City Hall has continued its crusade against illegal short-term rentals by slapping landlords who illegally convert residential buildings and rent them out on a nightly basis with nearly $300,000 in penalties during the month of July alone.
The New York City Department of Buildings issued 43 violations and $285,375 in penalties against landlords for illegal transient use of 11 different buildings, the agency announced last week. The biggest offender was Hank Freid‘s Branic International Realty Co., which racked up $55,000 in violations for illegally converting a residential building at 2690 Broadway on the Upper West Side into the Marrakech Hotel. The city is already suing Freid, the owner of the Marrakech and two other walkups in the neighborhood, for illegally operating his single-room-occupancy buildings as hotels, as Commercial Observer previously reported. Freid’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Although the city has long prohibited renting out apartments and homes as hotels, the rise of vacation rental sites like Airbnb and Homeaway.com have driven a corresponding increase in enforcement against illegal short-term sublets from city agencies.
3 comments:
The intraweb gives way to alot of different forms of fraud and abuse. Humble business people who worked their asses off to own or manage a hotel lose $$$ because of assholes abusing the system in the name of shady capitalism. The city will never do enough to curb this kind of behavior.
If only they had converted their buildings into homeless shelters instead of hotels, the Mayor would be showering them with cash.
I'm all for slamming the greedy bastards doing the illegal converting & bunk beds as long as they leave my right to have guests and family in my private home alone.
AirBNB its now being done with a new method that doesn't mention money exchange, address or price. --That is because it is not a rental but a charity foundation to help folks, students, artists & musicians who aren't rich out.
I'm not going to list exactly how its done but keep the following in mind:
In Racketeer City one can keep 95% of 'donations" as an administrative costs as long as you give 5% to the cause. You must also meet 501(c)(3) requirements for operating a private foundation as well as minor state wide law requirements the city can not preempt and override.
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