Dear hosts,
We own a leasehold apartment which we list on Airbnb for short-term rental in London. As government regulation goes, we are legally able to list our property on Airbnb in our city. However, we recently received a notice from the head lease / freeholder to state that our lease agreement does not allow rental or tenancy agreement of less than 6 months and we need to remove our Airbnb listing or else they will take further action.
We were shocked and upon doing our research established that this alienation clause in our lease is quite common in long leases granted in the UK. So our first question is, has any hosts out there experience the same problem? if so, how did you handle it?
Furthermore, we have also established that there are apartments in our block that are currently advertising on the rental market through reputable letting agents such as Foxtons as 'short let' which range from few weeks up to 6 months. So our second question is, how is letting agents or short-let agents whom specialise in renting out serviced apartments able to overcome this clause and restrictions? Assuming that the lease is a standard format which apply to all leaseholders in that block and that there is no 'special clause or treatment' for any particular leaseholder.
We welcome advice and inputs from all hosts.
Many thanks,
Helen
