Short-Term Rentals

To fill the housing gap, and earn extra income, many homeowners are willing to rent their homes out. Now is a great time for your association to review the governing documents and notify owners of any short-term rental restrictions that your association may have.

If your association's governing documents prevent leasing completely, the enforcement of that provision remains the same.

Even if your governing documents allow leasing, many association's have rules preventing short-term rentals, sub-leasing, and/or renting for transient or hotel purposes.

Many associations have rules against transient, or short term leasing. Associations also have rules against using the unit for commercial purposes, or rules that state that the unit cannot be used for any other purpose other than residential purposes. A Unit Owner operating an Airbnb is clearly a violation of the rules against using a unit for commercial purposes, and transient leasing.

What do you do if you learn that a Unit Owner in your association is running an Airbnb out of their unit?

We can send an enforcement letter notifying the Unit Owner of the violations, and the possible fines to the account. Remember, you must follow Ohio law to issue an enforcement assessment against an Owner. If your governing documents dictate the amount of the enforcement assessment, you can assess that amount after you send the violator notice and provide the violator an opportunity for a hearing. If the governing documents are silent about the amount, then you can assess a reasonable fine that will deter the operation of an Airbnb.

Should the owner continue to operate the Airbnb despite being assessed fines, then reach out to our office, and we can initiate court proceedings to ask the court to demand that the owner stop running the Airbnb.

Should the owner continue to operate an Airbnb in violation of the court order, we would file a motion with the court, and the court can impose court fines to the owner for violating a court order. The association can continue to assess enforcement fines.

If the enforcement fines go unpaid, we are able to start collection proceedings based on your association's collection policy.

Please contact us with any questions you may have regarding Airbnb.

Please email collections@ottesq.com to speak with an Attorney about updating your Association's Collection Policy today.

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