Airbnb and French local govs work together to flush out unfair renters

This will help regulate short-term rentals in the so-called ‘tense areas’ of French cities

The European arm of Airbnb has announced that it will collaborate more closely with local French authorities when it comes to implementing and controlling the number of short-term rental listings on its portal. For this purpose, the company will provide the administrations with access to its Portail des territoires interface, where the officials can report incorrect property owners for delisting from Airbnb.

All of this comes in the context of increasing efforts by the French government to do something about the housing shortage crises affecting different cities and neighbourhoods across the country.

For this purpose, the authorities designated such districts as zones tendues or ‘tense areas’, to describe the fact that housing demand in them far exceeds supply. What’s more, the number of these tense areas was recently elevated from 1,152 to 3,687.

Renters have to prove registration with the town hall

Part of the measures taken to mitigate this disbalance involved requiring property owners to register with the mairies as Airbnb renters. In that way, these properties will get the status of “commercial premises” rather than “housing premises”.

Airbnb’s help consists of lending a helping hand to the authorities and essentially becoming their partner in this initiative. The company will require renters to prove their registration with the local town hall by displaying their registration number with the listings.

The platform will also continue to block rentals of primary residences that exceed 120 days," said Emmanuel Marill, Director of Airbnb for Europe, as quoted by The Local. He added that Airbnb will also share with authorities the income data of the renters.

It looks like the rental platform has decided to turn to cooperation following criticism for its role in fueling the housing shortage in favour of satisfying tourism demand.