Source: Rule of Law Daily
On December 22, an advertisement was posted on the glass of a building at the entrance of a community in Beijing's East Third Ring Road - a daily rental house can be moved in for 35 to 70 yuan.
The reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" called the landlord, and when he arrived at the scene, he saw that a room was full of bunk beds, a small space for more than 10 people, personal belongings were placed all over the place, and the charging cables were chaotic and entangled, and the overall look was no different from a boarding house. Most of the people who live here are from other places to work, because their jobs are not stable or they want to save money, and they urgently need a cheap temporary place to live, and daily rental has become their first choice.
The so-called daily rental is a rental method that calculates the rent on a daily or hourly basis and rents the house to others for a short period of time. In recent years, due to the advantages of low prices and convenient occupancy, daily rental houses have been popular among people, and the market has developed rapidly.
The reporter's recent investigation found that many homeowners rented out daily rental houses by posting small advertisements at will or directly posting on social platforms. On various social platforms, search with a keyword in the form of a combination of "place name + rent" (some even have super topics), and you can see a large number of posts asking for rent and providing daily rental housing. In reality, due to the lack of clarity in the current legal characterization, daily rental housing is in the "gray area", which is easy to breed crimes and cause potential safety hazards.
No face-to-face transfer is required
Identity registration is a mere formality
"How many people are you occupying?"
"I'm alone, now I'm downstairs at the location you posted online, where can I check in?"
"Just take a picture of your ID card and I'll tell you the location. ”
On December 19th, the reporter booked a single room in a daily rental house in Wuqing District, Tianjin on the Internet, and found that the address was wrong after arriving at the location displayed on a B&B App. The reporter sent the identity information of his friend to the landlord, and the actual number of occupants was falsely reported, but the other party did not check it, and the reporter successfully got the key to move in.
Opening the door, the reporter saw that the layout of the house was completely disrupted, the original bedroom was partitioned, and it became 4 small rooms for rent, and the original corridor became a narrow aisle, which was full of cartons, water bottles and other sundries, which could only accommodate one person. The room where the reporter lived was only five or six square meters plus a third of the balcony, with half a bottle of water left by the previous guests on the heating pipe, uncleaned take-out boxes on the ground, and uncleaned blood stains on the quilts and pillows on the bed.
On the B&B App, the single room is 15 square meters to 20 square meters of double bed room, which is fully furnished and spacious and bright from the photos.
In the comment area, the reporter found that there were many bad reviews. The landlord's response to this was that the price was cheap enough and some problems were normal.
Subsequently, the reporter added the landlord as a friend with another identity information and said that he wanted to rent a house, and said that he forgot to bring his ID card and could not take pictures.
In a daily rental hotel in Jinnan District, Tianjin, after the reporter placed an order on a homestay app and added the landlord's social account, the other party directly told the reporter the room number without any verification and registration of the tenant's identity information.
The reporter searched for keywords in the form of a combination of "place name + rent", and randomly selected 15 bloggers who rented daily rents in the search results, with addresses distributed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Shenyang, Liaoning, Langfang, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Xi'an, Shaanxi and other places, some are a complete rent, and some can provide a single room for rent, with prices ranging from 20 yuan a day to 250 yuan a day.
The reporter consulted the above-mentioned daily rental landlords, most of them said that their houses were vacant, and a few said that they "specialize in homestays and can provide daily rental houses in many local locations". For example, when asked by reporters, the "orange" in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, directly indicated that he was a real estate agent, and he had properties from all over Xi'an, both long-term and short-term rentals, and "the price was definitely lower than that of local hotels."
When the reporter asked as a tenant to rent a daily rental room for a party of friends, except for one person who asked for noise, number of people, and hygiene problems, all the landlords said that there was no problem. After further communication, only 3 of the 15 landlords made it clear that they wanted to sign a contract and ask the tenant to provide personal information such as ID cards, and the others did not ask for identity registration.
After the reporter contacted the above 15 landlords through social platforms, they all asked the reporter to add their private chat accounts for follow-up communication. After transferring to a private chat channel, you can trade directly on the chat app as a private transfer.
In the investigation, the reporter found that "contactless check-in" is very common in daily rental housing, from check-in to check-out, the landlord and tenant do not need to meet, transfer money to move in, and identity registration is also missing.
The risk of operating without a license is exposed
There is a lack of protection for sanitation and fire protection
The reporter saw in a number of daily rental houses that in order to facilitate the use, the electrical facilities of many daily rental houses are not standardized, and the wires are randomly connected; the gas equipment of some daily rental houses is aging and easy to leak, and the electrical wires are aging and exposed; many daily rental houses are not equipped with fire-fighting equipment, or the fire-fighting facilities are expired and invalid; and the evacuation passages and room corridors of some daily rental houses are blocked by debris.
According to the relevant provisions, where a residential house is rented, a bedroom or living room (hall) designed as a living space in accordance with the residential design specifications shall be used as a small rental unit, and it shall not be rented out after being separated and built;
When the reporter asked the landlord to show the health and fire permits, some landlords were very wary and said that it was inconvenient to check them, and some said that they had not heard of these certificates.
So, do I need to obtain relevant documents to operate a daily rental house?
Yang Qinfa, director of the Institute of Real Estate Policy and Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, told reporters that first of all, it is necessary to make it clear that there are significant differences in the mainland's management rules for hotel business activities and ordinary housing leasing activities: according to the "Measures for the Administration of Public Security in the Hotel Industry" and other regulations, the hotel industry needs to obtain the "Hotel Industry Special Industry License", that is, the hotel industry belongs to the franchise model, and it needs to obtain the license of the public security organ and the certificate of the fire department before it can operate;
"From the perspective of the core characteristics of daily rental housing, which pays rent on a daily basis and has a high turnover of tenants, such business activities are essentially equivalent to hotel business activities, and most of the judicial precedents characterize daily rental as hotels. However, the private daily rental business activities usually use the operator's own residential housing to carry out daily rental activities, and due to the restrictions on the nature of the house, the scale of the house, the building structure, etc., it is often difficult to meet the corresponding requirements of the hotel industry, so it is impossible to obtain the hotel business license. In the state of long-term unlicensed operation, it is difficult for the administrative authorities to supervise them, and the social risks caused by daily rental housing cannot be effectively controlled, especially in the aspects of public security, fire protection, sanitation, etc., and relevant operators may also face administrative penalties from the public security organs for operating without a license. Yang Qinfa said.
Negligence in regulatory review is a matter of seconds
Violations and crimes are frequent
In the investigation, the reporter found that it is very simple to register as a day rental operator. In a number of short-term rental reservation platforms based on homestays, if you want to hang your house on the platform for operation, you mainly fill in personal identity information and housing information, such as address, real estate certificate, etc., and there are no relevant business license requirements. The explanation given by the platform is "filing and registration in accordance with local policies", and some staff of the market supervision department said that some places do not specifically stipulate that homestays must apply for licenses. And the photos of the house and the size of the room, even if they are uploaded from the materials found on the Internet, they can be passed in "seconds".
The lack of checks on daily rental housing has caused many neighbors in the same building to complain. Ms. Hao, from Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, lives in a two-family house, and her neighbor opposite her has converted the house into a daily rental house. "I haven't seen the owner himself, almost every week different people come to stay, the most exaggerated one is a group of boys, there must be seven or eight people, it seems to be a party in the room, and the music is non-stop all night. Our family didn't sleep well all night. ”
Due to the lack of supervision, some daily rental houses have also been used by criminals as places to hide dirt and dirt, and cases of rape, prostitution, drug use, and telecommunication fraud often occur in daily rental houses.
At the beginning of this year, Wang Moumou of Yichang, Hubei Province, provided him with a rented house located in Majiadian Street, Zhijiang City, for Zhou and Li to engage in prostitution activities, and Wang Moumou took a commission of 30 yuan each time and provided convenience for him, and finally Wang Moumou was sentenced to 9 months in prison and fined 5,000 yuan for the crime of accommodating prostitution.
In July this year, the police in Linqing, Shandong Province, smashed a criminal gang that laundered money for gambling platforms, arrested more than 100 people, and the amount involved was as high as 2.5 billion yuan. The suspect usually lives in a daily rental house, organizes "running scores" for the online gambling platform, and changes the daily rental house from time to time in order to escape the crackdown of the public security organs.
Recently, Xiao Liu, a minor in Chengde, Hebei Province, added the other party's social account after seeing the rental information of the daily rental house in the "circle of friends", and after paying the rent, the other party told him the address and household password and did not verify the identity information.
The reporter's investigation found that most of the problematic daily rental houses mainly attract customers by posting private rental posts on social platforms, and then transferring the transaction to a more private one-on-one chat session. Is there a problem with this kind of "daily rental" transaction that is carried out privately without going through the filing of a special platform?
According to Xie Shu, an associate professor at the School of Criminal Justice at China University of Political Science and Law, there are great hidden dangers and drawbacks in this private transaction.
"Without the platform record review, on the one hand, it is difficult to confirm the identity of the tenant, resulting in the daily rental house is very easy to become a place for criminals, once the high-risk elements move in, not only will affect the investigation and monitoring of the public security organs, but also pose a threat to the safety of the surrounding residents; Moreover, there is often no formal lease contract in this transaction model, so it will be difficult for the victim to protect his or her legitimate rights and interests in the event of a dispute. Xie Shu said that this kind of private transaction will also involve tax evasion and unfair competition.
If a tenant uses a daily rental to engage in illegal activities, will the landlord and the B&B app also be held liable for this?
Zhang Zhongkai, founding partner of Beijing Gaojie Pengkai Law Firm, believes that whether or not to bear legal liability needs to be analyzed in different situations.
"For business operators, if they know that tenants are using daily rental houses to engage in illegal activities and fail to take reasonable measures, such as stopping or calling the police, they may be subject to administrative penalties. If the landlord is not clear about the purpose of the criminal's rent, does not receive the corresponding benefits, and simply fails to perform the inspection obligation, it is generally not appropriate to find that he should bear the responsibility of the joint crime. For online service platforms, they should strictly comply with the provisions of the law and local regulations and other normative documents, and strictly perform the registration and review obligations of housing information, tenant identities, and contact information, otherwise they may be subject to administrative penalties for failing to fulfill their obligations. Zhang Zhongkai said.
Establish a market access system
Improve information collection and registration
The "Shanghai Housing Leasing Regulations", which came into effect on February 1 this year, regulates and restricts individuals engaged in housing rental business activities for profit, as well as housing rental enterprises, real estate brokerage institutions, and relevant practitioners.
In September this year, the Weihai Municipal Public Security Bureau of Shandong Province issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Public Security Management of Online Short-term Rental Housing", which clearly requires that online short-term rental accommodation personnel should truthfully provide and register personal identity information.
Recently, the Public Security Bureau of Weichang County, Chengde City, Hebei Province launched a special action to rectify daily rental housing (online rental housing), and issued the "Announcement of the Public Security Bureau of Weichang Manchu and Mongolian Autonomous County on Strengthening the Management of Daily Rental Housing (Online Rental Housing)" to the public. The special operation punished 26 illegal operators of daily rental houses, and 16 daily rental operators took the initiative to register with the public security organs, and the illegal and criminal situation in daily rental houses was significantly curbed.
Although many places have formulated a series of management measures related to online housing and daily rental housing, why does the chaos in the daily rental housing market still exist?
Xie Shu believes that this phenomenon is caused by a variety of reasons. First of all, most of the relevant provisions of daily rental housing are scattered in normative documents, and there is no systematic and scientific regulation of daily rental activities, and most of these provisions are relatively abstract and general, so the actual implementation and operability of the existing regulations are not ideal. In practice, it is difficult for the government to supervise and intervene, and the grassroots public security police force is limited, so it is impossible to comprehensively inspect whether there is a phenomenon of illegal daily rental housing in the whole jurisdiction, and the enthusiasm of the masses to supervise this is not high. Daily rental housing transactions often take the form of online, the transactions are relatively hidden, and the supervision of relevant platforms is not strict, which makes it difficult for relevant government departments to intervene.
"The second is the mismatch between high yields and low costs of violating the law. Compared with long-term rental housing, the rental income of daily rental housing is relatively high, and the punishment of non-compliant entities in the relevant regulations is often limited to administrative penalties, and there are few cases in which non-compliant business entities are actually punished in practice, so the cost of violating the law is insignificant. Finally, there is the need for the short-term rental market. From the perspective of market demand, daily rental housing does meet the needs of many groups including tourism, medical treatment, and business trips, so it is not realistic to eliminate daily rental housing. Xie Shu said.
How can we create a safe, convenient and standardized market environment for daily rental housing?
Yang Qinfa believes that in order to strengthen the regulation and management of the daily rental housing market, the law should clearly stipulate the management, supervision and legal consequences of tenants and operators. In view of the large demand in the daily rental housing market, the information registration system for daily rental housing residents should be improved. When checking in, the tenant should refer to the hotel's check-in management regulations and fill in the check-in registration book, including the tenant's ID number, mobile phone number, check-in time and check-out time and other important information. Business operators shall report the above-mentioned information collected to the local police station for the record. In addition, the public security personnel of the local police station should assume a high duty of care, regularly inspect and surprise spot check the daily, monthly and quarterly operations of daily rental housing, and investigate and deal with them in a timely manner when there is a large change in the operation of rental housing on the same day, so as to make the management of daily rental housing more safe and standardized.
"It is necessary to set up entry thresholds for business operators. At present, the daily rental housing market is becoming more and more prosperous, and operators are driving profits to join the ranks of the daily rental housing market. In order to eliminate the chaos in the daily rental housing market at the root, it is necessary to establish a complete market access system, set up a standardized threshold for entering the daily rental housing market, establish a corresponding qualification examination system for business operators, and have the real estate management department examine the houses of the operators and issue business licenses and housing lease certificates to the business operators who meet the regulations; the local public security departments, health and epidemic prevention departments, and fire departments shall examine the public security, health and fire safety of the business premises, and issue special industry business licenses to the operators who meet the standards. At the same time, the network platform should implement online monitoring with the public security department for the operators who have settled in, so as to facilitate more efficient and orderly management. Yang Qinfa said that on the basis of the above-mentioned laws and regulations, the rights and obligations of operators are clearly stipulated, and the daily rental houses that violate the relevant regulations or do not meet the corresponding standards should be disposed of and rectified in a timely manner, and publicized to the public, so as to provide reference value for tenants when choosing a house.
He also proposed that the management of daily rental housing should be put on the track of rule of law. On the one hand, it is necessary to build a three-dimensional institutional system from the national to the local. At the national level, the State Council shall establish a unified normative document for the management of public security of daily rental housing, and regulate the core issues of the daily rental housing market by improving administrative regulations, such as the subject of public security management of daily rental housing, the scope of management, and the content of supervision. At the local level, local governments can formulate local government rules based on the upper-level law, taking into account the chaos of the local daily rental housing market and the operation of the existing system, so as to ensure the legality and safety of daily rental housing. On the other hand, through carrying out legal publicity activities such as popularizing the law in the community, we encourage surrounding residents to actively participate in the supervision of the daily rental housing market, organize and carry out legal education for operators and tenants, and guard against the fact that daily rental housing has become a "hotbed" for juveniles to break the law and protect their legitimate rights and interests.
Author|Rule of Law Daily All-Media Reporter Zhang Shoukun Sun Tianjiao
![Laughing to death, tourists questioned the seaside shower, men and women without partitions mixed washing, and netizens boiled after the scenic spot responded[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)