Renting your house to an Air B & B agency. Anyone got any experience?

kevinqq

Spoken with the lady who owns flat above me and her set up is this:

Gives it to Air B n B agency who manage all her bookings (giving her a copy of the calendar) 
A cleaning company gives the place a quick clean & bed sheets change between guests.

She has to have landlord insurance and a few other things but basically doesn't do much else and sits back and gets the payments - which must be taxable.  


Anyone any experience of going down this route or method?

eddddy

Your subject line says 'house', but your post talks about the 'flat' above you. Do you have a flat or a house?

If it's a flat (in England/Wales), presumably it's leasehold. Most flat leases don't allow short term letting - like AirBnB.

If it's a freehold house, that's not likely to be a problem.

Or are they flats with a 'share of freehold'?


If the lady upstairs is breaching her lease by doing short term lets, the freeholder might take enforcement action at any time. Presumably the lady upstairs would then have to cancel all her up-coming bookings. I don't know if she would have liabilities to AirBnB if that happens - but I guess it could cause the future guests a lot of disappointment.

MyRealNameToo

kevinqq said:

Spoken with the lady who owns flat above me and her set up is this:

Gives it to Air B n B agency who manage all her bookings (giving her a copy of the calendar) 
A cleaning company gives the place a quick clean & bed sheets change between guests.

She has to have landlord insurance and a few other things but basically doesn't do much else and sits back and gets the payments - which must be taxable.  


Anyone any experience of going down this route or method?

A friend does this but not in the UK and they are the "agency" in the scenario. 

Inevitably there are different models and ways of doing it. You'd need to check the lease and local restrictions on if you can or can't do it and/or if you need permissions etc. In London for example you can only 90 nights per year otherwise you need to apply to Planning. 

born_again

Hope they have checked with local council re council tax payable?
As some will class it as 2nd home or buy to let with the resulting higher charge.

https://www.houst.com/blog/airbnb-council-tax

kevinqq

eddddy said:

Your subject line says 'house', but your post talks about the 'flat' above you. Do you have a flat or a house?

If it's a flat (in England/Wales), presumably it's leasehold. Most flat leases don't allow short term letting - like AirBnB.

If it's a freehold house, that's not likely to be a problem.

Or are they flats with a 'share of freehold'?


If the lady upstairs is breaching her lease by doing short term lets, the freeholder might take enforcement action at any time. Presumably the lady upstairs would then have to cancel all her up-coming bookings. I don't know if she would have liabilities to AirBnB if that happens - but I guess it could cause the future guests a lot of disappointment.

It's a flat and she has a mortgage on it and it's Scotland.  She started it before any restrictions that I think are now in place for new ones... she uses Air B & B or at least the agency does it on her behalf.  The agency takes 15%

She still has to pay all the bills,   electic, gas, internet, council tax, tv licence, and mortgage, oh and landlord insurance.

One thing that is a perk is that she is able to return to her home where there are gaps in the diary and no guests.  So all she has to do is keep a week here and there can get her place back for a bit.

Got all the fire blankets and smoke/carbonmonoxide detectors etc..

Reckons an average of £2k a month after tax.

youth_leader

Sounds like you are in Edinburgh, it's a gold mine during the Edinburgh Fringe. My daughter is a director and was staying up there for the full six weeks in a wonderful Airbnb flat.  I didn't have many choices when I took my friend and my son for the weekend - very dodgy place.  Washing machine in the hall way full of fag butts and burns! 

Skiddaw1

Friends of ours have a flat in Edinburgh. They don't do Air B&B when not using it but other people in the flats did. However, from what I understand, there was a crackdown and the current regs don't allow you to do it unless your flat has a separate, direct from the street entrance (rather than a communal one).Much to the relief of our friends as it happens, as there's a big hen/stag party scene in Edinburgh and they had some rather disturbed nights during the hen/stag season. Don't quote me re the change in regs but that's my understanding. 

ReadySteadyPop

Skiddaw1 said:

Friends of ours have a flat in Edinburgh. They don't do Air B&B when not using it but other people in the flats did. However, from what I understand, there was a crackdown and the current regs don't allow you to do it unless your flat has a separate, direct from the street entrance (rather than a communal one).Much to the relief of our friends as it happens, as there's a big hen/stag party scene in Edinburgh and they had some rather disturbed nights during the hen/stag season. Don't quote me re the change in regs but that's my understanding. 

Yes, normal householders are sick of the disruption, matter of time before the council just mines it for tax or shuts it down, Fringe etc. is nowhere near what it was years ago, shows were running for much shorter periods this year because it is just too expensive now to fund a show.

SiliconChip

ReadySteadyPop said:

Skiddaw1 said:

Friends of ours have a flat in Edinburgh. They don't do Air B&B when not using it but other people in the flats did. However, from what I understand, there was a crackdown and the current regs don't allow you to do it unless your flat has a separate, direct from the street entrance (rather than a communal one).Much to the relief of our friends as it happens, as there's a big hen/stag party scene in Edinburgh and they had some rather disturbed nights during the hen/stag season. Don't quote me re the change in regs but that's my understanding. 

Yes, normal householders are sick of the disruption, matter of time before the council just mines it for tax or shuts it down, Fringe etc. is nowhere near what it was years ago, shows were running for much shorter periods this year because it is just too expensive now to fund a show.

And of course one of the most significant costs is that of accommodation for the performers, who are likely to be peniless students etc. competing with well-heeled tourists for the limited accommodation that's available.

user1977

OP hasn't said it's Edinburgh, but if it is then note you now need planning permission to use as a short term let:

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/planningstls

and the vast majority of applications I've seen have been rejected.

_Penny_Dreadful

kevinqq said:

eddddy said:

Your subject line says 'house', but your post talks about the 'flat' above you. Do you have a flat or a house?

If it's a flat (in England/Wales), presumably it's leasehold. Most flat leases don't allow short term letting - like AirBnB.

If it's a freehold house, that's not likely to be a problem.

Or are they flats with a 'share of freehold'?


If the lady upstairs is breaching her lease by doing short term lets, the freeholder might take enforcement action at any time. Presumably the lady upstairs would then have to cancel all her up-coming bookings. I don't know if she would have liabilities to AirBnB if that happens - but I guess it could cause the future guests a lot of disappointment.

It's a flat and she has a mortgage on it and it's Scotland.  She started it before any restrictions that I think are now in place for new ones... she uses Air B & B or at least the agency does it on her behalf.  The agency takes 15%

She still has to pay all the bills,   electic, gas, internet, council tax, tv licence, and mortgage, oh and landlord insurance.

One thing that is a perk is that she is able to return to her home where there are gaps in the diary and no guests.  So all she has to do is keep a week here and there can get her place back for a bit.

Got all the fire blankets and smoke/carbonmonoxide detectors etc..

Reckons an average of £2k a month after tax.

All landlords in Scotland with short-term lets must be registered regardless of when the landlord started.  It's a criminal offence not to be registered.  Local councils can also impose additional conditions on short-term let landlords.  

Generally, short-term let landlords need planning permission if they want to build a new building to provide short-term let accommodation or use an existing building to start providing short-term let accommodation, and the planning authority consider this a ‘material change of use’

The rules are different for short-term let accommodation in a short-term let control area. There are currently two shorter-term let control areas in Scotland: the entire City of Edinburgh, and Badenoch and Strathspey in the Highland Council.  In the control areas it's not only new short-term let landlords who need planning permission, existing short-term let landlords may also have to apply for planning permission before continuing with the short-term lets.

I'm not sure your neighbour is paying council tax or should be paying council tax.  It could be the case that rates are due instead of council tax.

Your neighbour may well be average £2,000 a month and I do hope she is compliant with the law.