Daily rent required rules – Kommersant FM
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In Russia, rules will appear for the provision of housing for daily rent. The Ministry of Construction has prepared a bill on this topic. And recently it was approved by a government commission, Izvestia writes. The document allows apartments to be rented out for a short period of time, but only if the rights of neighbors are respected. Since 2019, the status of short-term rental housing has been unclear. This happened after the authorities banned the placement of hostels and mini-hotels in apartment buildings. What can change now? Vladislav Viktorov sorted it out.
When the authorities decided to ban the provision of hotel services in residential buildings in 2019, hoteliers said that this could lead to the closure of hundreds of hostels and mini-hotels across the country. But apartment owners who rented them out on a daily basis also came under attack.
The most high-profile case regarding daily rentals happened in 2020 in Pskov. There, residents of the building sued the owners of a one-room apartment, where people sometimes stayed for a couple of days. For some reason the neighbors were not happy with this. Moreover, as the owner of the apartment, Olga Bakhireva, told Kommersant FM, even the court was unable to accurately formulate the claims. But this did not prevent the woman and her husband from being prohibited from renting it out on a daily basis, equating their activities to the provision of hotel services, the Kommersant FM interlocutor explained:
“Initially, the court decision determined that our apartment did not have the characteristics of a hotel, but the court considered that we provided hotel services since we rented out housing on a daily basis. The individual entrepreneur is registered in the name of the spouse, the advertisement was placed on Booking.com.
In our building, out of eight apartments, three were rented out at that time. Moreover, one is for a salon, and the second is for daily rent by an agency. And the third apartment was ours. But in the end, we are now forced to answer for everyone.”
About three years later, the case reached the Constitutional Court, which in March unequivocally ruled: daily rentals are not a hotel business. But legislators need to further regulate this issue and returned the documents to a lower authority. This is how the Ministry of Construction bill appeared. It was expected that it would clarify how landlords can protect themselves from risks, which is what apartment owners in Pskov also hoped for. But for now there are still questions about the document, says Konstantin Aprelev, vice-president of the Russian Guild of Realtors:
“This is a study of possibilities, including the legalization of this market. But the story is quite strange, because the amendment itself should contain some specific, understandable norms. Everything related to accommodation, sanitary standards, some issues with registering people for daily rent. I can’t say anything about specifics yet, because, unfortunately, they are missing.”
Formally, the document contains only one small phrase among the innovations, which confirms that it is possible to rent out an apartment for a short period of time if this does not violate the rights of all residents. But in Russia there has never been a ban on short-term rentals. The only question is what is considered the provision of hotel services. And it is precisely these nuances that need to be spelled out in the law, says Sergei Sergeev, head of legal support for disputes in the field of housing and communal services and real estate management of the Yakovlev and Partners legal group:
“It was not possible to qualify short-term rentals as a hotel service in all cases. In this regard, the Constitutional Court, in its ruling, indicated that it is possible to rent, but it is necessary to provide for the specifics. They still don’t exist. Clear mechanisms must be prescribed for what is short-term rental and what is hotel services. This is where the conflict lies. That is, short-term rentals in the event that there is an additional change of linen and the provision of bathrobes and slippers are qualified as hotel services. When will these features appear? Unclear”.
In the meantime, Olga Bakhireva and her husband were at the next meeting on September 20 in their case, where the court reviewed its decision taking into account the position of a higher authority. True, the question of whether their activities should be considered a hotel business was not on the agenda. Disgruntled neighbors now insisted that the Bakhirev family must rent out their apartment for at least six months. And there is a possibility that this matter will not be settled in the near future.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
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