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.

I did the same.

I thought if you lived in the premises and just rented out a room you didn't need a licence? I'm sure that's what came back when I put all the details into the Scottish Gov website?

If you let a room to someone who does not live anywhere else you don't need a licence. If you let it for a couple of nights a week to someone say who is working on a short term contract or to occasional visitors (as previous posters describe) then yes you need a licence.

I'm so confused, so if you own your own flat and rent out a room to a lodger who stays there as their main home for an indefinite period of time, does that need a license? Seems so ridiculous and intrusive that these rules would affect someone just seeking to let out a spare room, it's hardly like we are the problem.🤔

You don't need a licence to rent a room to a lodger as their only or principal home. But you do need a licence if it's a short term let - which seems to be defined as not the guest's only or principal home.

The whole thing is crazy. It was originally intended to address the problem of too many Airbnb type properties in parts of Edinburgh and other areas, mostly in the Highlands it seems. But instead this licensing scheme just expanded in every direction. I need a licence to do home swapping for which I receive no money at all.

It's so ridiculous, since lodger and rental lets are month by month anyways who is to regulate if you say sign a one year contract but they leave after a month. .

Oh well I guess a lodger is still an option if they live in the property full time...thank God.

If you want to airbnb your spare room you definitely need a license.

The info is here:
https://www.mygov.scot/short-term-let-licences/accommodation-needing-short-term-let-licences

'Types of short-term let licence
There are 4 types of licence:

• 'home sharing' means you rent out all or part of your own home while you’re living there
• 'home letting' means letting all or part of your own home while you’re not there, for example while you're on holiday
• 'secondary letting' means letting a property where you do not normally live, for example a second home or holiday let
• 'home letting and home sharing' means you let out all or part of your own home both while you are living there and also at times when you're not there

'Types of accommodation that need a licence:

• shared home or rooms within a home'

This highlights how ill thought through the legislation is. Whether people disagree with the whole thing or not, I think everyone can agree that people renting out a spare bedroom in their own home should not have been included in any short term letting legislation.

Today I received an email from the Scottish Government which epitomises just how completely crap they are. It took me a while to work out what this was about, and I'm still not sure. I did email the Housing Minister last week (about the human rights implication of the licensing scheme), but this email only refers to the date my "correspondence was received" and doesn't mention to whom it was addressed, the date it was sent or the subject matter. And just look at the nice colour coded symbols at the bottom! FFS!

But what is the aim of the regulation. Seems initially to just be an exercise to see who has properties that are let. But then what - are they going to order people to not let them or what. I can't see what the point is. If you ban some people from letting them it increases the value of the remaining properties making it even more lucrative.

I do feel slightly sorry for people on here who have let out a spare room through air bnb which sounds lovely.
Unfortunately there are just too many people taking advantage of air bnb to let out property that is completely non compliant in terms of occupancy and fire safety. Second homes and holiday homes are also creating massive social problems. It's not just in Edinburgh but across rural areas where essential staff like doctors, dentists and teachers can't find housing and restaurants and pubs can't open because the only staff they can get are students home for the summer. There are no staff to clean and changeover holiday lets. There is no accommodation for carers who are increasingly needed because the only people who can afford a house are retirees from the south of England. Schools are being mothballed and closed because there is no affordable housing for families.
Something needs to be done and it might be a blunt instrument but if it's not done there will be no communities left in the Highlands and Islands.

“But what is the aim of the regulation. Seems initially to just be an exercise to see who has properties that are let. But then what - are they going to order people to not let them or what. I can't see what the point is. If you ban some people from letting them it increases the value of the remaining properties making it even more lucrative.”

The original plan was to reduce and control short term lets in some areas where there are problems with over-provision and anti-social behaviour. Apparently in some parts of Edinburgh all or most of the flats in a close are secondary lets - which means fewer properties to rent or buy, and the constant turnover of guests not great for their immediate neighbours. Also problems with “party flats”, lack of care for immediate environment, neighbours etc. In some rural areas, similar issues but not in closes. Existing legislation and regs could have been used in targeted way - Planning, Env Health, Police - but instead we have this farce.

They also have imposed standards currently for long term rentals, which is fair enough re gas and electrical safety etc.

They have also introduced Control Areas, which I think are being applied in Edinburgh and some rural areas, and I think this is where Planning is being used to restrict and reduce numbers of short term lets.

If you operate without a licence, you’ll be fined up to £2,500, and so far it seems that Airbnb is going along with it in insisting that hosts get a licence.

I do think that for previously unregulated secondary lets, which are being run as a holiday letting business, it’s reasonable for targeted and proportionate action to be taken. However, this is affecting people who rent out a room in their own home, and those who do home sharing or swapping for no money at all. There were no problems associated with these activities, making people pay for a licence application and all the associated certificates etc for their own home achieves nothing!

Surely we could come up with something a lot better than "a blunt instrument"! That's the whole problem with this legislation - it is placing a costly burden on people who are not contributing in any way to the problems you mention. There was no need for this, but the Scottish Government very deliberately looked at all the instruments available to them and chose to wield the bluntest!

From the start they defined three distinct categories of STL -
Secondary Letting - where the host does not live in the property.
Home Sharing - where the host does live in the property and is present during the let.
Home Letting - where the host does live in the property and is absent during the let. This is the one which applies to me as I do home exchange.

As part of their consultations they even specifically asked if these three categories of STL should be treated differently and the overwhelming majority said Yes, they should be treated differently - basically as it's only the first one which is a problem, and the other two categories are either neutral or actually positive in their impact on neighbours and communities.

So the Scottish Government clearly knew that sharper instruments were readily available, but thought, Fuck it! Let's just batter everyone with this!

Yeah, but, yeah but - still not clear what taking control of areas is - the fair thing would be to reduce the number of properties owned by one person being air bnb but how do you do that - force thousands of properties in holiday areas to go on the market at a reduced rate (as there are so many and they are no longer aribnb). Decide 5 flats max in a flat are airbnb but who decides which 5 flats? the outcry when some are forced to sell an others aren't. Decide some blocks of flats cannot be airbnb but some can - again outrage.
The upshot will probably be when an airbnb /holiday home goes on the market they refuse to allow it to be licensed as airbnb in the future but that will take decades to make a difference.

The thing I find quite perplexing is that holiday lets in and or themselves are not a new thing. What is new is the way in which they are advertised and booked - online now rather than through phone calls and letters in response to ads in Tourist Board brochures or classified ads in newspapers.

So, it's not the activity itself which is the problem, but the scale of it, and also the behaviour of the guests. The latter suggests that people who book online tend to be less considerate than those who booked the old-fashioned way, or maybe that's more general societal shift. The other change is perhaps that traditional holiday lets, were in rural areas - holiday cottages often on farm, crofts which had been inherited etc. Not usually purchased for the purpose, and not usually in closes.

Another thing is that there have been problems with housing in some rural areas of Scotland for a long time - but again there has been a bit of a shift. In the recent past the problem was with early-retired professionals selling homes for big money in England or Central Belt, then outbidding locals. There was an impact back then on local schools as these people were usually older and didn't bring families with them, they then got bored and took part-time jobs locally, often jobs which would have been taken by young adults in the community. But that was a hard one to tackle as well because you can hardly say to people that they can only sell their property to locals for a lower price. More social housing is needed, across Scotland. And I don't think this scheme is going to do much to help the housing situation, and again, it's a blunt instrument because not all areas of Scotland are the same but are being treated as if they were with a scheme which isn't even likely to be successful in those areas where there are problems.

I think either the Govt and/or Edinburgh City Council have already lost at Judicial Review - they were attempting a blanket ban on STLs in tenements but that was ruled unlawful. I've probably got the details wrong, but essentially this entire scheme is a mess.

Im not saying that short term lets all fall under this category but i believe many do. In Edinburgh, short term lets are focused in the city centre, in nearby North Berwick, in the town centre and beachfront. These types of properties have never been affordable to buy or rent. Its ludicrous to suggest that someone is being removed from the market because housing stock on Frederick St is all short term lets. If you were looking in these types of areas then you can definitely afford a house else where.

And at the other extreme, but a similar outcome of the licensing scheme having little to no positive impact as the problems it's supposed to tackle really don't exist - I'm in a small seaside town on the west coast. My one-bed flat was on the market for 2 years with not even a viewing till I bought it in 2019 for £35,000. Looking around my local area, I would say that STLs have been good for this town. Extremely rundown properties, which are listed at auction with guide prices of £10,000 or less, are being bought, renovated and improved and let out to visitor who spend time and money here. This year has seen a number of small, locally owned shops expand into bigger premises, and the town is busy. Added to that, there is some new social housing - of which there should be more!

If a house on N Berwick seafront is brought back into residential stock from airB&B then you are increasing the supply of housing stock and this is how you reduce housing demand and reduce prices over all. The only way of housing becoming affordable again is increasing the supply. Yes we desperately need to build more and bring more empty properties back into use, but bringing these airB&B properties back into the housing stock is a small but vital part of reducing demand and prices.

Rent freeze policy is an absolute disaster- seen in the skyrocketing rental costs in Scotland (only outstripped by London). This on the other hand is just what’s needed.

But licensing those who are home sharing and home swapping will not make those properties available as they are already homes, where the host actually lives. And the other problems associated with STLs don't apply to sharing and swapping, so nothing is achieved other than pissing people off. Some will decide it's not worth the expense and hassle so reducing income for those who rented out rooms like pp who rented out spare room at weekends , and shrinking local economies which benefitted from visitors to the area.

And on top of the that, it's a clear violation of our human rights to a private and family life, and peaceful enjoyment of our property. No one should need a licence to invite guests to stay in their home and be fined if they don't comply. These human rights can be restricted but only if necessary and in certain circumstances. And again, we're back to the deliberate choice to wield a blunt instrument, in the full knowledge that human rights are being unnecessarily restricted.

Hi @Albless There have been some major changes, effective as of Wednesday, which significantly reflect of the legal case made against Edinburgh City Council.
One can only wonder if they did this for the right reasons, or for the fear of being challenged in court, like Edinburgh City Council was, and is going to be again in November.

Anyhow, the changes..
Here is the agenda, if you scroll down you'll see the proposed changes to the Policy, highlighted in yellow, from page 51 onwards
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/councillorsandcommittees/viewPack.asp?c=P62AFQDXZ3NTNTT1B253YXYXQAJ5I77DJ52AFQDNNTUTT1Z3
Here are the minutes
https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/councillorsandcommittees/viewPack.asp?c=P62AFQDXZ3UTDNT1B253YXYXQAJ5I77DJ52AFQDNNTUTT1Z3

It's not at all guaranteed that these private rooms and shares are going to be nicely run by people who have fire safety regulations in place. If you look on room reviews in air bnb you will see folk letting out bathrooms, places where guests are restricted in hours or share a room with dogs ... and so on. I know it is a blunt instrument but all legislation is refined through case law and this is the premise here, because it's easier to amend backwards than forwards.
I totally agree that the only way to free up housing is to bring more housing stock to the market. New builds are useful to house families with dire need in protected social housing, but as long as rentals are a way to make money landlords will just buy up private new builds and let them out too.

Dear admin, I hope this is ok to publish. Please accept my apologies if it’s not. The goal is to provide guidance for holiday home owners who have received negative news from their local council.

* East Lothian Holiday Home Owners in Shared Stairs *

Craig Douglas will be holding a Zoom Meeting Friday, 22 September, 2pm *

Craig will cover the changes East Lothian Council have made to your Licence and Planning options, and what steps are available to you.

If you are in East Lothian, in a shared stairwell, please join Craig on his Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7944739632

@kellyodor the link you posted to Glasgow City Council (first link in post at 15.00 ) doesn't work . Can you post it again or give the gist please ?

This is total fear mongering. Iv stayed in quite a few air bnbs in the uk and europe. Iv never ever been restricted on when i could use the bathroom or had a dog in the bedroom. It is common sense to check the reviews of where you will be staying. By and large the majority of hosts are decent people. When i was doing air bnb, i didnt have any specific fire safety equipment in the house but i do live in it myself and im still alive?! Of course there will be some awful air bnbs but there are also some terrible hotels.

I've found the documents here. Hopefully this works. The changes are highlighted in the Appendix.

https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/councillorsandcommittees/submissiondocuments.asp?submissionid=110487

Thanks - some significant relaxations of policy there

Can anyone help me work out how to actually pay for the license application? Have all the forms and have completed them but can't pinpoint how to pay for it. Thanks