resident for 6 months you have to give 3months notice
Our tenant is fully aware of our plans and knows the lease is likely to be a max of 2 years - and is happy with that

* Short Let owners in Scotland *
FINAL DAY - FREE ZOOM CALLS ON LICENCES: FRIDAY 8th SEPT
Just got a note from Ross Armstrong - If you're preparing your Short Let Licence and need support, he will be running his final daily Zoom calls this week.
The last Zoom call will be Fri 8th Sept - for essential information, make sure you join this week.
3-4pm
Join here -
us05web.zoom.us/j/8713063689?pwd=WTs0ZuS8aMizSJxKDbZrStSon70vhI.1

Hi all. I feel like all I'm talking about now is this STL legislation, can't wait for this all to pass.

In the meantime, there is a bit of chat on the forums about boycotting the licensing, or just not applying because they know that the councils will reject the application according to their own agenda.

Please, Please, Please do not do this.

If you're considering this approach, please take a peek at this post by Craig Douglas, who impartially weighed up the options and implications...

Have a lovely weekend everyone, K
stlsolutions.co.uk/blog/boycott-vs-col

Short Terms Lets being debated this afternoon in Scottish Parliament! Can we dare to hope for a sensible outcome?

https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/whats-on-and-watch-live/whats-on#wm

Ha, I wouldn't hold my breadth. Tho if tourism or someone's income is threatened, there may be more sense...

Well, no change. We're still on a fast-track to trashing Scotland's tourism industry. Apparently only 20% of current STL operators in Edinburgh have applied for a licence, with deadline the end of this month.

That's mad.

The Council in Edinburgh have always put tourism first, mostly to the detriment of the many residents, who seem to have been displaced. This will leave them with a massive enforcement problem. They won't be able to deal with this.

They were understaffed and had terribly bureaucratic systems when I worked there. They could barely manage the property they owned, never mind enforce anything and had no budget to do so and I can't imagine it's any better now.

If they had introduced a balanced system a few years ago and enforced it, then it might have been ok and things would have stayed fairly stable but it's too big a problem now.

What do we think will happen?

Hello 👋
For an update after the Scottish Parliament vote on Short Let Licences yesterday for those that didn't see it.

The summary:

• there was debate, worth watching to see the representation of facts about the industry.

https://www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/scottish-conservative-and-unionist-party-debate-pausing-the-short-term-lets-licensing-scheme-september-13-2023

• there was a vote, and that did not change the deadline for short let licence applications (and Planning/ Certificate of Lawfulness') (1 October 2023).

https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/votes-and-motions/S6M-10411

The vote was never going to change anything radically, but it's still a disappointment.

Either way, if you have holiday lets or are affected by these licence regulations, please, please, please get your Licence (and in some cases Planning/Certificate of Lawfulness') applications in urgently. There isn't time now to wait for something miraculous to change the deadline.

If you have a question about the COL, jump on the Zoom call 4-5pm. bit.ly/STL-Solutions-PlanningCOL-QA

* Big changes coming affecting GLASGOW holiday home owners / Managers *
Zoom meeting today (Tues) 3pm-4pm

Following the update of the Glasgow Policy, Iain Muirhead + Craig Douglas of STL Solutions will host a zoom meeting at 3pm.

This will cover the huge implications of the Glasgow meeting tomorrow.

Please join the zoom call via the link us06web.zoom.us/j/7944739632

Minor error - the Zoom meeting will be on WEDNESDAY, apologies :)

That's what it is all about - the removal of freedoms. If you own your home you should be able to do with it as you please. House swaps, short term lodgers, even hiring house or pet sitter while you're away are all perfectly normal things that shouldn't require legislation and jumping through hoops.

What is the update to the Glasgow policy?

Yep, exactly this. The SNP/Greens are not only incompetent and arrogant, but seem also to take great pleasure in abuse of power.

I am affected too OP. last year I rented out my spare room on airbnb over the summer, at weekends. I made about £1500. I didnt bother doing it this year because the new rules were coming and i kept getting stressful emails about it.

To apply for the license is £400 and as you say, i have no guarantee of getting it. I came off airbnb as a host completely, Its just not worth it for me, obviously there is the financial side but also the paperwork and time to arrange things on top.

It was a nice bit of spare cash that i didnt have to do a great deal for - i bought new sheets and towels when i started, and would top up the toiletries regularly and leave some biscuits out. I only advertised limited availability as i work full time so didnt do weeknights and also if i had stuff on then I wouldnt show availability that weekend. No pressure. If i was paying £400 for a license plus all the testing id need to at least make that money back. Suddenly iv actually got to get bookings and i dont need that hassle.

Its a real shame as its going to take lots of affordable rooms of the market. My offering was by no means luxury but i provided good quality accommodation, i often gave lifts to people staying to help them out to station or airport etc. Met some interesting people. Now these people will have to pay £££ for a hotel or not come.

Does anyone have an example of the kind of floor plan that is acceptable for the license? Can you use the typical estate agent floor plan and just annotate showing where smoke alarms etc. are?

Can I ask if there's a way you'll be able to find out if neighbours have a licence?

One of my neighbours currently does Airbnb & I find it really disruptive.

And how in earth will this be enforced?

I'm in North Ayrshire and have just drawn one myself on graph paper, so it's pretty much to scale. You're required to label rooms used by guests and provide dimensions, also show heat/fire detectors, fire doors and exit routes. I also showed where my gas boiler is, along with the carbon monoxide detector and indicated extractor fan in bathroom as it has no window. North Ayrshire Council state in one of their guidance notes that they are taking a "light touch" approach, so hopefully my layout plan will be good enough. Will be submitting my application tomorrow, so still to see if up to standard or not.

Will see if I can attach a pic here. I'm quite pleased with it, and if I hadn't been enraged about the licensing requirement I would have found the doing of it quite relaxing.

Your neighbour has until the end of this month to apply, and part of the process is the requirement to display a site notice for 21 days. I think your local Council will maintain a list of licensed properties which you can search.

Meantime, you should probably approach your neighbour if you haven't already, and then maybe Environmental Health if noise nuisance, for example. Many of the reasons given for introducing this licensing scheme already had potential solutions.