Vienna Court Ratifies Airbnb Municipal Housing Ban

The Higher Regional Court of Vienna has ratified the ban on Airbnb listings in municipal buildings – Gemeindebau – in the Austrian capital, two months after the home-sharing company agreed to remove listings in the city and implement a raft of measures to facilitate “responsible tourism”. It follows the City of Vienna’s lawsuit victory against Airbnb in May, meaning that city-owned apartments in the city would no longer be available for subletting on platforms such as Airbnb. That ruling has now been made legally binding. Last year, Vienna-based Wiener Wohnen, Europe’s largest public housing management service with 220,000 apartment rentals, banned its tenants from subletting via Airbnb although the rules were not always followed. Wiener Wohnen took the issue to court and won, despite an appeal by Airbnb, which has been forced to take down all listings that can be considered public housing. Airbnb has also agreed to the introduction of a range of measures in Vienna. Airbnb will regularly inform its hosts in Vienna that accommodation in municipal housing should not be sublet and those who break the rules will be removed from the platform. Airbnb will grant the city of Vienna access to the Airbnb city portal as its first partner in Austria. In this way, city authorities can inform the platform of any suspect listings that may be violating the ban on subletting apartments in municipal housing. A nationwide digital registration process will be implemented for all Airbnb hosts in Austria. Similar to the existing systems that have been set up in the Netherlands, France and Spain, Airbnb will work alongside the EU Commission to provide regular rental statistics from cities in Austria, and tax data will continue to be shared with the country’s Ministry of Finance. A telephone hotline is to be launched, meaning that neighbours, tenants or owners can report suspected illegal rentals or excessively loud parties discreetly to Airbnb.