An NYC Airbnb Racked Up $1 Million in Fines. New Rules Would Block the Listing
(Bloomberg) — The two-story brick house in Flushing, New York, is a million-dollar home, but perhaps not in the way the owner intended.
Just off of Main Street in a residential neighborhood in Queens, not far from a car wash, a pharmacy and a T-Mobile store, the home has old newspapers on the door partially obscuring a yellowing notice from New York City’s Department of Buildings and a sign warning that security cameras are watching.
According to public records, the house has been used as an illegal Airbnb rental property and people have been living in the attic and basement. It has been on the city’s radar for years, accumulating violations, complaints from neighbors and an order to vacate a portion of the house that was illegally occupied, the city’s filings show. In 2021 alone, the homeowner racked up $984,000 in defaulted penalties, none of which have been paid, a Bloomberg calculation based on city records shows. The same filings show it accumulated more fines than almost any other illegal Airbnb property in 2021, the latest year of data available, by a large margin, accounting for about 11% of all fines issued for the entire year.
But it’s far from