Enforcement Problems and Solutions: Short-Term Rental Contracts and Compliance [Includes 1 hour of Ethics]

This session works through how short-term rentals are defined and prohibited across statutes, local ordinances, leases, and oral agreements, including the threshold question of how long “short term” actually is. It covers income and occupancy tax exposure; building code and zoning issues (sprinklers, signage, door swings, corridor width, emergency lighting, fire safety devices, safes, registration, and permits); warranty of habitability and insurance avoidance where other occupants are present; and lease prohibitions on subletting and on registering an apartment as a short-term rental. Using New York City Administrative Code §§ 26-2101 and 26-3101 as the working example, the speakers examine the “booking service” definition, the tenant registration requirement, the fine of the lesser of $5,000 or triple the income per violation, and enforcement both administratively and in the courts. The session then maps landlord remedies — self-help and its state and local law limitations, eviction proceedings, plenary actions for damages, injunction proceedings, administrative agency complaints, and defending at administrative agencies — and presents sample lease clauses: a prohibition on advertising, an income-belongs-tolandlord clause with a twenty percent liquidated damages component, and three incurable-nuisance triggers, with attention to attorneys’ fees, reimbursement of governmental penalties, indemnification, security deposit forfeiture, and state doctrine on penalties. It closes with why short-term rentals are dangerous for everyone, and more so in a multiple dwelling, illustrated by a sample horror story.

This session maps the ethics of short-term rental enforcement onto the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. It opens with fees under Rule 1.5 — reasonable fees, the basis of the fee communicated up front, why the speakers reject contingency arrangements given the criminal implications in this area, and the billing practices that survive scrutiny: hourly over flat, no block billing, tenth-of-an-hour increments, and contemporaneous time records. It then turns to communication and conflicts: the Rule 1.4 and Rule 1.2(a) duty to disclose the billing method and the plan for the representation to the client; the Rule 1.7 bar on representing landlord and tenant together, which the speakers treat as a conflict no signed waiver will satisfy before a Disciplinary Board; and the multiple-party conflicts among administrative agencies, landlords, tenants, and subtenants. Confidentiality under Rule 1.6 is distinguished from the attorneyclient privilege, including the body of law under which a claim of “advice of counsel” waives the privilege. Rule 4.3 frames the speakers’ seven duties when dealing with unrepresented parties — identify whom you represent, recommend separate counsel, and never take unfair advantage. The session closes with Rule 1.1 competence across local ordinances, leases, local taxes, and insurance (and when to defer to architects and engineers); Rules 1.2(d) and 8.4 on not encouraging criminal activity through self-help on the landlord side or registration avoidance on the tenant side; and Rule 4.1 truthfulness — don’t gild the lily, and never threaten criminal action on a conditional basis, a flat prohibition under New York Rule 3.4(e).