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Mayor of London urges government to implement Airbnb licensing scheme

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called on the government to to work with him and boroughs to implement a licensing system for short-term lets.

This would allow local authorities to limit the numbers of licenses issued in their area and avoid entire streets or blocks being turned over exclusively to short- term lets.

Earlier this year it was reported that one residential block in Westminster had more than 90% of its 118 units available on short-term letting platforms.

In July 2023 there were 81,792 listings in London on Airbnb alone, of which 50,401 are for entire properties, meaning at least one in every seventy-four homes in the capital is available for short-term let.

Khan said: “I am doing all I can to tackle the housing crisis in London, building a record number of the genuinely affordable, high-quality homes that Londoners deserve.

“But these efforts will continue to be hampered by the lack of regulation in the short-term letting market. Short-term lets play an important role in London’s tourism industry, but that mustn’t come at the expense of Londoners who need a place to live. We need transparency about how many properties are being rented out for longer than the rules permit, and accountability to local authorities and residents.

“This is why I’m calling on the Government to work with me and borough councils to design a licencing system to bring some order to this rapidly growing sector and prevent us losing yet more homes for Londoners to the short-term let sector.”

Homeowners are entitled to rent out their homes for up to 90 days a year, but it is possible that many property owners in London are breaching this restriction whilst boroughs do not have the resources to monitor compliance.

Charging for licences and enforcing business rates for properties let for more than 90 days a year would also generate a financial reward for councils who have seen their budgets repeatedly cut in recent years, allowing them to run more effective enforcement activity against unregistered landlords.

The issue of short-term lets reducing cities’ housing supply is not unique to London and the Mayor is said to have looked to the example of other world cities for inspiration.

Barcelona, Amsterdam and Paris all have forms of licencing scheme in place, with the French government going further to push short term lets platforms such as Air BnB to publicly share data about listings.

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