Airbnbs: Public Law Regulations, Tax Considerations and Landlord/Tenant Issues

The ever-increasing popularity of short-term lodging reservation websites that allow individuals to list their spare rooms, apartments, condos or entire homes has given way to a host of new legal issues for municipalities, condo associations and landlords.
 
This panel will discuss the impact of these types of websites and hosting businesses on a variety of real estate, tax and public law concerns, with a focus on how different municipalities are addressing the impact on the traditional rental markets, the rise of de facto hotels, and tax implications through new regulations, statutes and recent court decisions.
 
Specific topics include:

• Local and state statutes and ordinances, including Boston’s short-term rental ordinance, the commonwealth’s STR statute (effective July 1, 2019), municipal ordinances, and other efforts to regulate and ban Airbnbs
• Recent court decisions, including the recently settled Airbnb lawsuit against Boston’s STR ordinance
• Business and residential zoning issues
• Landlord/tenant issues, including terminating tenancies, drafting effective leases and eviction
• Strategies for tenants hosting on Airbnb
• Impact on the Massachusetts real estate market
• Potential liability of tenants or landlords for criminal activity, property damages and personal injury
• Massachusetts room and occupancy tax changes that impact Airbnb activities
• The Fourth Amendment and expectation of privacy issues