Conservative-led Westminster Council has welcomed the Labour government’s scheme to stamp out illegal short-term lets in social housing.
An agreement between letting platform Airbnb and the Cabinet Office, announced earlier this month, will allow local councils to check social housing records against holiday-let listings to identify properties being exploited by fraudsters.
Illegal listings will be removed, and culprits can face eviction, fines, and up to two years imprisonment.
An estimated 5,800 social-rented homes are suspected of being illegally sublet on short-term rental platforms in England — a fraction of the total number of homes being let out in breach of planning regulations.
Over 450,000 properties nationwide will be covered by the data-sharing partnership between Airbnb and the participating local authorities, which includes Westminster Council.
“Westminster has seen the worrying proliferation of short term lets over several years and has continued to call for platforms to share the data needed to stop people profiting at the expense of our residents,” said Cllr Paul Swaddle, leader of Westminster Council.
“For too long, a minority of operators have been allowed to break the rules, leaving us to deal with housing loss, fly tipping and noise nuisance.
“This agreement is an important first step and demonstrates what can be achieved when we work together.
“I have already had a productive meeting with senior executives from Airbnb who recognise the seriousness of the issue and have pledged to address our concerns. Other platforms now need to step up,” he said.
The initiative was brought about by the Starmer Labour government, and its Cabinet office minister Satvir Kaur said: “By working with Airbnb, we’re sending a crystal clear message: if you’re cheating the social housing system, we will find you and we will prosecute you.”
Lisa Marçais, general manager for UKI, Northern Europe, and MEA, Airbnb, said: “Social housing fraud has no place on Airbnb.
“We’re proud to have driven the first ever data-sharing agreement of this kind in partnership with the Cabinet Office and local authorities across the country, but to truly tackle this problem we need the entire short term rental industry to follow suit and participate in this initiative.
“We remain committed to swiftly removing confirmed fraudulent listings and have a clear, established process for councils to flag issues with properties listed on Airbnb.”
Airbnb had previously refused to share information with local authorities, citing data protection laws. But Kensington and Chelsea council won a High Court Order in 2022 compelling the holiday-let platform to disclose the information in order to tackle crime.
However, Suzanne Muna of Social Housing Action Campaign (Shac), called the initiative a “smokescreen”.
“Of course we agree that these homes should be exclusively held for those in urgent need of housing, but the Cabinet Office’s focus on the tiny proportion that are rented out as short-term lets by the original tenants is a calculated distraction,” she told The Planner.
“It is a smokescreen for ignoring the thousands of homes that housing associations convert to temporary accommodations and then price gouge the rents because rents are unregulated for this type of property.
“These conversions result in an industrial-scale expropriation of public funds into the hands of private landlords, which includes housing associations. But if government were to acknowledge the practice, it would have to take on the big, powerful landlords. Instead, they find it easier to target the temporary lets by tenants, even though this happens on such a negligible scale, it really makes very little impact on the acute housing crisis.”
In 2020 Westminster Council took action against a right-to-buy leaseholder who was listing a property on Airbnb and Booking.com in breach of the lease agreement.
The much larger problem of illegal short-letting in the private sector — when a property is let out on a short-term basis for more than 90 days in any year without planning permission — is not covered by the agreement between the government and Airbnb.
More than 50 per cent of the 117,000 short-term lets listed across London in 2024 were booked for more than 90 days in a year, meaning they were in breach of regulations.
The government is expected to announce a new short-term let property register scheme later this year after the previous Conservative government held a public consultation in 2023 on a registration scheme.
However, local people have told The Fitzrovia News that the government is dragging its feet on bringing in the legislation, allowing widespread abuse of private housing to continue unabated across both the London Borough of Camden and the City of Westminster.
Report suspected illegal short-term letting to Westminster Council.
Report suspected illegal short-term letting to Camden Council.
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