Enforcement of Denver’s short-term rental regulations, which were passed in the summer of 2016, started January 1, 2017. However, not all hosts seem to have gotten the message, with only about 18 percent of Denver properties on Airbnb including their license numbers in the listing—a requirement under the new regulations. Denver’s enforcement efforts for land use violations would typically be triggered by neighborhood complaints, but in this case, a new “short-term rental coordinator” will spend time reviewing listings on Airbnb and other home-sharing sites for compliance with the regulations. Fines for violations of the new regulations, even for properly licensed hosts that fail to include their license numbers in their listings, could be as high as $999 per incident.
In Boulder, Airbnb has recently agreed to collect the 7.5 percent tax on short-term rentals assessed by the city, and seems to think a similar agreement with Denver, where the tax rate is 10.75 percent, may be on the horizon. Meanwhile, Fort Collins is considering new short-term rental regulations that would follow the examples of Denver and Boulder by requiring the host to live in the rented property, while Crested Butte is considering a cap on the maximum number of nights per year that a home may be rented.
Our June 2016 client alert provides more detail on Denver’s short-term rental regulations.