Airbnb was rejected in the lawsuit it filed against the city of San Francisco.
Airbnb, the home-rental service, was rejected in the lawsuit it filed against the city of San Francisco as a federal court considered their claims as being unjustified.
Airbnb is a start-up company which appeared some eight years ago and whose services expand to over 2 million property listings in about 200 countries.
In a move and following a decision which will most likely set a precedent, Airbnb filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, or more exactly, one of their laws.
The current law would force Airbnb to block from its services and remove the properties of all hosts which have not registered themselves with the city authorities and as such, are seen as conducting an illegal activity.
Back in June, Airbnb filed a lawsuit which contested this rule and which targets both San Francisco and a number of other cities, for example, New York.
According to the home-rental service, this specific city law would be in violation of the several other federal laws including, amongst others, the First Amendment, the Communication Decency Act, and Stored Communications Act.
With this being the first ruling in the lawsuits filed by the company, analysts and lawmakers consider that San Francisco’s decision will set an example and will surely have repercussions.
As the court reportedly decided to reject the company claims, it remains to be seen how the decision will affect the home-rental service as the ruling will probably create a precedent.
San Francisco officially legalized the Airbnb service back in 2014 but both a number of residents and various city officials have been trying to impose either a new set or tighter rules on the home-rental.
The Airbnb critics claim that the home-rental service is one of the factors which have led to the tightening of the housing market.
According to them, landlords which use the system have been taking their properties off the rental market and instead started using the service which offers short-term rentals which might bring them a higher capital.
The amendment which Airbnb is trying to change targets this very same landlord rentals. The respective law demands that short-term rental companies the likes of VRBO or Airbnb remove unregistered and officially unrecognized listings from their services.
As the law is the same throughout the cities, the San Francisco hosts and services were chosen as the main targets because of its quite significant number of unlisted and unregistered hosts.
David Campos, a San Francisco Supervisor, declared back in June that from the 7,000 Airbnb listed hosts, over 75 percent do not have the necessary city registration, but are still listed on the service.
Airbnb did take into consideration the city’s concerns regarding the hosts as it has been investigating the multiple listings hosts and has taken down unwelcome commercial operators.
Last month, the company announced that it will be changing its site options so that hosts will only be able to list one property.
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