Berlin after May 1st: To Honour Existing Bookings or Not?

Abigail0
Level 3
Toronto, Canada

Berlin after May 1st: To Honour Existing Bookings or Not?

Airbnb is refusing to respond to me on this matter. Apparently short term rentals are illegal in Berlin after May 1st. I just learnt this last week. My calendar is full for May, June, July and I have bookings up till October. These are people's vacations. If I cancel, their vacation might be ruined (I'm guessing other hosts will cancel). And Airbnb penalize hosts who cancel. 

 

I'm caught in an impossible conundrum. To let the innocent people who've booked from me continue with their bookings and risk a huge fine? Or cancel them and lose not just my livelihood (and that of my Berlin caretaker, who has a little boy too look after) but also be penalized for it? 

 

Why is Airbnb being so obtuse about this? Why aren't they offering appropriate support? 

 

This truly feels like the 'wild west' of unregulated, decentralized commerce: nobody in charge, nobody accountable. 

7 Replies 7
Marcus0
Level 10
Berlin, DE

@Abigail0 Airbnb are not able to police the global rules and regulations of each country and state.  Therefore in your agreement with Airbnb it advises that you are responsible for informing yourself and adhereing to local laws.

If you have just found out now this probably means your apartment is not registered with the local council from 2 years back as a ferienwohung.  This would technically make you illegal already for this whole time.  From the 1st of May the Berlin goverment will start to enforce the law.

I can only recommend you inform yourself quickly on this changing situation.

 

I am not suggesting Airbnb needs to 'police' anything. My point is that they make money from illegal activity and offer no information when asked.

They seeing the hospitality business and yet here I have 30 or so guests with potentially nowhere to go - people who trusted Airbnb as a legitimate source of accommodation.

Even though they have a team of lawyers and you can bet they are excellently aware of the precise situation for both guests and hosts. Yet they refuse to offer support or responsibly manage what you admit is a 'changing situation'.

I am sorry but 'inform yourself' is precisely what I am attempting to do. A Kafka-Esque closed-loop is what I receive. From Airbnb and now from this so called 'community'.

Marcus if hosts were advertising prostitution on Airbnb would you still think that monitoring the situation and advising hosts was the same as 'policing'? No: it's called running a responsible business - not brokering deals that turn out - to the knowledge of only one party - to be illegal yet making money regardless.

SHAME.

 

@Abigail0 I can only suggest you obtain legal advice for your specific situation.  You can also join an excellent association setup here in Berlin to help guide owners (see link below).  There is no general advice that can be given here apart from the fact it is illegal to do short term after the 1st of May and you should stop taking bookings until you understand your legal position better.  Each owner must decide their own path.  Some choose to ignore, some choose to get out of short term and others choose to take a lawyer.

http://www.apartmentallianz.net/

 

@Abigail0 one more thing, this so called community you are posting on is mainly an American Airbnb community.  Virtually no one here knows anything about Berlins law hence you have had no response.  If you know any German you should be on the following community.

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Gastgeber/ct-p/gastgeber

 

Thanks Chris. I appreciate these links and your help. My partner is German speaking and the links will be very helpful.

We'll go onto the German community page for future discussion of this. 

It's a mystery why Airbnb themselves have kept so silent on this important matter.

Cheers

Abi

Elad1
Level 2
Tel Aviv, Israel

Hi guys,

 

I've organized an event that is trying to solve some of the burning issues. 

Hope to see you there:

http://www.meetup.com/Kibbutz/events/231093662/