After filing initial lawsuits against Airbnb in February, Apartment Investment and Management Co. (Aimco) and four of its subsidiaries filed a motion for a preliminary injunction last week to stop Airbnb from operating at four of its properties in Southern California, pending a final ruling on its lawsuit to bar “illegal subleasing of apartments.”
“This action seeks to alleviate the irreparable harm to those apartment communities and their residents caused by Airbnb’s transactions pending the final ruling on Aimco’s lawsuit to prohibit Airbnb’s participation in the unauthorized subletting of Aimco’s apartment homes and repeated abuse of Aimco’s private property rights,” an Aimco press release stated.
E-mails to Airbnb’s press office went unreturned as of this posting. This story will be updated should that change.
“The most important responsibility we have as owners and operators of apartment homes is to create a community of residents who are invested in being good neighbors,” said Aimco executive vice president of operations Keith Kimmel, in a statement. “That is why Aimco has made the deliberate choice to expressly prohibit short-term rentals to transient, unaccountable Airbnb users and other travelers who have not undergone our background screening and who are more apt to treat our apartments like hotel rooms rather than homes.”
Aimco, one of the country’s largest apartment owners and operators, with 188 communities in 22 states and the District of Columbia, filed the initial lawsuits against Airbnb in Florida and California.
According to Aimco, here are the keys points of its motion:
· Airbnb continues to actively broker sublease transactions at Aimco’s apartment communities without Aimco’s approval despite knowing that Aimco leases strictly prohibit short-term rentals. Aimco formally notified Airbnb of this breaching of leases on several occasions, yet Airbnb has displayed a total disregard for Aimco’s right to decide how its own property is to be used.
· Airbnb has blatantly ignored Aimco’s requests to cease listing and brokering its apartments, even though Airbnb has quickly removed other listings and prevented rental transactions when in Airbnb’s own best interest.
· Airbnb customers are unvetted trespassers on Aimco property, often engage in disruptive or destructive behavior, diminish the peaceful residential living experience for Aimco residents, and create safety concerns.
· Short-term rentals contracted through Airbnb have had, and continue to have, a significant negative economic impact on Aimco, which has invested substantial resources in hiring extra security teams, evicting trespassing Airbnb users and breaching tenants, engaging third-party tracking services to try to identify apartments listed on Airbnb, and repairing property damage caused by trespassing Airbnb users. In addition, Aimco on-site teams have had to redirect a substantial amount of their time to monitor and prevent illegal subletting activities, all while Airbnb continues to profit from the unauthorized uses of Aimco’s properties.
Kimmel, in the statement, said Aimco and other concerned property owners are entitled to their right not to participate in this subletting activity.
