All Forum Posts by: John Clark

Might want to see if your other tenants can get orders of protection against him, also.

Try getting him out on an emergency basis, bring the other tenants with you to court. Emergency is that he is a clear and present danger to your other tenants.

"but the firm, full, heavy feel of the envelope in my hand...oh yeah, it just does something for me..."

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Steady on there, son. This is a family oriented forum.  :)

"No garage, however there is a basement."

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Put washer and dryer in basement, the way God intended.

It all depends on your purchase price, financing, and cash flow. Pay too much  and it's never a good time to invest. If you think there will be a decline in prices, then bid accordingly. You might not get the property, but that has nothing to do with whether it is a "good time" to invest.

Sounds like a plan. And win or lose, we can meet in Boston to tour the City (I'll go anywhere except South Carolina. I know I am being totally unfair to South Carolina, but that's how it is.).

If you are worried that someone would rent out a unit on AirBnB after having rented it out on some other platform for 120 days, it would be Boston's duty to inform AirBnB that the listing is not valid because the  120 day limit was reached.

"reasonableness of the regulation, now it’s “unduly burdensome”?"

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One of the tests for whether a regulation is reasonable is whether it is unduly burdensome.

As for the number of days of rental, my impression is that that is disclosed by the host and guest and therefore is easily tracked and cumulated by AirBnB. It's part of the listing information provided by the host because the host either provides it directly or it can easily be implied from the total transaction cost (e.g. $1,000) divided by the cost per day (e.g. $100) (gee, sounds like ten days to me), with the cost per day and total transaction cost provided by the host and guest.

As for the rights of AirBnB users to not have governments access their data: Sorry, but the law is against you. Once you disclose your data to a third party (AirBnB) you have zero right of privacy in that data. This is particularly true when you give information to a third after after a law has gone into effect providing that the data can and will be turned over to the government. Don't like it? Don't list your property for short term rentals.

AirBnB would be facilitating -- the legal term is "aiding and abetting" -- illegal transactions. That makes AirBnB liable. Just like a pimp facilitiates illegal prostitution but doesn't actually perform the illegal act. The denizens of Boston have decreed -- right, wrong, or indifferent -- that short term rentals cannot exceed 120 days, and the unit must be registered with the city. If you are going to facilitate short term rental transactions in the city, make sure the transactions are legal, 'cuz otherwise you are "aiding and abetting" and can be punished. 

It's not a stretch under the common law. It's not unconstitutional.  AirBnB will lose. Just like it came to heel in Chicago.

Let's break this down shall we?

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"AirBnB does not know which rentals have passed 120 days because it does not actively screen posts before they go to the site"

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Not sure what you are trying to say here, but your statement doesn't say it. One has to register with AirBnB before one can post a host unit. One has to register with the city before one can be a host. Telling AirBnB to compare its registrants to the city's list to make sure the potential host is "city registered" before AirBnB lets the host's posting go live is not too much to ask. No "actively screen posts before they (who is "they?") go to the site" involved.

Remember, the test is "unduly burdensome," not "trifling effort." AirBnB is facilitating transactions that under certain circumstances are illegal. Boston is taking reasonable steps to cull the illegal transactions and permit the legal ones. The alternative is for Boston simply to ban short term rentals full stop. In that case AirBnB would not be "burdened" at all because AirBnB wouldn't be doing business in Boston.

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"[AirBnB] does not count how many days a specific unit has been rented in a year, because they have no need to. So they cannot knowingly break the law."

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Your statement is just plain false. AirBnB's entire business model depends on knowing how many days a unit has been rented because it takes a cut of the transaction price. The transaction price is the unit's daily rate times the number of days the unit has been rented. AirBnB needs both pieces of information in order to conduct its business. Of course AirBnB knows how many days a unit has been rented in a year.

This leaves aside the question of whether it would be unduly burdensome for a city to demand that AirBnB collect this information (number of days rented) even if AirBnB didn't collect that information in the first place. We need not cover this hypothetical, since AirBnB collects the information.

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" . . .  AirBnB will have to fundamentally change they way its day to day operations work to comply with this regulation."

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Nonsense. See above.

"And I do not see how making AirBnB's computers "kill" a profile once they have passed 120 rented days is not making AirBnB enforce the City of Boston's laws. Whether it is a computer, a person, or a monkey with a marker, the act, not the mechanism, is what matters in determining enforcement.

Also the bar analogy is completely specious. A bar patron buys a drink from the bar. AirBnB connects two parties, one who has a property for rent, the other who wants to rent a property.

My original point still stands. AirBnB isn't fighting the regulation of STR, it's fighting government imposition of its day to day operations."

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Once the person has passed 120 days of rental, later rentals would be illegal. AirBnB knows that, because AirBnB  tracks usage (tomake sure it gets paid). So AirBnB is knowingly facilitating an offense. It is Boston's right to prevent that. That has nothing to do with "day to day operations." You can't facilitate transactions you know to be illegal.

As for the bar, let me remind you that AirBnB takes a cut from the transaction. It's not just connecting two parties. It brokers them, and profits from having the listings, if only to play up network effects to get other hosts to post on AirBnB. Is it a great analogy? No. It does point out, however, the right of government to place burdens on a business to protect the public weal. Certainly selling drinks is a bar's "day to day operations."

As for getting the information, AirBnB is doing business in Massachusetts, and Boston in particular, so the question becomes whether Boston's demands are reasonable. Making sure that AirBnB only does business with registered property hosts -- by having AirBnB turn over host lists -- is reasonable. If AirBnB does not do so, then AirBnB is potentially facilitating illegal transactions, and will be fined for so doing.

"AirBnB isn't fighting being regulated. It is fighting to protect its status as an intermediary in the transaction and not get dragged into enforcing the cities regulations.

"Under the Boston regulations, only owner-occupied single-family, two-family, and three-family homes would be allowed to rent out their primary units or adjacent units for up to 120 days a year. The regulations bar investor-owned units or tenants from renting out their homes. The ordinance also requires hosts to register with the city and pay a $200 fee, information that would be cross-checked against data provided by platforms such as Airbnb."

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AirBnB is the one that has the information and facilitates transactions that by their very nature disrupt neighborhoods and deprive the cities of tax revenue (hotel substitution). This isn't about being an "intermediary," it is about sharing information with the government.

As for being "dragged" into enforcement, that is hardly the case. Once your place has been rented for 120 days (which AirBnB's computers can easily keep track of), your listing is killed for the rest of the calendar year. That's mostly information sharing, and if you think that is burdensome "enforcement," then I suppose you oppose dram shop laws that tell bars to stop serving obviously drunk customers. 

After all, the bar is simply an intermediary between the patron and the drowning of his sorrows or sating of his alcoholism.

AirBnB also gives the city a list of who is registered with AirBnB as a host -- info sharing. The listing goes active after the city confirms to AirBnB that the host is registered with the city. Again, a fully automated process.

AirBnB deserves to lose. The transactions it facilitates impose externalities on the neighborhoods. AirBnB is the only entity with the information about those transactions. The transactions are commercial in nature. AirBnB simply wants to evade sensible regulation and to Hell with the people imposed upon.