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Council tenant fined £100,000 for Airbnb subletting
A council tenant has been fined £100,000 and evicted for illegally subletting his central London home through Airbnb.
Westminster City Council took legal action against Toby Harman, 37, after discovering he was renting out the Victoria flat as a holiday home.
A court ruled last summer that he had breached the terms of his tenancy agreement. It awarded the authority a possession order for the flat.
After an unsuccessful appeal attempt by Mr Hardman, he has now been made to pay Westminster City Council £100,974.94 under an unlawful profit order (UPO).
Officers from the council’s corporate anti-fraud service found more than 300 reviews for Mr Hardman’s home on the short-term lettings website dating back to 2013.
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He used a fake alias but some of the reviews mentioned him by name, thanking him for his local recommendations, while bank statements showed he had been receiving payments from Airbnb over several years.
The council said the fine is one of the largest UPOs it has ever been awarded.
Andrew Smith, cabinet member for housing services at Westminster City Council, said: “Social housing is there to provide much-needed homes for our residents, not to generate illicit profits for dishonest tenants.
“It’s illegal for council tenants to sublet their homes and we carry out tenancy checks as well as monitoring short-term letting websites for any potential illegal sublets.
“Along with a six-figure unlawful profit order by getting a possession order, we can now reallocate the property to someone in genuine need of a home.
“We’re also pressing government to introduce a national registration scheme to make it far easier for us to take action against anyone who breaks the rules on short-term letting.”
Westminster City Council has a specialist team to tackle abuses of short-term letting rules and is currently investigating more than 1,500 homes in the borough.
It wants ministers to implement a compulsory cross-platform registration scheme for short-term lettings so councils can keep track of which homes are being rented out and for how long. London mayor Sadiq Khan made a similar call in April.
The council recovered 24 council homes from fraudsters last year.
A spokesperson for Airbnb said: “This property was removed from Airbnb earlier this year.
“We regularly remind hosts to check and follow local rules – including on subsidised housing – and we take action on issues brought to our attention.
“Airbnb is the only platform that works with London to limit how often hosts can share their space and we support proposals from the mayor of London for a registration system to help local authorities regulate short-term lets and ensure rules are applied equally to hosts on all platforms in the capital.”
The firm added that it backs Mr Khan’s desire for a registration system and works with councils when notified of issues with listings.
Its website’s page on “responsible hosting” warns users to “check with your housing authority or housing association if you live in a subsidized housing community and are interested in becoming a host”.
Around 80,000 homes in London are currently listed on Airbnb.
