Attorney Christopher Hanson Agrees Airbnb Not an Option for Rent-Control Tenants

Christopher Hanson, founder of the Hanson Law Firm, in light of a January 7, 2016, Fortune article about San Francisco officials asking home-sharing companies for cooperation in spotting illegal rentals, discusses tenants who violate rent-controlled agreements.

“Tenants who list a rent-controlled property on a site like Airbnb are violating the very law giving rise to rent-controlled apartments in the first place,” said Christopher Hanson, who focus on real estate-related matters. “Rent-controlled landlords should be able to get rid of tenants ‘for cause’ in rent-controlled apartments who do this.”

According to the Fortune article, San Francisco officials sent a letter to home-rental companies including Airbnb, Homeaway/VRBO (owned by Expedia), Craigslist and Flipkey to ask for help in policing illegal rentals. Rent control, adds Hanson, was put in place to protect tenants from escalating rents, and it takes away the landlord’s ability to profit on rental properties, beyond the rent-controlled rental amount allowed.

“The integrity of rent-stabilization,” said Hanson, “is undermined if tenants, who themselves are the beneficiaries of regulated rentals, are free to sublease their apartments at market levels and thereby collect the profits that are denied the main landlord.”

About Christopher Hanson, the Hanson Law Firm

Christopher Hanson has been a trial lawyer since 1997. He started his career as a California real estate broker, and still has his license 35 years later. The Hanson Law Firm is a real estate-centric firm comprised of trial lawyers with decades of experience in California’s residential and commercial brokerage business. For more information, please call (877) 421-9181, or follow them on Facebook. The law office is located at 300 Montgomery Street, Suite 1121, San Francisco, CA 94104.