Condo Owners using apartment as a hotel

Good luck with that.

Condo "boards" have very little authority in telling people who can live in their units, and when. That's the beauty of CONDOS.

If you want enforced stability, you should have bought a co-op.

NYCMatt, I respectfully disagree.

I was recently a tenant in a condo in Lincoln Square area. The condo had a rule that the shortest lease was 1 year, with a clause to break it after 6 months in the case of relocation only, specifically to avoid this type of "hoteling" activity. Thus, shortest lease was effectively 6 months.

Just because a condo types up and distributes "rules" doesn't mean they're enforceable by law.

In the rest of the world, people rent their apts as they see fit, since coops don't exist. I wanted to have a pied a terre in NY and rent it to students or teachers at Columbia for the school year, and use it in the summer months. I learned that a lot of condos will not allow me to do so. Why shouldn't be able to do that? I don't see why other people should rule your rental decisions.

Mimi, here in New York, condo owners want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want 105% financing, they want their lives to be a tightly shut book, and they don't want anyone telling them what they can and cannot do in or with their apartment. However, once they get into the building, they want to run the building like a co-op, imposing an entirely different standard on everyone ELSE in the building.

Legally, condos have very little control over owner tenants, regardless of how hard they try to act like co-ops.

As to your other question -- why should "other people" rule your rental decisions? Because they spent their hard-earned (in most cases) money on living in building with fellow OWNERS, who presumably have a long-term stake in the quality of life in their building. If they wanted to surround themselves with transient neighbors, they would have signed a rental lease themselves. But that's not what they wanted -- and that's not what their neighbors wanted, either.

Most co-ops do allow subletting to one degree or another, but those tenants will be subject to the same scrutiny and approval process than the original shareholders who bought the apartment, and for good reason: they'll be sharing walls and a roof with everyone else, and everyone else has a stake in whether or not they'll make good neighbors.

Columbus, "What should be our justification for prohibiting this."

Cart before horse?

@alanhart: Perhaps a more direct way of saying the same thing is "Is there a valid reason for a Condo board of managers to prohibit all owners from renting their apartments out on a weekly (or other short-term) basis?"

Just because you do not like what your Condo neighbors are doing does not mean you can stop it from happening in a Condo.

However, hotelling violates the Certificate of Occupancy issued by the NYC Dept of Buildings; it is tax evasion on the part of the condo owner in not paying the City's hotel taxes if you rent more than 14 days every 12 months; the Condo's general liability insurance policy will not pay claims from "hotel" (short stay) guests; and it creates a security problem in the building.

Are there any other legally valid reason you can think of to prohibit Owners from hotelling?

If you owned an apartment in a condo would you prefer 1) no regulation: let owners do whatever they want with their apartments (hotel, office, event space); 2) some regulation: specific rules for Owners to abide by; or 3) total prohibition?

I'd use the swinging-fist-to-nose test.

So before determining the laws that allow you to prohibit the behavior, you need to determine what's annoying. Do they leave the door unlocked? Call you for room service at 3 AM? Have big post-prom parties? Invite licensed massage therapists up? Are they noisy, smelly, ugly, badly-dressed?

Or does it just seem like something to regulate against?

Do their fists hit your nose? And unreasonably so?

NYCMatt: So I guess that little section in every Offering Plan entitled "Bylaws" is just window dressing?

As long as they are PROPERLY ENACTED; Condo's can have rules (Bylaws) pretty much just as restrictive as Coops, and some do.

But they're not enforceable.

Ok, just to we're clear, "MYCMatt"Condo Bylaws are not enforceable"????????????

Columbus, short-term occupancy can (technically, though not practically) cause your whole building's 421-a tax exemption to be revoked.

But I'm with alanhart on this. Unless the guests are causing an actual disturbance, I think you should let it be.

tax short-term rental income, i.e. condo association take percentage - watch controversy disappear

"Unless the guests are causing an actual disturbance, I think you should let it be."

So ... just wait until someone gets mugged or raped by a "guest", THEN address the problem?

Nobody's getting mugged or raped. Are you channeling rufus tonight?

"Nobody's getting mugged or raped."

Not YET.

just wait until a "guest" gets mugged or raped by an owner.

Sure, first it's same-sex marriage, and the next thing you know it'll be legal for men to marry aminals.

Alan, this thread has nothing to do with your sex life. Please keep to the topic.

Columbus, your condo's bylaws include leasing provisions similar to those described by Hopeful_Buyer, unless they've changed since the condo declaration was filed. (We're talking the "374 Manhattan" condo, right?)

Columbus, you live at Hotel 374 Manhattan?

Renting like that is actually illegal. The unit owners aren't registered with the city to rent out hotel rooms & don't charge & pay the hotel tax. I read an article about this & the city is actually cracking down on this & a building where this was being done actually ran a hapless renter off; you can imagine, this activity soon ceased at that building. Where did I see that article? New York Times? New York Magazine? I don't recall.

aboutready, alanhart, I adore your sense of humor. Nice to be back.

So which will be reasonable period of time that your are allowed to rent? Not less than a year seems ridiculous. What about you need to travel for 9 months and you need to pay the expenses with some extra money? Is this so unthinkable? In a case like this, should apts be vacant when other people need them and want to pay for them?
There are zillions of available temporary apt and room sublets being advertised everywhere. NYC has always had this transient population that I think actually produces a big part of the city's unique energy. Will we making this people's stay more and more expensive as we narrow their habitat possibilities? Should NY be so different than Paris or Rome? Does this restrictions make sense in an island that needs the tourists back and has some of the highest hotel room prices in the world?

hi mimi!

i can see both sides. but i do wonder why it seems to work without incident in other cities. i just rented a glorious apartment for a week in the 8th in Paris. and a stunning penthouse for a week in Nice. i didn't feel threatened by human or beast in either location, and i'm fairly certain i didn't strike fear in the residents as well. rapists and muggers are known to rent $500/night apartments in the 8th, you know.

of course it would encourage higher prices generally, because people could invest in vacation property in the city knowing that they'd be able, at a minimum, to recoup a portion of their costs. but it seems as though it's not a huge supply in any city. there are only so many people who wish to forego the hotel experience, regardless of the benefits of home rental.

what about vacation home exchanges? also a no go?

Columbus, I used to live in a condo that had this problem. Although it was a bigger building with a doorman, the doormen aren't always the solution (sometimes the owners just tip them heavily to look the other way). Instead the other unit owners need to be watchful and band together to stop this often dangerous practice.

The reason to prohibit illegal hotels is a combination of security and quality of life for the legal owners and tenants in residence. Are there small kids in your building? Don't you want to know who's roaming the hallways? Then there's the "guest" garbage left in the halls, the loud music at all hours, bringing more "friends" in to stay with them, ringing all the doorbells at 3 am because they lost keys, damaged common areas, etc. etc. I could give you a list of the ugilies -- none of which anyone would want to live next door to.

But here's basically what you need to know: it's against the law. The argument that it's a condo and the owner can do anything they want is spurious -- you can't use your condo to sell drugs, or run a garment-sewing sweat shop, or run an office with employees, or hang a neon light out the window. Or run a hotel. It may seem like some test of condo civil liberties but wait until it's A) in your building where you're an owner and B) right next door to your family.

You'll be helped by the City which is looking aggressively for more revenues and it's pushing enforcement agencies to enforce the rules, and collect fines against illegal hotels that are already operating in NYC. Plus tougher rules are being added (Google it for more info). The entire condo -- and all its owners -- can be responsible for the illegal acts of a few because if you know an illegal hotel is in operation and do nothing about it, the city can go after the whole condo.

The first step is to write the rule for your condo. Add a fine that has some meaning (e.g., $500 per incident). Then let all unit owners know by sending a formal notice that announces the rule and explains its basis (illegality, security, etc.). Don't be worried that you're taking some privilege away because your condo couldn't have given a unit owner the right to do something the city deems illegal. If a unit owner doesn't pay the fine when applied, they will have to when they sell otherwise the condo won't release the unit at the closing. If the practice continues, send a notice to that specific unit owner that you will A) take legal action and B) charge them for the legal fees for doing so (yes, your board has this authority because condo rules are indeed enforceable). Put it on the agenda of your annual meeting. And let abusers know that the condo will also be notifying the city with a call to 311 which will add to abusers' headaches and fines. If there is a wish from all the unit owners to permit shorter-term rentals you'll need to make sure your governing documents say so (my former building permitted leases as short as 6 months) and that the process is done with leases so that the condominium -- and unit owners -- are both protected.

There's nothing wrong with short-term vacation rentals, if it's legal and in a building set up for this (the zoning and property laws in other cities are different than what's in NYC). If it's a rental on a lease, that's also different because the condo knows what's going on. Reading many of the comments here make me think they're from renters who don't understand that just because a property is a condo, and not a coop, doesn't mean it's without rules. There are rules that the condo makes (some in the original governing documents that a majority-plus of owners can change, some are in house rules that the board can change) and there are rules/laws from the city. Zoning prohibits certain activities. Tax laws prohibit others. Even if you bought a townhouse you aren't 100% to your own choice of what to do with it. It's called living in a community of laws. Not so bad if you want to living in a civilized world....

New York is unique (or maybe add in its colony in South Florida) in considering tenants of any sort as automatically more disruptive, noisy, dirty, uninterested in the well-being of the building or community as compared to owners. I didn't want to chime in on the other current thread about condos going partially rental, but it's so bizarre that people take it as a given that owners/shareholders respect the walls in the corridors while tenants don't. The truth is that selfish people get away with what they can, regardless of their investment or form of ownership; respectful people don't.

In my last condo, it was a successful lawyer (owner) who repeatedly and determinedly sent all his recyclables (including junk mail with his name) down the garbage chute; huge piles of wire hangers also (stuck in chute). Not a renter, not an 80/20 tenant, not a short-term guest.

Back on topic, the entire rest of the nation has condos, and people rent them freely without incident. Same for the entire rest of the world. Why is it impossible for the same thing to occur in NY? I think the coop restrictions started in high-end coops in NY to keep out The Others, and all the coops to follow just adopted their bylaws without realizing that the only point was to keep out The Others. By the way, there are some Park Avenue coops that won't allow your cousin to stay in your apartment for a week to water your children while you're gone.

No Elderhostel EVER!!!

Nextera, so please answer my question: which will be the reasonable minimum rental? Should someone be able to rent out his apt for 9 months while working or studying overseas? You mention the word ILEGAL several times. Should renting out for 9 months in a condo be ILEGAL?

This article in the Villager covered the topic of illegal hotels:

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_199/astouristfillillegal.html

Aside from the quality of life issues, there appear to be safety issues.

The craziest thing about that Villager article is when it refers to a single-room occupancy being used as a hotel. Newsflash: SROs *are* hotels, intended for short-term stay (as you would expect for a miserable little single room w/o private bathroom) but abusively turned into permadwellings.

"Back on topic, the entire rest of the nation has condos, and people rent them freely without incident. "

And there are plenty in Florida who only allow ONE rental per year (or other various restrictions). So while the "Manhattan is not so unique" sword gets pulled out, it should have both it's edges used.

To quote alanhart, "New York is unique (or maybe add in its colony in South Florida)"

The entire nation beyond the Empire.

And the emphasis was on "incident".

I remember from Southern California that a condo sales ad often mentioned the percentage of the units which are owner-occupied so the concept is rather common, that owners are more careful with their own property.

Washington washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/02/AR2008050201722.html
Virginia www.vahoalaw.com/22247-print.html
Canada fic.gov.bc.ca/pdf/responsibilities_strata/SPA-05-01.pdf
California www.hoa-law.com/publications/case-rental-restrictions.shtml
Utah and Wisconsin utahcondolaw.blogspot.com/2009/04/rental-restrictions-in-bylaws.html
Seattle www.rionrealestate.com/blog/interesting-link/no-rentals-when-your-only-option-is-off-the-table/

Why do you need a justification for not wanting this? Pull together and as NextEra says, simply make a rule. Look for power in numbers and protect the majority.

Good luck.

-Sam

mimi, I have to jump in here. I can't tell you specifically what the minimal time a condo owner should be able to rent his/her flat for BUTTTT I do think that there needs to be some sort of standard imposed. I live between NYC and Shanghai , so I understand what you mean about paying expenses on a property you are not using.
I owned a condo in Shanghai in a development downtown where the price per square foot was similar to Manhattan’s. China doesn't have "rental" buildings so basically everyone either lives in an apartment they own or rents in a condo. It was a total nightmare. The apartment next door was run like a boarding house for at least 3 years. The halls were a total mess; graffiti, foot prints on the walls, there was even human feces in the corners of the elevators on occasion. Because there are not that many investment vehicles in Mainland China, the upper middle class and rich collect condos. In my building (comprised of two 34 story towers with 3 apartments per floor) one family owned more than 25 individual apartments, all of which they rented out.
I know that this is an extreme example, but it is an argument for some sort of control in a condo. Needless to say, I sold that place and got another in a much more restrictive condo and am much much happier.

>The apartment next door was run like a boarding house for at least 3 years. The halls were a total mess; graffiti, foot prints on the walls, there was even human feces in the corners of the elevators on occasion.

Worse than some of the things Aboutready said happened in her building in Peter Cooper Village.

shny, you sure didn't waste any time before jumping in to reply to mimi's post from three years ago.

mr hart. so what.