0:01 AM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago 12
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A survey by Airbnb, the online platform for short-term rentals, has revealed that most UK renters want to sub-let rooms in their homes to earn extra money.
However, a leading landlord law expert has warned that this practice is illegal and highly risky for both tenants and landlords under current legislation.
The survey, which was conducted as part of the Renters (Reform) Bill debate, found that almost 80% of renters are looking for ways to supplement their income amidst rising living costs.
Airbnb claimed that sub-letting rooms through its platform could help renters raise cash and also benefit landlords by reducing rent arrears and increasing tenant satisfaction.
Des Taylor, casework director at Landlord Licensing & Defence, dismissed the survey’s recommendations as irresponsible and misleading.
He said that sub-letting violates the terms of most tenancy agreements and creates legal liabilities for landlords that could cost £10,000s in fines.
He explained that sub-letting will turn many properties into houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), which are subject to strict regulations and enforcement by local authorities.
Mr Taylor said: “Most tenants and many landlords do not realise that it only takes three people, where one is not related to all the others, to make an HMO. In legal terms, it is ‘3 or more persons from 2 or more households’.”
He added that these regulations have offences connected to them under ‘strict liability’, which means that landlords do not have to knowingly commit the offence to be guilty of it.
Mr Taylor said: “A tenant subletting, and unwittingly creating a house in multiple occupation makes the landlord liable for punitive enforcement from the local housing authority.”
He also warned that in over a third of the London boroughs there are ‘additional licensing’ schemes which regulate occupancy, and that landlords who have become HMO managers without their knowledge face ‘an extreme risk’ of fines up to £30,000 for each offence under the HMO management regulations and on average £15,000 fine for operating an unlicensed HMO per offence.
He also pointed out that tenants who sublet become the immediate landlords of their subtenants.
This means that any money they receive could be subject to a rent repayment order from the subtenant, who could apply to the first-tier tribunal to claim back up to 12 months of rent.
Mr Taylor said: “Whatever Airbnb’s survey results are, they are not going to assist landlords and are going to drive even more out of the business as they become more insistent that it is impossible to continue while tenants are encouraged by mega-corporations publishing results of surveys without any regard for the underlying law.
“Airbnb must now explain to its hosts and potential hosts the legal consequences of sub-letting rooms in their homes and how legally dangerous this would be.”
He urged Airbnb to take urgent advice on the Housing Act 2004 law on HMOs, HMO licensing, and the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 to understand the massive risk their advice puts tenants and landlords at.
He said: “Airbnb must now withdraw this advice and lobby the government for a change in the law to allow this possibility.”
Mr Taylor said: “As things stand, this is not responsible marketing; it is marketing to have your name in the press at any price without regard for the safety and wellbeing of tenants and landlords.”
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Blodwyn
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Sign Up10:23 AM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
Property insurance complications??
Old Mrs Landlord
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Sign Up10:48 AM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
The inadvertent creation of an HMO without the knowledge of the landlord seems the biggest danger, but there are others, not only insurance complications as mentioned by Blodwyn but probable failure to carry out Right to Rent checks as well as contravention of mortgage terms, which could rebound on the unsuspecting and unwitting superior landlord, the owner of the property.
Yvonne Francis
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Sign Up11:03 AM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
If the lets were only 14 Days long then that would count as a guest. The danger would rely on how long tenants let their spare rooms. What nonsense this all is! The government wants to control all aspects of our lives.
Freda Blogs
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Sign Up11:09 AM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
Is it any wonder landlords are leaving the PRS in droves when there’s suggestions like this being promoted by irresponsible people who have no stake in a property and are only motivated by self interest?
How can it be fair or reasonable that a tenant can breach the subletting provisions of an AST, and take their landlord into so many dark places - insurance, HMO regs to name but two, with potentially dire financial consequences - and that landlord has to bear the consequences?
Is there ever going to be a time when tenants are accountable? It’s not looking that way at present.
Reluctant Landlord
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Sign Up13:01 PM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
There is no sublet issue with Air B&B as there is never an AST initiated between the temp occupier and the landlord.
There is no requirement for an HMO as its a holday let.
Not sure what the OP's point is here.
If Air B&B are encouraging the people who rent properties from the owner for a temp period, to then sublet, then the original temp user becomes the effective landlord and the law falls on them accordingly.
Just how many councils are going to be asking to go into an Airbnb and go through checking all this out exactly anyway ???
Morag
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Sign Up14:17 PM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
Regardless what the law states, I fundamentally disagree with the simplistic interpretation of HMO as three or more people from two or more households, as meaning three or more people from two or more related families. As far as I'm concerned, a household is a group of people, related or not, who live together in a house as if they were a family. In other words, they'd have just one joint tenancy agreement, share the whole house, eat together, socialise together, know when to expect each other home from work, go in and out of each other's rooms. A group of friends could very easily be one household, assuming enough rooms for everyone. An HMO should be defined as a premises where the tenants have separate contracts on a room by room basis, and only share certain common areas. They needn't know anything about each other, even their names. For this reason only, additional security and safety standards are required above those for a normal home. It's not the number of people that matters, it's how they use the premises.
Blodwyn
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Sign Up16:37 PM, 8th November 2023, About A year ago
When I stood for Parliament over 40 years ago, I was asked what would be my Private members Bill. My reply was, rather than a new Law, why not a moratorium on lawmaking until we had understood what was there already and had weeded out the unnecessary, repetitive and rubbish? The general situation has not changed.
The frankly ridiculous Braverman wants a law to outlaw tents on pavements. We don't want tents on pavements any more than I suspect do those who live in them?
So why not provide shelter for those people? Local authorities or whoever is ducking responsibility, where are your plans?
In the meantime, why make it as difficult and burdensome as possible for those who are prepared to give short term shelter, that word used properly?
Alison King
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Sign Up9:24 AM, 11th November 2023, About A year ago
I'm glad this has been highlighted. It's a ridiculous definition of an HMO that should be relaxed. I even heard of a case where two single mums who wished to share a house so they could share childcare responsibilities were told this would create an HMO unless they were in a relationship with each other.
DPT
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Sign Up10:14 AM, 12th November 2023, About A year ago
HMO regulations are not going anywhere whether we like them or not.
Airbnb is just a platform, not a type of tenure. Lettings through that platform can and have been declared ASTs by courts. A holiday let is only applicable if the landlord can evidence that the occupant is genuinely on holiday.
Subletting is not illegal unless there is a breach of licensing regulations, although it may be a breach of contract and therefore unlawful.
steve watt
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Sign Up22:40 PM, 12th November 2023, About A year ago
Quote: "A survey by Airbnb, the online platform for short-term rentals, has revealed that most UK renters want to sub-let rooms in their homes to earn extra money."
Clickbait - the survey didn't say that - property118 said it.
Most renters do not have spare rooms, that's obvious.
There was a jump in the logic anyway. The survey said 80% would like to supplement their income (I would say 100%). It then says renters would therefore like to rent out spare rooms.