East Hampton Rental Registry Proposed

Photo: The Sea Spray Cottages, rentals at Main Beach c. 1915/”Long Island, Real Life” Flickr Creative Commons

The Town of East Hampton is considering a mandatory registry of all rental properties it was announced at the board’s August 19 work session.

The rental registry has been proposed to help regulate the short-term online rental market which has upended the status quo for landlords, tenants, neighbors and brokers across the East End. As previously reported in Patch, the online market is unregulated and has been subject to fraud. The explosion of short-term rentals through Airbnb, Craigslist, HomeAway and VRBO also threatens to eliminate the East End’s diminishing stock of affordable housing.

The Sag Harbor Express and The East Hampton Star have reported that Councilman Fred Overton and the East Hampton town attorney Michael Sendlenski, presented a draft of the legislation that would require all homeowners who rent their property to register with the Building Department. Landlords would also have to provide detailed information on the tenants, the length of the lease and the number of residents who will be occupying the premises.

The Town of East Hampton currently prohibits landlords from renting their homes for periods of less than two weeks, more than twice, in six months.

According to the article in The Star the registry would put some muscle behind the enforcement of the current codes. The legislation would require that all rental properties receive a code from the town that landlords must post when advertising their properties. The legislation also stipulates that fines would increase substantially, and could rise to double the rent collected from rentals. Landlords who continue to rent after having been fined for their first offense would be subject to fines of at least $8,000 and up to $30,000. The proposed legislation also seeks to make jail time a possibility for egregious landlord behavior, with sentences of up to six months for the worst offenders.

The town board will hold a public hearing on the proposed legislation early this autumn. If the rental registration legislation passes, it will go into effect at the beginning of 2015.