Renting out your home as an Airbnb? Better ask neighbours first!

SCOTS letting out homes in the capital to tourists should be forced to get their neighbours’ permission first, heritage chiefs say.

They are demanding a crackdown on short-term lets after residents complained about ‘endemic’ problems with flats used by visitors – including stag and hen parties.

Heritage charity the Cockburn Association also wants landlords to be forced to register with council officials before they can rent out rooms to tourists.

The number of holiday lets in Edinburgh has increased thanks to websites such as Airbnb – which allow people to offer or seek shortterm lodgings.

During a conference in March to discuss what it calls the ‘Airbnb phenomenon’, the charity said neighbours needed more say in what goes on in tenement blocks.

A report published this month said: ‘There needs to be regulation. In tenements the consent of other residents should be required, along with proof of insurance.

‘Short-term letting of an entire property for more than 90 days a year should be a change of use requiring planning permission. The experience of people living in tenement stairs where flats have been converted to Airbnb, or similar, is that problems can be endemic, even if a complaint is not registered.

‘There are concerns that the stock of available and affordable housing is being reduced, and that the character of the Old Town in particular is being changed.’

Rosemary Mann, of the Old Town Association, described the impact of short-term letting in her tenement, saying: ‘You get rubbish bags or laundry bags left by cleaners. You meet suitcases being bumped up and down stairs by visitors, which leads to the stair walls being bashed and scraped.

‘There are fewer residents to take heed of slipped slates and blocked gutters, vegetation growing on masonry and damp patches, and peeling masonry paint.’

Some 41 per cent of Scotland’s Airbnb hosts are in Edinburgh. A host can typically earn around £4,225 for renting out their home for 41 days of the year.

Of Airbnb’s short-term let landlords, 21 per cent rent properties out for more than 90 days each year. More than half of hosts rent out their properties for fewer than 30 days each year.

Russell Godfrey, 39, a property developer based in Edinburgh, said: ‘Holiday letting can be extremely lucrative but also detrimental to neighbourhoods from lowering prices due to wear and tear on communal areas and lack of community as you don’t have neighbours you can count on – not to mention having stag parties every other weekend.’ Tory local government spokesman Alexander Stewart said that any proposals to tackle problems associated with holiday rentals ‘would need to strike a balance between limiting short-term lets and supporting our tourism industry’.

A spokesman for Airbnb said: ‘We always welcome discussions on clear home-sharing rules and are pleased that Scotland is taking steps to support local families.

‘Airbnb guests boost Scotland’s economy by £1million a day.’