New York City has settled with Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms on a legal dispute that required them to provide the city with information on hosts.
A city law that would have required companies like Airbnb to provide monthly listings information, including host identities and addresses, to the city was blocked by a federal judge over a year ago. The law was intended to crack down on residential properties being used as hotels.
The settlement, which was announced today, would require quarterly reporting instead of monthly and only for listings rented more than five times in any quarter of the year and not all listings as currently stipulated by the law, according to The New York Daily News.
The home-sharing companies will still need to provide “hosts’ names and legal addresses, the addresses of the rentals and whether the rentals were for all or part of the unit.” This only applies to entire home listings and not listings of private rooms.
It is unclear how hosts will react to these new data requirements. The Real Deal reported that Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk said in an email, “hosts would have to first give consent before their data would be shared, those who did not would be unable to list on Airbnb.”
Airbnb has settled with the city to promote goodwill. It is part of the company’s larger ambitions to abolish NYC’s ban on renting homes for fewer than 30 days without the owner or tenant present.
Blecharczyk explained that Airbnb “believe this amended ordinance will build the trust necessary to enact further reforms of New York state’s short-term rentals regulations. We hope that our willingness to be transparent enables the state and the city to feel reassured that short-term rentals can be effectively regulated without blunt prohibitions.”
The current law will be amended and the city has 120 days to pass the legislation.
Airbnb has been battling several French cities over handing over rental data to help them crack down on short term rentals.
France has required Airbnb to supply local governments with rental data on the type of housing being offered, the number of guests and hosts’ names and addresses. According to Forbes, the cities are making Airbnb share their data “so that cities can hunt down taxes, enforce safety standards and ensure that property is not rented out for more than the current maximum of 120 nights per year.”
