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Your Money: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts, Who May Be Breaking the Law

November 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

But when he returned from a three-night trip to Colorado, he heard from his landlord. Special enforcement officers from the city showed up while he was gone, and the landlord received five violations for running afoul of rules related to illegal transient hotels. Added together, the potential fines looked as if they could reach over $40,000.

Mr. Warren, like many if not most Airbnb users, hadn’t read the terms and conditions on Airbnb’s Web site telling him not to break any laws (while also wiping the company’s hands clean of responsibility for hosts’ compliance with those laws).

So he gulped hard, begged his landlord not to evict him and told him that he’d attend the mandatory administrative hearing related to the violations and pay any fines. Then, he gulped harder and hired a lawyer for $415 an hour.

He also fired off a note to Airbnb, which collects the nightly fee on behalf of its hosts and keeps a bit for itself. Given that the company knows good and well that many of the hosts on its site who live in big cities are violating the rules, he said, why not warn people more explicitly about the kind of trouble they could find themselves in? “By ignoring local laws, you are making casualties of the very people you need to make your site a success.”

From the perspective of an Airbnb customer who needs someplace to stay — and I count myself among the growing numbers of satisfied Airbnb customers — its service pushes every possible consumer pleasure button. You beat the system by avoiding high hotel rates, get to stay in neighborhoods where there aren’t hotels at all and can connect with plugged-in local hosts, too.

But all airy talk in tech start-up circles of “collaborative consumption” and “the sharing economy” aside, five-figure fines and the possibility of eviction are no joke for those hosts. In fact, local laws may prohibit most or all short-term rentals under many circumstances, though enforcement can be sporadic and you have no way of knowing how tough your local authorities will be. Your landlord may not allow such rentals in your lease or your condominium board may not look kindly on it.

Mr. Warren, 30, acknowledges that he broke the city rules and did not read his lease to see if this sort of subletting was kosher. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even if Airbnb avoids educating the people who provide its inventory.

But one enduring mystery for him was why the city came after him in the first place. He was not renting out his bedroom all that often, after all.

Still, he was breaking the law. And that law says you cannot rent out single-family homes or apartments, or rooms in them, for less than 30 days unless you are living in the home at the same time. Popular Airbnb markets like San Francisco and New Orleans have even more restrictive rules, and London and Paris have their own ordinances. People who want to go through the official licensing process for inns or bed-and-breakfasts have that option if they so choose.

That said, New York City officials don’t come looking for you unless your neighbor, doorman or janitor has complained to the authorities about the strangers traipsing around. “It’s not the bargain that somebody who bought or rented an apartment struck, that their neighbors could change by the day,” said John Feinblatt, the chief adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for policy and strategic planning and the criminal justice coordinator. The city is also concerned with fire safety and maintaining at least some availability of rental inventory for people who actually live there.

Since the mayor’s office of special enforcement began looking at the short-term rental issue in earnest in 2006, it has received more than 3,000 complaints, conducted nearly 2,000 inspections and issued nearly 6,000 notices of violation.

On Thursday, Mr. Warren became one of the lucky violators. He arrived on the 10th floor of a city building in Lower Manhattan expecting to take his lumps during a hearing and write a large check. Instead, he discovered that the buildings department never filed the proper paperwork with the Environmental Control Board, which runs the hearings. A clerk there dismissed all violations against him with no fines, and I could see the color coming back into Mr. Warren’s face.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 30, 2012

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the legal jeopardy faced by Nigel Warren for renting out his bedroom. His potential fines totaled $40,000 before the case was dismissed; he is not currently fighting $10,000 in fines.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/your-money/a-warning-for-airbnb-hosts-who-may-be-breaking-the-law.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

The Haggler: At Nello, a Case of Restaurant Bill Shock — the Haggler

January 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Are there two more ominous words on any restaurant menu? The Haggler thinks not. It’s a phrase with plenty of if-you-have-to-ask hauteur, but those too cowed to inquire may be in for a grim surprise.

“They said ‘market price,’ ” gasps a character on “Community,” the NBC comedy, as he weeps over a stupefyingly high restaurant bill. Then, shrieking toward the kitchen: “What market are you shopping at?”

That said, at least “market price” carries with it a bit of a heads-up. You know what would be a whole lot worse? This:

Q. On Oct. 30, two friends and I went to lunch at Nello, a restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Shortly after we were seated, a waiter came to the table and mentioned the day’s specials, one of which was described as pasta with truffle sauce.

At the end of the meal, I got a look at the check and for a moment I thought I was hallucinating. The meal for the three of us cost $400. How was that possible?

Easy.

The pasta dish cost $275.

No joke.  

When I confronted the headwaiter, I was told that Nello never discloses the prices of specials and that it is the customer’s duty to pipe up with questions. To add obnoxiousness to injury, the manager told me that we should expect high prices at Nello because 1) the restaurant is near Hermès, the French seller of luxury clothing and bags, and 2) the restaurant has been in its current location for nearly 25 years.

Weirdly enough, I still felt ripped off. Only after I began to make a fuss did a manager refund 25 percent of our bill.

I later e-mailed Nello Balan, the owner, and within a day, he wrote back to apologize for our terrible experience. That was months ago, obviously, and if Mr. Balan had a refund of some kind in mind, there is no evidence of it.  

Can you work some Haggler magic and get my money back? Craig Tall

Mercer Island, Wash.

A. Bill shock is common in the realm of cellphones, hospitals and auto body shops. It is rare in restaurants, but it is apparently a recurring phenomenon at Nello, which is both a longtime haunt for certain celebrities and a Venus’ flytrap for tourist dollars.

An Internet search reveals that more than a few people have visited this Euro-vibed establishment on Madison Avenue and come down with a bad case of the $275 truffle blues. “The price of $275 was not mentioned by a single word,” groaned a truffle-ruffled customer on TripAdvisor. “We were floored when we got the bill,” wailed a diner on Urbanspoon. Under the heading “The surprise of my life,” a patron who posted on menupages.com wrote: “Well, the bill came and we were horrified — just under $400 for two people with no alcohol.”

One e-complainer said the waiter would not come near the table after dropping off the check — which included a 20 percent tip for service. That might be a pretty succinct definition of “chutzpah.” A bit of background: Nello Balan is one of the more — what is a nice way to put this? — colorful characters in Manhattan’s dining business. A native of Romania with an exotic accent, he says he is a descendent of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Count Dracula. He has bleached blond hair, the body of a bouncer and a strange gift for regularly turning up in the news media.

For a few years, that gift might have had something to do with money. In 2007, Richard Johnson, then the Page Six gossip columnist for The New York Post, apologized in print for accepting a $1,000 “gift” from Mr. Balan. Some cynics wondered at the time if this largess explained the many favorable mentions of the restaurant in the column.

Oh, and there was a lawsuit in 2009, brought by former waiters who said that Mr. Balan had “diverted” more than $100,000 a year from their tips. A lawyer for the employees e-mailed the Haggler to say “the case was resolved” but did not elaborate.

Last week, the Haggler called the restaurant, and a manager asked that any questions be sent by e-mail. No problem. An hour later, Mr. Balan wrote back.

“Thank you for addressing the problem directly to me,” the e-mail began. He went on to caution against accepting Mr. Tall’s version of his conversation with Nello’s staff, because one person’s account could easily be distorted. But he quickly added that the waiter might have been “confrontational” and that the restaurant required servers to disclose the price of specials.

“I will clarify my policy, which is in place since we opened,” he wrote.

Maybe a neon sign would be a good idea, because it sure seems that a lot of those waiters are falling down on this particular job. But this entire issue, it seems, was new to Mr. Balan, who contended that the first time he had heard about the $275 truffle special was when he received Mr. Tall’s complaint.

“Since I value every customer,” he wrote, “I will offer another 25 percent discount on that check and I hope to see him back soon.”

Mr. Balan closed with yet another offer, this one for the Haggler. “If you have time join me for a white truffle lunch, I still have two pounds left before the season of the winter truffles kicks in.”

You hear that, America?

Nello has two pounds of truffles left.

You’ve been warned.

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=34b0cfded4358d231e1f6d29739ce82b

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Affordable Housing Project Divides Woodstock

September 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Instead, a protracted battle over a 53-unit affordable housing project is dividing this still-crunchy town where mellow ’60s vibes and liberal politics coexist uneasily with real estate prices increasingly out of the reach of the humbler classes.

When workers finally began clearing land for the Woodstock Commons project in July, it looked as if the uncomfortable dispute might finally be ending. Instead, new issues kept popping up: the plight of black bears and endangered Indiana bats threatened by the construction; a botched permitting process; uncertainty about water service.

In some ways what is playing out in this Ulster County town is a more colorful microcosm of affordable housing controversies elsewhere. Still, the collision of environmental, neighborhood and social justice issues is making people squirm in a place where the only thing more important than making the world better can be keeping Woodstock the same.

“Nobody would tell you they don’t want these people in our town,” said Jeff Moran, the town supervisor, who has been a conflicted supporter of the rental project. “Instead, they talk about the effect on the quality of life, ramping up the costs of services and those kind of things. But there’s a joke in town that the reason The Woodstock Times costs a dollar is because people don’t want change. People come here and they think they have an investment in the town being a certain way.”

Opponents, particularly in neighborhoods near the project site, said the issue was not Nimbyism or opposition to public housing but practical objections based on Woodstock’s small size (population about 6,000), charmingly Brigadoonish downtown and creaky infrastructure. Among their complaints: the project is too big, it is at a dangerous bend for traffic and the site should remain green space. They have picked apart particulars, like the nonprofit developer’s claim that residents would be within walking distance of a nearby “grocery store” that is actually a high-priced health food store.

“It’s politically incorrect to oppose an affordable project, so you can’t even look at it,” said Robin Segal, who has a doctorate in energy policy and who moved to town two years ago in search of a garden and peace and quiet. She has since been consumed with writing a detailed blog about the project that has found errors and problems the planning process missed. “But,” she continued, “it’s the wrong project in the wrong place.”

Woodstock’s lack of affordable housing has long been a public concern, though a low-level one, in a place where almost any building project — whether a cellphone tower, the expansion of a Buddhist monastery or solar panels at an animal sanctuary — can set off a nasty dispute.

Finally, an affordable housing committee selected a wooded site with sensitive wetlands behind the drab strip shopping center leading into Woodstock’s downtown and, in 2003, invited the nonprofit Rural Ulster Preservation Company to design a plan.

Their first proposal called for 81 housing units and a community center. That was later changed to 63 units without the center, and still later reduced to 53. The current plans, with a green design and geothermal heating and cooling, would set aside some units for households making less than 30 percent of the county’s median income of roughly $70,000 for a family of four; other units would have income ceilings of 50 percent and 60 percent of the county median.

Twenty units are designed for senior citizens, half of them for those making 30 percent of the median income that would rent for $325. The most expensive family units, with three bedrooms, would rent for $890. Ten units would be set aside for artists and writers.

For some, the issue is not complicated. Jackie Van Kleeck, 75, had lived her whole life in Woodstock and has been a member of Woodstock Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 for 56 years. But after her husband died three years ago, she lost his septic company to bankruptcy and then her house to foreclosure. She now rents a second-floor apartment in nearby Saugerties, though she can barely manage the 17 steps.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 13, 2011

An earlier version of this story reversed the captions for two of the attached photographs.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b6bdd6389a317001ad338aa655eb69bd

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