The New York State Attorney General and New York’s courts frown on short-term apartment rentals by tenants and owners of Class A multiple dwellings, such as luxury rental buildings and cooperative and condominium apartment houses. In its October 2014 report titled “Airbnb in the city,” the Attorney General highlighted the explosion in rentals of traditional apartments as transient hotel rooms, both by building owners and tenants, often in violation of the Multiple Dwelling Law and the New York City Administrative Code. The ease of posting apartments for short-term rental on websites such as Airbnb and VRBO (Vacation Rentals by Owner) has led to a shadow hotel industry in New York City having annual rental revenue expected to exceed $282 million, where more than 70 percent of such rentals appear to violate the law.
Landlords have an arsenal of remedies to stop tenants engaged in illegal short-term rentals. In Brookford v. Penraat, NY Slip Op. 24399, dated Dec. 19, 2014, Judge Carol R. Edmead granted the landlord a temporary restraining order enjoining the tenant from advertising and renting the apartment to tourists and other visitors for stays of less than 30 days; operating an illegal hotel and/or bed and breakfast out of her apartment; breaching a substantial obligation of her tenancy by using the apartment for impermissible business purposes and/or commercial use by renting it for profit in violation of the rent control law and regulations, the Multiple Dwelling Law, the New York Housing Maintenance Code, the New York City Building Code and the building’s certificate of occupancy; and from providing unfettered access to, from and within the building to tourists and other transient visitors to the building. A hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 6, 2015, to determine whether a preliminary injunction and other relief should be granted to the landlord.
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