Airbnb fights back after San Francisco registration proposal

Airbnb is feuding with the city where it was founded and makes its headquarters.

Lawmakers in San Francisco have made it increasingly difficult for Airbnb operators to register for the necessary permits to continue using the site to rent their homes (or rooms in their homes) to travelers, according to the company.

A post on the Airbnb Action site alleges that “the Board of Supervisors recently passed a hastily-crafted proposal requiring Airbnb to remove all unregistered hosts.”

It didn’t stop there. The city will fine Airbnb $1,000 a day, starting next month, for every unregistered host that it allows to use the site. The move has prompted Airbnb to get the feds involved by suing the city to reverse its decision.

Airbnb says that the process is broken, and the city acknowledged as much. At issue is the complicated registration process, as the Airbnb site details:

These hosts have been asked to register with the City, but the ever-changing and confusing process simply doesn’t work for many residents, particularly senior citizens, people who occasionally share their space, work several jobs, and have limited time for repeated in-person application meetings.

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To share your space in San Francisco, a homeowner must do the following:

• Obtain a separate short-term rental business license.
• Compile multiple original documents to provide proof of residency.
• Schedule an in-person appointment at the Office of Short Term Rentals.
• Register in-person at the Office of Short Term Rentals and pay fees.
• File quarterly reports documenting the dates and length of every stay and demonstrating the number of nights a host slept in their own home.
• File an annual inventory of all property in their home used in any way as part of a short term rental in order to be taxed on items like their sheets, blankets, pots and pans. As assistance, hosts are given an 90+ page manual intended for big businesses and instructed to inventory any belongings used by guests, right down to forks, knives, sheets and shampoo.

In the lawsuit, Airbnb claims that the city’s actions violate the Communications Decency Act, which prevents government entities from holding a website liable for the actions of its users. Airbnb says that it should not be held accountable for any illegal listings on its site.

New York City has been similarly unfriendly to the company. Laws enacted in 2010 prevent anyone from renting a whole apartment for fewer than 30 days—and heavy fines can befall anyone who is caught doing so.

More legislation is on the books. The State of New York is considering a bill that would hold the hosts liable—up to $7,500—for listing an illegal rental.

As for its fight in San Francisco, courts will generally side with the website, as it has with Google and eBay in the past—deeming those sites were not liable for the actions of their users.

However, this won’t necessarily fix Airbnb’s problem. San Francisco might decide to pivot and follow New York’s example of targeting the users who list illegal rentals.

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