June 27, 2018
Phoenix—The Goldwater Institute took the fight for one essential property right coast to coast today with the filing of three new lawsuits defending the right of homeowners to offer their private homes to paying overnight guests, a practice better known as home-sharing.
For centuries, property owners have let people stay in their homes, rather than in hotels, sometimes in exchange for money or doing chores. Today, “sharing economy” technology has empowered homeowners and travelers to connect more easily and efficiently than ever before, through online home-sharing platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway. Home-sharing benefits homeowners, travelers, and local communities: It enables property owners to rent their homes to visitors to make money and help pay their mortgages, it gives consumers more choice at lower prices, and it helps communities attract visitors who support local businesses.
But more and more cities are cracking down on home-sharing, depriving homeowners of this right through astronomical fines, cumbersome processes, and outright bans. Today, the Goldwater Institute filed three cases on behalf of responsible home-sharers in three separate cities to ensure that the right of home-sharing is preserved:
“Nobody wants to live next door to a nuisance. But cities across the country are unfairly penalizing responsible home-sharers in order to eliminate the problem of a few bad actors,” said Goldwater Institute Senior Attorney Matt Miller, who, along with Goldwater Institute Executive Vice President Christina Sandefur represents the homeowners in the three cases. “If they are genuinely concerned with nuisances, city officials should focus on enforcing reasonable rules that protect quiet, clean, and safe neighborhoods, instead of limiting choices, hindering the city’s tourism industry, and depriving people of the rights—and the incentives—to use their property and speak as they see fit.”
“These laws in Miami Beach, Seattle, and Pacific Grove are part of a misguided war on home-sharing nationwide, and today, the Goldwater Institute is taking action to put these attacks on homeowners’ rights to a stop,” Sandefur said. “Cities are punishing responsible homeowners simply because a handful of landlords operate nuisance properties. But the government cannot ban backyard barbeques just because a few of them get out of hand. The answer is to use existing laws to crack down on bad actors, not to strip everybody of their property rights.”
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About the Goldwater Institute
The Goldwater Institute drives results by working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and strengthen the freedom guaranteed to all Americans in the constitutions of the United States and all 50 states. With the blessing of its namesake, the Goldwater Institute opened in 1988. Its early years focused on defending liberty in Barry Goldwater’s home state of Arizona. Today, the Goldwater Institute is a national leader for constitutionally limited government respected by the left and right for its adherence to principle and real world impact. No less a liberal icon than the New York Times calls the Goldwater Institute a “watchdog for conservative ideals” that plays an “outsize role” in American political life.
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