Tenant ordered to pay landlady Airbnb fees earned by sub-letting her flat

The Louvre museum. Paris is the world's most visited country. Photos / Nicola Lamb

A court has ordered a tenant who sub-let her Paris flat on Airbnb to pay all her earnings to her landlady as France cracks down on holiday rentals.

The tenant must pay nearly £42,000 earned from short-term rentals since 2011, in addition to £1800 in damages and legal fees.

She breached the law by failing to obtain written consent from the property owner.

Like other cities around the world, Paris is restricting holiday rentals to alleviate a growing housing crisis.

It is the harshest penalty yet given out by a French court for the offence.

Paris property owners have been fined a total of more than £1.15 million for illegal holiday rentals this year.

The average fine has been £10,700.

Since December, residents wishing to offer a Paris property for holiday rentals must register. They cannot let a residential property more than 120 nights a year without being considered a business, which would be subject to stricter regulations and additional taxes.

Ian Brossat, in charge of housing in Paris, said: "Judges are coming down harder on this because they feel that people should know the rules by now."

The stakes are high as France is the world's most visited country and Paris reportedly Airbnb's single biggest city market.

Brossat said holiday rentals limit the number of properties available for residents, drive up rents and turn city neighbourhoods into tourist areas.

Paris officials are frustrated that so far only users of websites such as Airbnb are being punished for illegal listings, rather than the online platforms themselves.

However, Barcelona managed to fine Airbnb more than £530,000 last year for continuing to advertise unlicensed flats on its platform and Paris has since filed lawsuits against Airbnb and a German rival, Wimdu.

Legislation now before the French Parliament would introduce fines for platforms that fail to remove unregistered listings from their websites.
Other cities that have cracked down on Airbnb and similar services include Berlin, San Francisco, Palma de Majorca and Amsterdam. Japan has also introduced stricter regulations.

Visitors at Versailles, outside Paris. Other cities have cracked down on Airbnb.