The Short Version

There are a number of short-term rentals such as Airbnb, VRBO “Vacation Rental By Owner) and HomeAway. I'm sure there are others. There are pros and cons and the discussion of whether to allow them in your condominium association frequently arises.

They offer owners the ability to supplement their income by renting to others wie they are away.

Investors acuaire them for the explicit purpose of renting and making money on them. (One note I ran across noted that renting a Unit for 83.00 nights in Los Angeles brought in as much money as a year Lease.) It's easy to use the services. And, believe it or not, institutions such as Citizens Bank and Quicken Loains advertise to help investors pay for multiple homes/units to be used exclusively for And that income can, of course, be considered when re-finanincing their home mortgage. So the options for investors or even single-Unit Owners re multiple.

And then there are the practical concerns. When a long-term tenant moves into a Unit s/he gets used to it. They get used to the stairs, where the coffee pot is, how the laundry machine works.

When a temporary tenant moves in, they lose that familiarity. Here's the danger. If you stay for a weekend or a week at a hotel and there's an emergency in the night, alarms go off, lights flash, and that strangely robotic voice tells you to exit the room to the right and proceed down the stairs to the exit, i.e. to safety But that doesn't happen in a condo Unit. From the Board's perspective, there's a concern about whether From the Owner's perspective, there's should be a real concern about being sued for loss of life or damage if it is not specifically noted how to get out in a case of emergency. From the Board's perspective, since arguably what we do better than any other nation is sue people, there will be a suit that will claim that allowing such short-term rentals was in violation of the documents. From a human perspective, we've potentially lost a life or two for a few hundred dollars. I'm not sure that's worth it.

But, I sup

And any approval by the association of using a home as rental stream leads to further problems. Courts have long noted that owning a home and renting it out is not a commercial enterprise. However, implicit in that determination is that a home is being rented for long terms.

And the Board should check with the city or town in which their association rests. Some have outlawed short-term rentals.

After all, you should buy a Unit to

I know this will shock some, but owners have been known to deny using short-term rentals and just claim they have a lot of friends list. (Curiously, as in one case, all of the friends had cars with license plates from different states, yet the owner was living in the home she grew up in that had been converted to condos.)

Try this:

Units may be rented, leased or otherwise granted to someone other than the Unit Owner only in its entirety and occupied only by the lessee/renter or other occupant, the Owner's family, servants and guests. Under no circumstances may individual rooms or portions of a Unit be rented or sub-rented separately. No temporary housing or home sharing, as determined by the Board of Directors, shall be allowed. Any such rentals referenced herein may be for no less than six (6) months without the written permission of the Board of Directors, which permission shall not be unreasonably withheld, the determination of which rests solely with the Board of Directors. Upon entering into any rental agreement, in any form, the Owner shall immediately forward to the Board of Directors the name of the tenants, email addresses, telephone number, and the length of the occupancy must be provided to the Board of Directors.