A man has to pay around 221,000 euros because he has sublet his apartment via Airbnb without the consent of the landlord.
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221,000 euros fine: Man rents an apartment through Airbnb
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Sensing the deal of a lifetime, a tenant in Paris sublet his two-bedroom apartment (furnished, 30 m²) in the French capital (in the 6th arrondissement) between December 29, 2016 and December 21, 2020 via Airbnb. The enterprising Frenchman earned an average of 178 euros per night for his Paris apartment. The man had a total of 329 Airbnb bookings with a total of 1114 overnight stays, with which he earned around 198,000 euros after deducting the Airbnb fees. But now came the big bill, as Le Figaro reports.
Because the man did not ask his landlord couple for permission. Due to the intensive use of his rented apartment by constantly changing subtenants/Airbnb customers, the apartment was also subject to greater wear and tear. When the landlords finally found out about their tenant in June 2020, they demanded that Airbnb list the overnight stays. This resulted in the numbers above. Since the rental agreement expressly stated that subletting required the written consent of the landlord, the landlords went to court.
The judgment
The court ruled that the tenant had to transfer his income of around 198,000 euros to the landlord. He also has to pay 11,370 euros in rent arrears because the brazen tenant has not even paid his own rent of 1380 euros per month in full. The man also has to pay around 11,500 euros for repairs.
This means that the enterprising but not particularly clever Parisian tenant has to pay a total of 220,870 euros to his landlord. In addition, there are 1000 euros for the lawyer and the man could also get into further trouble with Airbnb. Because the man violated Airbnb regulations with his arbitrary action.
On top of that, the tenant had also violated the legal requirement in France that in cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants, rental apartments may be rented out for tourism for a maximum of 120 days, as the world writes. There are similar regulations in many German cities.
It is not known whether the man still has enough assets to pay the fine.
