Government cracking down on Airbnb in SA

konfab said:
No regulations should apply to either. It is a luxury service with very low barrier to entry. If you don’t provide high quality service, you are out.

If someone wants to go balls deep in debt for 20 properties, they are free to take that risk. If they can sustain the business for 20 years and pay it off, then they surely deserve it to be in business no?
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I don't subscribe to "all regulation is bad". Criticise specifics if you want to make a deregulation argument.
 
Swa said:
The problem is actual guest houses which operate under AB&B and not people looking to make extra income or offset some of their expenses. The number of properties you have shouldn't play a factor if each of them only has one or two extra rooms you're renting out and neither should the duration. It should be the primary nature of the business.

These proposed regulations are retarded as they will only raise costs to where it's unaffordable. There's already a ton of regulations you have to comply with if you have a property with people staying on it. The insurance I can agree with but the amount is unrealistic and it's also not feasible to have full time insurance if you're only renting out for a few nights a year.
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I don't think the issue is a single family renting a room occasionally. I agree with an argument that the threshold should be the primary nature of the business. How would that be defined though?
 
propertypractitioner said:
The essence and original mission behind Airbnb was for a residential property owner to rent space in their home and supplement their income, but it has long since grown into an unregulated monster that is harming the regulated legal accommodation establishments worldwide. Short term letting in South Africa is governed by the Property Practitioners Act. The Act requires the letting party and any staff members engaged in the letting (rental) of residential property (other than their own home in which they reside) to be a qualified Property Practitioner regIstered with the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority (PPRA) and be in possession of a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate (FFC), be registered with SARS for VAT and Income Tax and to be compliant with numerous regulations, including the Labour Relations Act, the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), and should annually issue their landlords with an ITb (3) income tax certifificate. A banking Trust Account must be in place, ito Sec 54 (1) or Sec 54(2) of the Income Tax Act and be subject to annual audit and submission to the PPRA. A Trust Account cannot be opened without a valid FFC. The unregulated manner in which Airbnb operates has severely damaged the compliant short-term rentals market in South Africa and is costing the Fiscus billions in loss of Income Tax, VAT, tourism levies, FIC compliance (money laundering) and is destroying the essential long term home rental market world wide, resulting in residential accommodation shortages for local populations, and impacting on property values. Airbnb has long since deviated far from its original mission and its high time that it and investors in Airbnb properties be subjected to regulatory compliance.
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That's what a Property Agent will say. The only time you people use paragraphs are in property contracts.
 
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propertypractitioner said:
The essence and original mission behind Airbnb was for a residential property owner to rent space in their home and supplement their income, but it has long since grown into an unregulated monster that is harming the regulated legal accommodation establishments worldwide. Short term letting in South Africa is governed by the Property Practitioners Act. The Act requires the letting party and any staff members engaged in the letting (rental) of residential property (other than their own home in which they reside) to be a qualified Property Practitioner regIstered with the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority (PPRA) and be in possession of a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate (FFC), be registered with SARS for VAT and Income Tax and to be compliant with numerous regulations, including the Labour Relations Act, the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), and should annually issue their landlords with an ITb (3) income tax certifificate. A banking Trust Account must be in place, ito Sec 54 (1) or Sec 54(2) of the Income Tax Act and be subject to annual audit and submission to the PPRA. A Trust Account cannot be opened without a valid FFC. The unregulated manner in which Airbnb operates has severely damaged the compliant short-term rentals market in South Africa and is costing the Fiscus billions in loss of Income Tax, VAT, tourism levies, FIC compliance (money laundering) and is destroying the essential long term home rental market world wide, resulting in residential accommodation shortages for local populations, and impacting on property values. Airbnb has long since deviated far from its original mission and its high time that it and investors in Airbnb properties be subjected to regulatory compliance.
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Ag fokkof you scummy waste of space.
 
Airbnb should not be regulated past complying with the Airbnb platform service and standards. Someone putting up a bedroom in their house or renting out a granny flat on their property is hardly on the scale of Bed and Breakfasts or Hotel and can't afford governments harmful regulations as they barely cover the necessities and it is used to help cover their own living expenses.

If Hotels and BnB's runs unregulated on the Airbnb then the government should deal with them directly. It's not an Airbnb problem.
 
propertypractitioner said:
The essence and original mission behind Airbnb was for a residential property owner to rent space in their home and supplement their income, but it has long since grown into an unregulated monster that is harming the regulated legal accommodation establishments worldwide. Short term letting in South Africa is governed by the Property Practitioners Act. The Act requires the letting party and any staff members engaged in the letting (rental) of residential property (other than their own home in which they reside) to be a qualified Property Practitioner regIstered with the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority (PPRA) and be in possession of a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate (FFC), be registered with SARS for VAT and Income Tax and to be compliant with numerous regulations, including the Labour Relations Act, the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA), and should annually issue their landlords with an ITb (3) income tax certifificate. A banking Trust Account must be in place, ito Sec 54 (1) or Sec 54(2) of the Income Tax Act and be subject to annual audit and submission to the PPRA. A Trust Account cannot be opened without a valid FFC. The unregulated manner in which Airbnb operates has severely damaged the compliant short-term rentals market in South Africa and is costing the Fiscus billions in loss of Income Tax, VAT, tourism levies, FIC compliance (money laundering) and is destroying the essential long term home rental market world wide, resulting in residential accommodation shortages for local populations, and impacting on property values. Airbnb has long since deviated far from its original mission and its high time that it and investors in Airbnb properties be subjected to regulatory compliance.
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I rented a place in Manhattan via Airbnb. Turned out the person I rented from didn't even own the property, they rented a single room in it but never stayed in the room - instead they rented it out on AirBnb. I smelled a rat when I was asked to not discuss anything with the neighbours.
 
Grieta Thanburg said:
ALL property agents only have your best interest at heart. You should trust them.
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BadBoyGP said:
From the agent and others that experienced this they say I must just ignore this as they made the mistake and there is nothing they can do to my, as the house is registered on the new owner they cannot cut the supply
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Should badboy follow the agent's advice or get professional advice.

Hmmm.... Difficult one.
 
RedViking said:
Should badboy follow the agent's advice or get professional advice.

Hmmm.... Difficult one.
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Don't worry, I was screwed over by an agent and their attorney on one side of a house transaction, and then by an agent selling for their kid on the other side of the transaction without disclosing it.

The bias was strong in both transactions. Should have used italics in my first reply.
 
Grieta Thanburg said:
Don't worry, I was screwed over by an agent and their attorney on one side of a house transaction, and then by an agent selling for their kid on the other side of the transaction without disclosing it.

The bias was strong in both transactions. Should have used italics in my first reply.
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They are wonderful people.
 
I am glad some people want no regulations, people must be able to build shacks on any open land, drive how they want, taxis must stop where they want, taxi rank where they want, not have fire alarms and escapes on rental premises, be the 3rd world sh1thole we truly are.
 
Typical - zero enforcement of taxis. Draconian action against soft targets.
 
quovadis said:
So not really mafia.
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If you want to go down that route, the State is the mafia, on steroids, x1000, irl.

200+ million murders by government, of their own people, in the 20th century alone.

Mafia-style criminal networks taking over South Africa

Mafia-style criminal networks taking over South Africa The Global Organized Crime Index 2023 reveals that South Africa is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to crime.
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za
 
lexity said:
If you want to go down that route, the State is the mafia, on steroids, x1000, irl.

200+ million murders by government, of their own people, in the 20th century alone.

Mafia-style criminal networks taking over South Africa

Mafia-style criminal networks taking over South Africa The Global Organized Crime Index 2023 reveals that South Africa is one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to crime.
mybroadband.co.za mybroadband.co.za
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Nice chat. No need to go down your rabbit hole.
 
quovadis said:
Nice chat. No need to go down your rabbit hole.
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Be honest, if it means challenging your authoritarian means of deriving your conclusions, learning from history is itself 'going down a rabbit hole'.

200+ million corpses is nothing you can't learn to pretend didn't happen, right?
 
lkpat said:
I rented a place in Manhattan via Airbnb. Turned out the person I rented from didn't even own the property, they rented a single room in it but never stayed in the room - instead they rented it out on AirBnb. I smelled a rat when I was asked to not discuss anything with the neighbours.
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Yeah, that kind of thing is what pisses me off. We stayed in a place in Edinburgh this year and it was a flat bought by a company and run as an AirBnB business as part of their portfolio.
 
quovadis said:
I don't subscribe to "all regulation is bad". Criticise specifics if you want to make a deregulation argument.
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No, the onus is on the people supporting restrictions on freedom to justify them.

But if you insist:
Obtaining permission to operate or get a business licence from the municipality. The property must then be checked by town planning, health, and fire departments to ensure there is no danger to guests.

Nice way to make sure you don't have any tourism jobs. Normal planning permission that you need for all buildings should easily be sufficient. SA needs tourism.

Short-term home rentals must get hospitality insurance with a minimum of R30 million public liability.

Nice way to lock out anyone wanting to start out by forcing them to buy insurance they don't need. Just bear in mind that cars, which are infinitely more dangerous than guest houses, usually only have a 3rd party liability of about 3-5 million.

Membership of a local tourism authority and registration with South African Tourism should be compulsory.
Maybe they should make membership with the relevant people worth it?

Airbnbs that offer breakfast or other meals must get a food preparation certificate and/or a business licence to prepare perishable foods — health and safety checks on kitchens must be conducted.
Yeah no. AirBnBs are highly sensitive to reviews, bad food prep will come across in reviews much quicker than relying on some glassy-eyed government official.

Domestic workers must be paid according to the hospitality sectoral determination. The minimum wage for this sector is higher than domestic workers.

South Africa cannot afford minimum wage as a policy with record high unemployment. Especially in low skill positions like domestic work. The government itself even admits it by not paying the minimum wage in its expanded public works programs. Tourism jobs are usually better paying than normal jobs anyway because you need highly reliable people as one bad experience can snowball into business ruination.
 
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