Letulet Blog

As swaths of new regulations are popping up in communities that govern how vacation rentals are done, staying legal as an Airbnb host has become much tougher, especially for renters. Most rental leases don’t provide guidance on home-sharing and this complicates the relationship between landlords and tenants. In fact, most leases outright prevent subletting, which is what renters are doing when hosting paying guests. Therefore, most renters are stuck from hosting because they don’t want to risk their lease.

This is where a lease addendum comes into play. They’re documents that add additional terms to the original lease. There are many types of lease addenda, but for purposes of this article we’re focusing on a home-sharing lease addendum, sometimes referred to as an Airbnb Lease Addendum because of the popularity of the service.

Short term rental regulations differ slightly among communities, but most home-sharing laws for a renter generally starts with having official paperwork between the landlord and tenant to document the subletting rental rules. A renter who wants to legally list their space on Airbnb will likely need to prove to their local governing bodies that they are not in violation of their lease. The best way to do this is for the renter to have a written Airbnb lease addendum, signed by their landlord in hand.

Here are a few key topics for you to understand the process of creating a lease addendum.

As of July 1st, Los Angeles' new short-term rental law went into effect, and Airbnb is enforcing that new law. While the ordinance makes it legal for homeowners who secure a permit to list their properties on home-sharing websites such as Airbnb and VRBO, if you rent your space, you must prove you have your landlord’s written permission before you can create an Airbnb listing. 

If you live in an apartment, you’re probably familiar with the challenges and imitations of living in tight quarters. Being unable to make major renovations, often dealing with extremely thin walls that separate yourself from other tenants, and trying to find ways to make small spaces seem larger.

It’s common for apartment tenants to avoid listing their spaces on homesharing sites such as Airbnb because they feel that their accommodations aren’t good enough to compete against other listings.