Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564
If the home is being used as an AirBnB then tax is due. If it has not been collected in the past then perhaps the new bill will change that.
Renting the home is certainly a business activity. However, renting a home does not mean business is being conducted in the home. The activities being conducted in the home are eating, sleeping, cooking, and cleaning. These are the exact same activities that are conducted in my home and 70,000+ other homes in the Villages.
Further, even if the owner sat in the kitchen and accepted payment such that business activity was occurring in the home, it would still not be a violation of the deed restrictions. The deed restrictions prohibit business activity that involves maintaining inventory or customer visits. The sofa and kitchen table in the airBnB is no more inventory than the sofa and kitchen table in my home. The people sitting on the sofa and eating at the kitchen table are not customers visiting a business, they are guests performing the normal activities conducted in a home: eating, sleeping, cooking, and cleaning.
What some seem to want is for local government to pass a law prohibiting an owner from renting his home or a law mandating a minimum duration of a stay. (Un)fortunately, Florida law does not allow a local government to pass such a law.
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Sitting on a couch, eating at a table, sleeping does not define business.
If one goes on ABnB to rent a dwelling for one night and the person with whom that person contacts to book it takes the money and fails to deliver a way into the home would one be ripped off by a person conducting business with a customer who is attempting to stay in the short term rental that they supposedly booked... what as just a friend, family member of the owner?
The primary function of a home test fails miserably on that logic. Not to mention short term rentals require business licenses in FL with only a small exclusion. Research will easily reveal that.