City just stripped my STR license!

[Seth Kristian]

Im hoping to find a solution, so I'm hoping by putting this out there that i might have some luck with some of you more seasoned STR/Real Estate aficionados… After hosting exclusively with Airbnb for the last few years, the city of Denver just stripped my license away in the most ridiculous "hearing" I've ever witnessed, let alone been involved in. Its my only property and have maintained a 5 star rating since its first quarter and have over 300 ratings. Not bad for a lil bungalow! It was intended as a second income stream as i had a brick and mortar shop downtown where i was full time for 13 years. Cooties-19 shut my business down in March 2020, right as i made my way into the hospital and a much less anticipated and extended respite for the following year. My personal business was destroyed and i lost nearly every single client, but after the entire month of April 2020 had cancelled reservations, (thanks for "having our back" Airbnb) thankfully May picked right back up and i had some folks that stepped in to help me while i was away. After having the chance to get back to things in the summer of ‘21 and now as my only income, i had to rent another house to stay at so that i could continue with Airbnb, which up until now, is the only thing that saved me from losing my home.

Last December i renew the license as always, except anticipating a response in January this year turned into mid July when i was told it was denied and i could appeal and set a hearing date. Which occurred just yesterday. Another big shout out to Airbnb for freezing my calendar in Feb this year because Denver took its sweet A$$ time! Anyhow, Denver says that the property was not my primary address, and in the words of its attack dog, Linebarger Analytics, had reported that i was receiving mail at another address in late 2020, but failed to uncover the mail carrier which was bitten by a neighbors dog causing a subsequent halt to mail delivery for the entire block for nearly two months, ergo the need to forward the mail. Within that time i had rescinded the forwarding request and delivery commenced as normal. The report also failed to mention that, and added that for some unknown reason i stopped receiving mail just this last Dec ‘22.

As expected, during the hearing i had a stack of mail from the last 6 months as i queried where this idea had come from. There was some back and forth but in short time they realized that at no point was i ever receiving mail at another address other than when i had no choice. Their line of questioning quickly pivoted to my daughter, where she goes to school, where i sleep and questions for which any answer would never suffice the deaf ears of ideologues. 

Now, the meat of it…. Nowhere in the code will you find what "primary residency" actually means, but you will find what the directors interpretation of what it means, and for the purposes of STR REGULATIONS ONLY. Primary residency, as far as i can tell is used for tax and voting registration purposes only. It is not defined elsewhere and in spite of any glaring contradictions, the city, nor the 90lb suit they put in front of the camera to represent the DA's office can admit these contradictions because alas, they work in their favor. Honestly ill pretend for a minute that the Director (excise and license) sits upon the Supreme Court Artifice of STR and was duly elected to interpret city regulations as law. Can someone tell me how, with no limitations on how many days/nights a host can make their STR available each year, can the director ALSO claim that this is not a host's regular place of return if the host has no other "regular place of return" insofar as voting registration, tax purposes, receiving mail. This is just iterated as "elsewhere", and where if 51% or more nights out of the year are booked at this STR (and again, no limits on how many nights a host can make it available), then "elsewhere" supplants a primary address and your STR license thusly. Even when elsewhere has no address.

I sat quietly, remained composed and had politely posed these questions and instead of a reasonable and plain English response my feeble mind could understand i met the ire of ideologues. No quicker had the issue of addressing me, and in my own hearing about my primary address been forgotten but now both the suit and the judge in near perfect harmony revealed some of their cards by addressing Hosts at large and how WE are the problem and how we collectively are contributing to the housing crisis. It became crystal f'ing clear at this point that whether i had been guilty or not there was no way the city was letting me walk away (or stop the zoom call) with my STR license intact. This was their raison d'étre all along, and i went in prepared to fight an entirely different game! The hearing closed with a duet, parroting woes of the housing shortage and how "we all have to do our part"… Ill spare the you 10 additional pages it would take to transcribe the rage after hearing this statement bear its full weight upon the pan opposite of mine on the scale. Now my only source of income is gone, because in the opinion of the Ubermensch, er i mean Director, has the air of an investment.

So what are my options? Put house in a trust, file another LLC and apply for a new license? Sign a lease to a trustee and have them put a new STR license in their name? Either way i lose the last 5 years of work and reputation i built on a platform so prepared to stab its "partners" in the back. Oh yea… Airbnb made sure to outfit the city with messages with guests, reviews, photos and i believe (possibly) geolocation data collected when using the app. None of which would strike me as prime facie evidence unless the court had put the defendant in a position to defend a negative, something unfamiliar to Americans, though perhaps should mull over the possibility of something to get used to.

If you made it this far, heck ya! You rock and thanks so much for letting me take up your time. Any input would be greatly appreciated!