Regulations for online rental platforms on the way

A major annoyance in large cities is the lack of regulation around renting out homes via Airbnb and other online rental platforms. These rental platforms once started out as a nice alternative to expensive hotels where you can spend the night in the home of a local. In the meantime, this concept has grown to become an important source of income for individuals and investors. As a result, not only do many tourists find their way to cheap holiday accommodation via this route, but also illegal renters who use it as a rental. For this reason, 22 major European cities have asked the European Commission for help in combating these illegal (room) rentals. According to the cities, the (illegal) rental results in a disruption of the housing market. According to them, repeated short-term rentals exacerbate the shortage of housing for longer-term rentals. Therefore the cities want extra rules to combat this. The cities are knocking on the doors of the European Commission because they are currently not able to do enough about it. They want the rental platforms to share data about the people who offer their homes for rent, so that the cities can implement regulations. On 2 April, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice issued an opinion on the renting out of flats on Airbnb without the consent of the mayor. In it, he states that the shortage of homes for rent in the longer term may be a variable reason for national regulation of permission to rent. So he argues that cities should be able to take restrictive action against the possibilities of online rental platforms. This could be done, for example, by requiring mandatory permission from the municipality if a landlord wants to make his property available for repeated short-term rental.The European Court of Justice does not have to follow the advice of the Advocate General, but if it does, online rental platforms such as Airbnb will soon have to comply with more regulations.