Latest / STR Unpacked / Paris just fined one Airbnb operator €585,000. For a single building.
Transcript
- Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short term rental bulletin. So this morning I found a really interesting story, which I think really kind of takes the tone of what's happening in Europe at the moment. So Paris has just fined an Airbnb operator 585,000 euros, right? So on the 15th of April, Paris court hit a single property company with a 585,000 euro penalty. So the backstory here. isn't exactly great on the company and I think that's important to understand because they bought a building in central Paris, fine, that previously had been used for social housing, less fine, and then they converted all 11 flats into Airbnbs with no permission to change the building's use from residential to tourist accommodation. Really not fine. So, not really surprising that they got charged. But I think the really interesting thing here is that one fine was almost half of what Paris collected in illegal rent penalties in the whole of 2024. So, and the important point here that I think is the main takeaway of what I want to portray in this video is it's not a one off. Paris issued nearly 1 million euros in illegal short term rental fines in the first three months of this year alone. three corporate landlord judgments in 10 weeks and the Deputy Mayor for has said openly that they're targeting professional operators, not individual hosts. Full year projection, over 4 million euros, triple what it was two years ago. And here's what operators across Europe need to understand right now. Paris enforcement is manual, complaints, investigations, tip-offs, it's so slow. But on the 20th of May, That all changes. The new EU rules come into force on every booking platform to report every single booking night, every month to the national authorities. A listing breaching the 90 day cap is flagged automatically. Listing with no registration number flagged automatically or not being able to list at all. A property that has never had permission as a short term rental flagged automatically or not being able to list at all. Paris is building the enforcement and the EU is about to hand them the data. So if you operate in France and you're not fully compliant by the 20th of May, you're not flying under the radar anymore, you're in the data set. That is your short term rental update. It's been an incredible week in short term rentals and I'll see you all next week. Thank you for watching.