State Government introduces annual registration for owners of short-stay properties like Airbnb accommodation

Airbnb owners will have to pay an initial $250 registration fee — plus $100 annually — but Commerce Minister Sue Ellery said the charges were “not a large amount” compared to the money short-stay accommodation owners were making. The State Government on Tuesday night legislated to establish a registry of short-term accommodation, such as Airbnbs, that will be used by State and local governments to monitor the industry and its impact on long-term rentals. Ms Ellery said there would be a $250 fee to register a short-stay property, followed by an annual $100 fee to keep the property registered. The scheme is expected to start in July and operators can avoid paying the initial $250 if they sign up during the initial three-month fee-free period, designed to encourage early uptake. All short stays must be registered by the start of 2025 and operators must use their registration number in all advertisements. The minister denied the fees were about revenue-raising or an attempt to penalise short-stay accommodation operators, and insisted they were affordable. “We just want to cover costs (of administering the registry). So this is not a kind of exercise in raking in buckets of money. This is about covering the cost of doing it,” Ms Ellery said. “But secondly, $250 a year and $100 to renew is not a large amount of money when you look at the kind of overnight fees that have been charged by many short term accommodation providers.” The registration applies to regardless of whether the short-term accommodation is hosted — such as where only a room is rented out or at a bread and breakfast — or ‘unhosted,’ where the owner is not present during the guest’s stay. Ms Ellery said the registration was part of a package of reforms to manage “the impact that short term rental accommodation is having on long term rental accommodation”. The Government last year announced $10,000 payments for short-term property operators to make their homes available for long-term renters for at least 12 months. Ms Ellery said the registry was “very important” because short term rental accommodation providers had not been willing to release information to policymakers “about the extent and the spread of short term rental accommodation”. “It’s not possible to get accurate information in any other way, other than to ask the individual owners of short term rental accommodation to provide us with the details about where their home is,” she said. “What that means is that planners — both in local government and State government — will then be able to make ongoing policy into the future on the basis of real evidence.” The Government also passed its Residential Tenancies Amendment bill on Tuesday, banning rent-bidding, limiting rent increases to once a year and allowing tenants to keep pets and make minor modifications. But it does not ban no-grounds evictions, despite all other State and Territories having banned them or prepared legislation to do so. Ms Ellery said WA had the” tightest and record low number of vacancies of anywhere in the country” and the Government did not want to put obstacles in the way of landlords putting properties on the market. Secret shoppers will enforce the ban on rent-bidding and real estate agents caught breaking the law could face fines of up to $10,000 in the Magistrates Court. The passage of the rental bills comes as shadow housing spokesman Steve Martin blasted the Government after the number of applicants on the public housing waitlist jumped passed 20,000. “The waitlist of 20,132 applicants represents 35,924 vulnerable Western Australians waiting for a house to live in,” the Liberal MLC said. Housing Minister John Carey said the waitlist was higher, and at a record of 24,000, under the Barnett Government. “In very tight rental markets, people seek the assurance of being on the public housing waiting lists,” Mr Carey said. “So even the Opposition has acknowledged the majority of people on that waiting list do have accommodation or a house, but they’re seeking assurance.” Mr Carey said the Government was taking the housing and rental market “seriously” and had introduced a raft of measures, while the Liberals and Nationals had failed to announce a policy since they lost Government in 2017. The Liberals voted against the Rental Tenancies Bill but supported the establishment of a short-stay registry. Shadow treasurer Neil Thomson said the tenancies bill would make it harder for “mum and dad investors who own properties which they rent” and would discourage investment in the rental market at a time when it was desperately needed. Mr Martin said the bill would not add a single home to the housing market and criticised the establishment of secret shoppers. “It’s already crowded at home opens and now we have Government employees turning up to snoop on landlords, apparently,” he said. “That’s just another attack on landlords from this Labor Government. It’s hard enough attracting people to invest in rental properties and now we will have Government employees somehow attempting to trick landlords.”