Huh... I thought there are usually clauses regarding "subletting" when signing a rental lease? At least where I am anyway, "subletting" is generally frowned on.
I'm a landlord. The language in the lease I use clearly stipulates no subletting.
There are very good reasons for this. I did a background check on my tenant, not every possible person my tenant may randomly hand the keys over to, unsupervised. It's really not the same thing as having guests over.
That said, I'm not opposed to including some kind of pro-Airbnb language in my next lease. This is new territory so I don't know what it should be. A larger security deposit? A cut of the proceeds?
What's in your lease might not matter, leases often contain clauses which are completely unenforceable which courts can freely choose to ignore if they believe the term is unreasonable.
I'm pretty sure I can get "you can't charge other people money to live here" to stick. A no subletting clause is pretty standard where I'm from and it seems to apply here.
In Chicago and iirc San Francisco, landlords are required to accept reasonable subletting arrangements; no-sublet clauses are unenforceable --- but requirements to get the approval of the landlord are.
In Chicago, the law says that landlords must accept a "reasonable sublet." So it's not even up to the landlords.
That being said, running a BnB is different from subletting. With subletting, you enter into a long-term (i.e. a month or more) lease agreement with your tenant. With a BnB, you have more people coming and going for much shorter stays. Here's why that distinction can matter.
In probably every US jurisdiction, the law distinguishes between apartment buildings and hotels. If I own an apartment building, I can't just let my leases expire, hire some maids, and starting renting rooms out by the night.
For starters, there's zoning. Hotels generally require a different zoning code than apartment buildings. If the local government catches you in flagrant violation of zoning laws, expect trouble.
Next, there's permits. You need a different set of permits for a hotel vs an apartment building. Again, this would usually be enforced by the local government, and they will come after scofflaws. (Permits are a source of revenue for them, so they have a strong incentive.)
Then, there is the building's mortgage, if any. It's not unusual for mortgages to have restrictions on how the building is used. Will the bank foreclose on you if you start running your apartment building as a hotel? Possibly not, since they make more money collecting their monthly payments than foreclosing. But it's still a risk.
Those are three big reasons why a sublet is different from running a BnB out of your apartment. Will any of those things come into play if you, a landlord, look the other way about one of your tenants who's on AirBnB? Hopefully not. But the problem is that if you show you're willing to tolerate it, and it gets out of hand, then you might have to share the blame. Which is why it might be prudent for landlords to crack down as soon as they find out about this type of activity.
The only place I've seen subletting really tolerated has been college towns, specifically for the summer term of school. Students sign 1 year leases, and are often not in town over summer, so a certain degree of tolerance for sublets seems to have developed.
