Paris cracks down on Airbnb

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Paris is the world’s most popular city for Airbnb rentals – but it’s cracking down on the platform.

Paris has introduced a law forcing people renting out a property online to register it for tax purposes – and it’s suing the famous holiday rental site for not complying with the law.

Since December 1, any property rented out online must be registered with city authorities, and it can’t be rented out for more than 120 days a year.

The city has employed a team of hundreds of inspectors who search for unregistered ads online and then make door-to-door calls, telling landlords they are breaking the law.

Properties available for rent in Paris on Airbnb's website /CGTN Photo

The deputy mayor for housing, Ian Brossat, told CGTN he doesn’t believe it is fair that the burden of complying with the law should fall entirely on landlords – many of whom are genuinely renting out their main residence while they are away.

“Airbnb,” he said, “is allowing landlords to break French law with impunity and refusing to take responsibility, and we aren’t satisfied with their response.”

The city has now started legal action against the site to force it to remove any advertisement which doesn’t have a registration number; at the moment, that’s four out of five Paris listings.

Airbnb declined to be interviewed for this piece, but did issue a statement saying they remove any ads that can be proven to be illegal, something city authorities say is not happening in reality.

The site did recently introduce a mechanism that prevents apartments being rented out for more than the legal maximum of 120 days, but only in Paris’ most central neighborhoods, not the whole city.

Employees of online lodging service Airbnb at the company's office in Paris. /VCG Photo

The city authorities have made it clear they believe holiday rental sites are a key factor in Paris’ soaring rents and property prices (the latter are up 7.3 percent in the span of a year).

“We’re very happy to welcome tourists, but we don’t want this development of tourism, and of tourist rentals in particular, to mean we lose homes for Parisians,” said Brossat, “The main problem these platforms cause is that when you have apartments converted into rentals for tourists, you have fewer flats for Parisians.”

The temptation for landlords is obvious, with tourist rentals earning double or triple the usual rent for the same flat.

Until recently, rents in Paris were also capped according to size and location, but in November a court threw out part of a key rent control law passed in 2014 – leading to more worry among tenants about soaring rents.

Holiday rental companies insist they aren’t reducing the supply of flats to rent, saying the majority of listings are either someone’s main home rented out while they are away, or a pied-a-terre the owner stays in when they visit Paris.

Timothee de Roux of the UNPLV, an organization that represents landlords, told CGTN the registration number system placed an unnecessary burden of paperwork on property owners, and in his view makes it more likely they will stop advertising online, making it harder for tourists to find somewhere to stay.

One thing seems clear – whatever measures the city authorities take, the soaring demand for short-term holiday rentals in Paris seems unlikely to end any time soon.