Vancouver councillors want answers from Airbnb after CTV News reports on illegal listings by long-term tenants

A CTV News investigation into Airbnb has Vancouver city councillors pledging to take action – and confront the company.

Two Vancouver city councillors from different sides of the political spectrum want answers from Airbnb, after CTV News reported on multiple condo owners whose long-term tenants illegally listed their units on the short-term rental platform.

Hossein Tavakoli was the first to detail the scheme. He discovered his furnished downtown Vancouver condo was on Airbnb in August, when a guest who booked on the platform answered the door, instead of the man he thought was his long-term tenant.

Silbi Kim saw our reporting on Tavakoli and reached out, saying the same thing happened to her. And several other victims have also contacted our newsroom.

“Amazing work by CTV News uncovering this and really growing this story, because I think as we’re hearing from folks who are experiencing the same thing, it’s clearly a widespread problem,” said Green Party Coun. Pete Fry.

“It’s shocking really,” echoed ABC Coun. Peter Meiszner. “I was really stunned to see the coverage from CTV News around these two cases and understand that there are more. So clearly, there’s some loopholes that need to be tightened up here.”

In both cases, the condo owners say Airbnb wouldn’t remove the fraudulent listings, telling the owners to take it up with their host. But the host wasn’t their tenant—it was someone they didn’t know. And once the scam was uncovered, the tenant disappeared.

“I’m quite disappointed to learn through your reporting that Airbnb in fact is not taking down these listings and it’s up to the to the actual property owner to go in and enforce the rules that Airbnb is supposed to be compliant with,” said Fry.

He added the city has a memorandum of understanding with Airbnb on its short-term rental laws, which state a landlord must give permission for a unit to be listed on the platform, and it must be the host’s primary residence.

“So that is something I will be looking into,” said Fry.

Meiszner says he will also be investigating how this can happen.

“Not knowing who is living in your property, and having a series of guests when you are thinking that you’re renting to a tenant for the long term, is very concerning. So, I’m going to be following up with Airbnb directly, as well as our city manager,” Meiszner said.

Airbnb hosts are required to provide a municipal and provincial registration number. In the listing for Tavakoli’s unit, the fake host claimed the condo was exempt, which isn’t possible for a downtown Vancouver condo.

“It would be nice if our partners at Airbnb were being a little bit more forthcoming in ensuring that folks did have an accurate and up to date business license, that they weren’t fudging it with an exempt status that doesn’t exist,” said Fry.

When asked about the illegal Airbnb listings at a media availability, Premier David Eby acknowledged the problem.

“We are in a multi-phase process with short term rental companies around regulation in the province,” said Eby. “We have some opportunities for additional work to do with Airbnb in relation to compliance.”

In a statement, Airbnb told CTV News the company “takes these matters seriously,” and that the City of Vancouver can request the removal of any properties that violate its rules.

“We can confirm that the listings in question were removed and we are continuing to investigate,” it said.

The company also said future reservations under the accounts were cancelled, and that support helped affected guests with rebooking.