New Announcement for London Hosts

[Lizzie]

Hello London hosts,

By now, many of you will have received an email from the Team regarding a new system announcement in Greater London. This outlines, that from 2017 entire home listings will automatically, through the Airbnb system, be limited to 90 nights of hosting a year. I imagine you have several questions on this, so for more information take a look at these FAQs.

We understand that this may apply to many of you in Community Center, so we also wanted to highlight this new announcement to you here. Please do share any thoughts you may have.

Thanks,

Lizzie

-------------------Update on February 24, 2017---------------------

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are well.

I know many of you have additional questions on the above and so I want to keep you up-to-date and share with you the latest FAQ articles:

What short-term rental laws apply?

Night Limits

I hope you will find this useful and please do continue to share any thoughts you have, here in this thread.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[David126]

First thing is that there is little protection in the ABB system for Host renting out long term, simply do not have the legal aspects you would get in a proper lease.

Second would be if you are allowed to rent out for 5 months, does your zoning allow you to do so?

[Richard233]

I don't really know where to find this information out TBH. I want to be as above board as possible.

[Zandra0]

All the information can be found on your local councils website.  They will be able to tell you what you can and cannot do with your property.  

A 5 month let should be easy enough to do on spareroom etc but of course you will be renting it at market rate not the higher amount Airbnb can often get 

[Vanda10]

Hi, 

Our apartment has been added to the London homes that will have the 90 days calendar restriction applied when we are outside the London boundaries. 

Please can this be looked into and addressed -  who do i contact / how do i rectify this? I cant find another way of contacting anyone about this. Thank you. 

[Daniel-and-Marsio0]

Hi Vanda

It's a shame that there has been a 'banket' rule applied across the whole of Greater London rather than this issue being dealt with clearly and in plain English for each of the London boroughs.

I would like to see Airbnb invite each London borough to participate in a section of the website / host voice area where they state:

- existing regulations / stance on upholding / amending existing laws

- links to the individual borough websites where you might be a able to apply for permission to rent out for more than 90 nights

- information presented in a clear, easily-understood format

Regarding your specific property... does it fall within the London borough of Richmond-Upon-Thames or not? If it does, it's worth contacting your local council to seek advice. The more Airbnb users do this (acorss the boroughs), the more local councils realise that this is an unresolved issue which requires attention. If it doesn't, sounds like you need to follow this up with Airbnb directly.

Daniel

[Daniel-and-Marsio0]

***Please*** does anyone know the definitive answer to this:

Do pre-existing booking for 2017 (i.e. those made prior to 1st January 2017) count towards this 90-night limit?

If this information has been shared by Airbnb somewhere, either by email or in other advice, please point me to it / share a link.

Thank you!

[Nicholas-and-Michele0]

I have a mixture of bookings for 2017 - some made in  2016 and a couple just now and it reached the limit and shut off. So yes, I will assume that any bookings count towards the 90 day limit for 2017, irrespective of when the booking came through. The 'help' article is here

[Raina1]

I'm still really confused. Does the 90 day rule apply when I only rent out one room for guests within my home which I own and live in? the guidance is very unclear. And who do we have to notify in the local authority? The thought of trying to get hold of someone in Haringey who understands this sounds like the start of a bad dream... Any guidance at all would be very helpful. Thanks!

[Nicola96]

Hi there, sorry if you have already answered this... How do I get around the 90 day limit in London?  Where do I seek permission from?  My flat is listed as an entire home but we block out Tuesday and Wednesday nights when we need to use it.  Obviously we get a lot of weekend traffic.  Would we get permission.

Many thanks for any help!!

[Nicholas-and-Michele0]

An article about the first 'change of use' planning application to allow short term lets that has been sent to southwark council is here 

Other hosts needing the permission in this London borough should check it out. 

[Suzanne5]

I received his message saying that my entire home had been booked for 90 days when, in fact, it was just a single room. I thought rooms were excluded from this rule. Am I wrong?

[Huma0]

@Lizzie it was my understanding that Airbnb were only applying the 90 day cap to entire home listings, not to private rooms. Is this still the case?

This morning, I received an email from Airbnb saying my listing has reached 90 days and will be blocked from March. The email doesn't give any indication as to which one it applies to, but all of my active listings are private rooms in my own house where I live. So, I do not understand why I've received this (I've had no prior communication from Airbnb on the 90 day rule). 

I called Airbnb and the lady I spoke to didn't know why I'd received it either. She said perhaps it was because I have an entire home listing. However, this is not active and has 0 nights booked. She said it could be because I have a long-term guest staying in one of my listings. However, this is a private room. So, neither explanation would make much sense. She couldn't tell me if it was a mistake or if one of my listings is actually going to be blocked in March, but is going to investigate and get back to me.

However, I'd like to know if any other hosts listing only private rooms have received this email. Is it a glitch in the system or has Airbnb extended their 90 day cap to include private rooms without any prior warning? 

[Huma0]

Here is the response I received:

"To follow-up on our conversation earlier, we encourage all hosts to host responsibly and comply with local regulations. We sent this email to you and other hosts who are approaching or have reached 90 days of hosting this calendar year.

Only hosts who have listed an entire home in London on Airbnb will be limited to accept bookings for 90 nights per calendar year. Private rooms are not affected by these automated limits in London. You can simply ignore the email if this doesn't apply to you.

Here are some helpful resources about responsible hosting in the United Kingdom:

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/1379/responsible-hosting-in-the-united-kingdom
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/1628/night-limits--frequently-asked-questions

Please let me know whether I can still be of help; otherwise we'll close out this issue for the time being."

While I appreciate the fast response to my query, I don't think Airbnb should send hosts random emails telling them their booking is going to be blocked when this is not the case. The email I received this morning said:

"On March 1st 2017, your calendar for the listing will automatically be blocked for the remainder of the year and you will not be able to accept further bookings for the rest of the year."

If I had taken the email at face value, rather than questioning it, I would be removing my listings from Airbnb ASAP!!

[Huma0]

And the update I received last night from Airbnb:

"Some hosts received an email in error today about the new automated nights limit Airbnb has implemented in Greater London.

The new automated limit only applies to entire home listings which have confirmed bookings of 90 nights for the calendar year.  

Please ignore the email if this doesn’t apply to you.

You can read more about Airbnb’s new automated nights limit in London on our Nights Limit FAQ."

[Daniel-and-Marsio0]

Hi Huma

This is the problem with 'banket' emails and 'blanket' rules... when there's no individual / host-specific correspondence happening, all sorts of hosts will be targeted with the same generic email/mis-information which can cause confusion. Airbnb should be able to identify different groups of hosts and send the appropriate info out accordingly.

I also received the warning about blocking, despite the fact that my listing parameters are now set to only accept bookings for longer than 90 nights (which is within the law).

I guess it is just another example or reminder for us to be vigilent and keep on our toes with regards to new policies/procedures and how they affect us individually. The onus seems to be on us to take responsibility for our listings. Seems like we all need to do some follow-up with Airbnb individually if we think our own personal listings will be affected.

Daniel