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The Spirit MAY 15, 2014
BardGraduateCenterGallery Alberto Baraya and Abel Rodriquez, Installation view. Photo: Bruce White
WAT ER WE AV ER S
The River in Contemporary Colombian Visual and Material Culture CUR ATED BY JOSÉ ROCA Ceci Arango
Jorge Lizarazo
Alberto Baraya
Susana MejĂa
Monika Bravo
Abel RodrĂguez
Alvaro CatalĂĄn de OcĂłn
MarĂa Isabel Rueda
David Consuegra
Lucy Salamanca
NicolĂĄs Consuegra
Tangrama
Olga de Amaral
Marcelo Villegas
Clemencia Echeverri
Carol Young
AIR BNB-EWARE PROPERTY Increasing number of eviction proceedings stemming from use of apartment-sharing websites BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
Many New Yorkers have probably noticed the apartmentsharing startup Air BnB in the news lately. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed the company for records of users he believes are using it to illegally book apartments. Air BnB is fighting the subpoena, saying that users who abuse their platform are promptly kicked off and the AG’s move amounts to intrusive government snooping into the lives of its customers. But what’s not at the forefront of the discussion surrounding Air BnB are the increasing numbers of customers who have had to fight eviction proceedings because they rented their apartment using the site, or a similar one like VRBO. “I think I’ve seen in the last six months probably four of these cases that I personally handled,â€? said Samuel Himmelstein, a partner at Himmelstein, McConnell, Gribben, Donoghue and Joseph. His ďŹ rm caters exclusively to tenants, and is the largest firm of its kind in New York. “Before this, there was just a tiny little handful. The reason I think there’s such an uptick is how publicly accessible Air BnB is.â€? Most lease agreements in New York stipulate that an apartment cannot be subletted - no matter the duration - without the landlord’s prior approval,
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“ They’re really beneďŹ tting from a lot of actual law-breaking, and that’s a morally gray area to be operating in. They really have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for their business model.â€? Tenants’ rights lawyer David Frazer
“ I think I’ve seen in the last six months probably four of these cases that I personally handled.â€? Samuel Himmelstein of the law ďŹ rm Himmelstein, McConnell, Gribben, Donoghue and Joseph
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and that the apartment cannot be used for business purposes, i.e., making money off of it. As a result, many New Yorkers who use apartment-sharing websites stand a good chance knowingly or not - of violating their leases. State Senator Liz Krueger who in 2010 passed the “illegal hotel lawâ€? to ďŹ ght the proliferation of apartments being used to capitalize on the transient tourist market, something Air BnB has been accused of enabling - said she knows of landlords who actively search for their properties on Air BnB
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and similar sites, looking for tenants who are renting their apartments in violation of their lease so they can start eviction proceedings against them. Air BnB has said that Krueger’s law was never intended to be used against everyday people renting out their apartments and that the majority of Air BnB hosts in New York are “regular New Yorkers just trying to make ends meet.� They also claim to have helped New Yorkers stay in their apartments by functioning as an extra source of income, and said their New York community will contribute $768 million in economic activity this year alone. Economic forecasts aside, for those New Yorkers that share their rent-regulated or rent-stabilized apartments, using sites like Air BnB can be very dangerous, said Himmelstein. In a poll of lawyers at his firm, he said there’s been 12-14 such cases in the last two years. “It’s not just rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments,� said Himmelstein. “It’s Mitchell-Lama, NYC Housing Authority, any apartment in New York City which is subject to some form of government ownership, involvement or regulation, this activity is illegal.� New York tenant lawyer David Frazer said he’s also handled several of these cases recently. In a case he took up just last week, the landlord bought the property in which his rent-regulated client - an Air BnB host - lives and is “very aggressively going after all the tenants for any reason that he can come up with to try and create turnover in the building.� Frazer said he’s seeing these types of cases in Manhattan
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