Short Term Rental Laws? 30 day requirements

[Cole Schlack]

I currently own 2 short term rentals and working on adding more but it seems City's are cracking down on short term rentals and I wanted to start a discussion on this topic to see what others are running into and see if anyone has challenged the local code with any success.  I am working on buy a home in St. George Utah and have run into some crazy rules such as being required to get approval from you neighbors within 500 ft.  

[Maura Paler]

GREAT TOPIC. Yes, many cities are regulating or restricting short term rentals. We have had to cease and desist in Miami and NYC daily and weekly rentals we had been very successfully managing for 10 years. Very sad. 

We are in the market for more VR properties (own 5 currently) and the biggest question we have is how do we find out where they are allowed? If we were to purchase in an area that all of a sudden restricted them, we would be in financial trouble. 

WHO do you call in a town/municipality/county to get the answer to this question? 

Our rentals are in small town in Adirondack Mts, there are few hotels, the towns need the income from visitors, so there are no restrictions. However, might I add one small story - one of them is on a lake that had only one other vacation rental when we were in contract to purchase. This small town (via a disgruntled neighbor of the VR) told the VR they had to shut down. The VR owner happened to be a lawyer, so he sued the town to remain a VR stating they had no right to tell him what to do with his property. He won. The town appealed. He won again. So we watched, waited for this result, then bought. It is our most successful VR. However, just goes to show that even small towns might take a turn towards a ban. 

Specifically we are looking for southern coastal properties - FL, Bahamas, CR, that sort of place.