When the law stops you renting your home out on AirBnB
If you live in a flat and decide to make a few Euros renting it out on AirBnB (the website that lets you advertise and rent out your own home or other property), make sure you carry out a few checks first, to make sure you aren’t breaching your lease – or planning laws.
First, tenants in flats throughout Ireland are increasingly being told that renting them out on AirBnB will breach their lease. If a lease says no letting, subletting or licensing of a flat, or parting with or sharing possession of it, that’s usually a no-no – renting out using AirBnB will breach the lease. Although you may be able to get the landlord’s consent, so it can be worth asking.
But even if there is no specific prohibition against letting, subletting, etc, you might still be breaching the lease. In an English case a tenant of a flat was in it so rarely that they ended up renting it out on AirBnB for about 90 days each year. Their lease didn’t specifically stop them from letting or sub-letting the flat, but it did prohibit them from using it ‘for any purpose whatsoever other than as a private residence'.
The Tribunal over there said that the multiple short-term AirBnB lets of the flat breached that provision in the lease, as they meant the flat was no longer being used as a private residence. Just being there at weekends, or a few nights per week, wasn’t enough. It said it was also important that you could differentiate that flat from the purely residential flats around it because the amount of time it was rented out was creating additional nuisance and security issues, and spoiling the sense of community in the block.
There can be planning problems too. In a famous case in Dublin a residents’ association in Temple Bar succeeded in getting a ruling from An Bord Pleanála (the planning appeal body) that a tenant of a flat needed planning permission before they could let it out on AirBnB. This case involved a high turnover of visitors, with all that came with it (security issues, extra work for cleaning staff), and the tenant was never at the flat during rental periods. An Bord Pleaná ruled this was enough to amount to a ‘material change of use’, which needed planning permission. It’s easy to see how this decision could also apply in other circumstances and, sure enough, it led to a series of investigations into AirBnB rentings in a variety of properties.
If you apply for planning permission, note that the Department of Housing issued a circular to local authorities near the end of last year setting out guidelines. For example, for a single flat, it says giving permission ‘may be appropriate’ if:
- you are the owner or occupant of the apartment in question;
- the apartment has a permanent resident;
- you have confirmation of consent of the management company;
- short term lettings do not exceed 60 nights in any one year and not more than 5 consecutive nights in any specific letting;
- not more than 2 rooms per apartment are occupied per night and there are no more than 4 guests; and
- not more than 20% of the apartments accessible on any floor from any access stairwell/lift core are approved for short term letting.
So it can make sense to ask your solicitor to review your situation – it could make the difference between earning a few extra Euros and getting into trouble with your landlord, neighbours or the local authority.