Florida HOA Lawyer Blog
Roberto C. Blanch
Firm partner Roberto C. Blanch was quoted by reporter Carla Vianna of the Daily Business Review, South Florida’s only business daily and official court newspaper, in an article that appeared in today’s edition about the issues facing community associations involving short-term rentals via Airbnb. The article reads:
Guests hoping to stay at a condo during the Miami Open tennis tournament found themselves stuck in a lobby with no access to the unit they rented on Airbnb, the online home-sharing service.
The family was denied keys to the property by the condominium’s management company.
. . . Miami-Dade County’s sunny beaches and high-rise condos make it a top destination for home-sharing networks like Airbnb and its users. The influx of visitors opting for alternatives to Miami’s pricey hotel rooms, like the family visiting for the Miami Open, is pushing demand for short-term rental options.
An estimated $2.4 billion was spent on lodging via Airbnb during the year ended in September 2015, commercial real estate firm CBRE Inc. reported. More than 55 percent was captured by five U.S. cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Boston.
The rise of a sharing economy is creating a rift between condo owners looking to make extra cash and association boards whose members don’t want to share an elevator with strangers.
. . . “It has become a problem in a lot of condos,” said Roberto Blanch, a Miami attorney with Siegfried Rivera.
Associations at Mint and Ivy, two high-rise towers in downtown Miami’s Riverfront complex on the Miami River, are cracking down by restricting elevator and garage access to residents with a specific key fob or vehicle barcode, said Ari Tenzer, founder of the Tenzer law firm. Tenzer, who sits on his condo association board, said property managers are logging onto the Airbnb site themselves to catch violators.
Suspected violators receive written notice as a warning. They could also be called before a grievance committee.