Councillors have backed a crackdown on rogue landlords who let their properties on websites such as Airbnb but dodge tax and business rates and breach fire regulations and health and safety laws.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet agreed to lobby the government for the power to licence landlords and called on ministers to change planning rules.
The cabinet wants a clearer idea of the extent of the sector in Brighton and Hove where thousands of properties are advertised on short-term holiday letting sites.
But several councillors also said that holiday lets met some tourists’ needs even as they took homes out of the market when thousands were on the council’s housing waiting list.
Labour council leader Bella Sankey said: “It is important we work together with the sector to build a better picture of the local situation (and) lobby government for more powers to help manage it.”
Councillor Sankey spoke of a need to “do all we can to make sure we’re striking the right balance between supporting our important visitor economy and minimising any negative impact on our residents”.
Deputy leader Jacob Taylor said that it was ludicrous when hotels and guesthouses were used as temporary housing when they should be putting up tourists and other visitors.
Meanwhile, houses were being used as holiday lets when they were desperately needed as family homes
Councillor Taylor said: “We have one of the worst housing crises in the entire country. We have thousands of people on the housing waiting list. We have hundreds of families in temporary accommodation.
“And we have families moving out of the city (and) graduates and people starting their careers are moving out because they just can’t afford to live here.
“We are not anti-tourist. That’s not what we’re saying. We want to get the right balance … but we don’t know what the right balance is because we don’t have the data.”
Labour councillor Amanda Evans, who chairs the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee, led a task and finish group that contacted councils across the country to learn how they dealt with the effects of holiday lets.
The task and finish group highlighted the lack of data. It found up to 6,000 homes advertised as holiday lets in Brighton and Hove on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com but just 400 were registered as businesses.
She said: “There are a lot of people who are breaking current law and maybe are not even aware they’re breaking current law.
“They’re not registered as businesses. They’re not paying business rates or business taxes or (making) business waste disposal arrangements.
“But they’re not aware of that necessarily – and we don’t know where they are to enforce legislation.”
Next month, a bill – or draft law – promoted by the Labour MP for York, Rachael Maskell, is due to be debated in the House of Commons.
If the bill becomes law, it would license and regulate the sector, with Councillor Evans saying that the MP had estimated the current free-for-all left a £6 billion tax shortfall.
She urged the council’s cabinet to use the City Plan, a strategic planning policy document, to bring in controls – and members agreed to gather evidence with a view to coming up with ways to do this.
Ideas included planning conditions to prevent new homes or conversions from being used as holiday lets as well as zones were lets were permitted or restricted or prohibited.
Councillor Evans said that there was little point in building a million new homes if they were just going to be used as short-term lets in tourist areas.
She added that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had asked for the council’s report to help inform the government’s own research.
Labour councillor Birgit Miller, the council’s cabinet member for culture, heritage and tourism, said that there was not a level playing field at the moment.
Councillor Miller said: “It is very much tilted in favour of unregistered, unsupervised short-term let providers who are not complying with legislation, who are not providing a safe and secure space for their guests.
“Those 400 registered businesses plus the hotels and guesthouses are being penalised for the fact they are paying business rates and disposing of their waste appropriately.”
Labour councillor Gill Williams, the council’s cabinet member for housing and new homes, said that a local snapshot 18 months ago suggested that were more than 4,000 Airbnbs available at any given time – and 75 per cent were whole homes.
Councillor Williams said: “That’s a huge amount of homes that people could live in. We’re dealing with over 2,000 people who came to us (the council) for help with potential homelessness.”
The cabinet agreed to push for planning changes, for licensing powers and to try to ensure a fairer deal on tax, business rates, insurance, safety measures, parking and rubbish collection.
So people who are on council housing waiting list can afford to rent or buy properties used for Airbnb ? Good to see such a firm grip on financial reality exhibited by our councillors.
The council doesn’t need more legislation. Already, if any neighbour is not happy with an AirBnB being in their building or next door they can contact the council and the council can issue an enforcement closure notice as under Policy DM2 of the City Plan Part Two residential C3 properties cannot be turned into holiday lets legally without planning permission due to an existing citywide directive.
The link to report an AirBnB and to the council to close it down is here and a video of how the council will then close down an AirBnB is also on this https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/planning/planning-enforcement
Jane, the issue isn’t whether planning policy technically prohibits certain Airbnbs; it’s that without mandatory registration, the council doesn’t even know where most of them are. That makes it nearly impossible to enforce planning rules or safety standards proactively. Makes sense, right?
In 2024/25, B&H was estimated to have between 2,000 and 6,000 short-term lets, yet only 443 were paying business rates. That’s a huge gap in regulation, taxation, and public safety. Fire services can’t inspect properties they don’t know exist. Without registration, most STLs are invisible to Environmental, ESFR, and even the Planning Enforcement team.
Even if neighbours complain, enforcement is slow, complex, and under-resourced. Other councils like Blackpool and Westminster have said that planning enforcement without a registration or licensing scheme is burdensome and rarely effective.
So I respectfully disagree, and would suggest that absolutely, the council needs more legislation.
If only there was somewhere that you could see these short-term lets advertised. Oh wait, there is! It can’t be that hard to identify them. Hopefully many will work with the council, or get bad PR. But those that don’t, just use their own listings to identify.
As the claim is that many don’t pay tax, then work with HMRC to check the other way.
All of this involves some resource and effort. But licences, as has been shown with renting, waste transfer and other areas don’t fix everything.
AirDNA? Yeah, it shows vague areas where they are until you actually make a booking. The rest is local reporting. I’m reminded of of the Marina Groups who infamously said one time that “no AirBNBs are in the Marina”.
It’s a great joke. Top shelf.
Brighton is a very popular place to live and work. This will increase demand for places to rent and buy. Making life more difficult for aIR b and B owners will merely scratch the surface of the problem. Building new homes around the perimeter of the city will provide more affordable accommodation but there is no means by which people can be given the right to live in central areas cheaply. Until you are more established financially you must accept modest housing in a central area or alternatively, move further out where you will get more for your money. We would all like to live somewhere we could walk or cycle for ten minutes to get into work but that is not realistic if you want a sizeable place to live. Brighton and Hove is not the quaint, compact modestly priced town it was once. It is a small city with high demand for almost everything and prices to suit. Many Brightonians have moved out to Shoreham, Hassocks and other places but prices have risen here too. I appreciate that is not ideal for many but you have to be realistic.
I am not sure it ever was. When I first bought here decades ago all my neighbours had hefty London salaries to be able to support their flat purchases. Rent was lower but rent prices have been driven higher by the removal and sale of so many buy to let properties caused by the abolition of section 21 and the government wanting to tax landlords so highly that they no longer wish to rent out properties.
“Councillors have backed a crackdown on rogue landlords who let their properties on websites such as Airbnb but dodge tax and business rates and breach fire regulations and health and safety laws.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s cabinet agreed to lobby the government for the power to licence landlords”
Wow. So we have Airbnb’s now that are dangerous and the council is proposing asking the government for licences – something that will take years. Talk about dodging your responsibility. Councils have current powers, indeed duties, to enforce. So why not do this now? If (or when) there is an issue and people are injured or die, what is the position of the council?
B&H council – use the powers you have. Use them now. Protect people. Don’t be distracted by asking for more when you are not using the powers you already have!
I’d love to know on what evidence the council thinks these properties breach fire and health and safety laws. Most private sector landlord are very on to their legal responsibilities and it appears that council run properties that feature most heavily in the papers with dreadful issues.
This is one fairly high profile example
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2016/11/30/four-guests-injured-in-brighton-balcony-collapse-fight-airbnb-for-compensation/
I am not sure this was a breach of health and safety legislation though. Balconies do collapse if you stick plenty of people on them and there are hundreds of rental flats let out with balconies. It was definitely a building lease and insurance agreement but this is up to the directors of the freehold company of the building to pursue and not the Council. The council is not proposing in any of of their plans to do anything that would have prevented this balcony collapse or would have helped the other people in the building in this instance. Any others in Brighton? As when I look through the papers I see lots of council health and safety breaches in properties and actually no AirBnB breaches. I am not suggesting there are none I am just suggesting that to imply this is a big issue with no evidence seems odd.
Plenty of examples out there that show that is not the case, Kate. Here are a few more recent ones.
Clinton, NY (2024) – A mother and her 1-year-old baby died in an Airbnb fire. Investigators found no working smoke alarms. The hosts were later charged with manslaughter.
Old Montreal (2023) – A deadly blaze in a heritage building killed 7 people, most of whom were Airbnb guests. The property was operating without registration or proper safety measures.
Destin, Florida (2024) – A fire broke out overnight in an Airbnb. A family of 8 escaped using the balcony, as no alarms went off. They lost their phones, IDs, and had burns and cuts.
Henley Beach, Australia (2022) – An Airbnb exploded due to being used as a meth lab, causing $1.4 million in damage.
Grose Vale, Australia (2024) – A firefighter died responding to a fire in an Airbnb after being struck by a falling beam.
Wilmington, USA (2024) – A kitchen fire caused serious damage to an Airbnb on Mead Street.
I think it’s a bit difficult to say B&H council should be responsible for these as not in the UK!
I agree that there are similar risks and potential issues here. The council can act now. It knows where these premises are. It could even do initial checks online using renters own websites and target enforcement. If there are that many “rogue” Airbnb’s etc, then fines could make this self-sufficient?
Absolutely. These examples show exactly what can happen in an unregulated market. There are plenty of cases in the UK too; fires, unsafe conditions, missing alarms, and just like we’ve seen with other unregulated products (vapes, e-scooters, etc.) that literally explode when there’s no oversight.
The key issue is that the council doesn’t know where these properties are. Without a registration scheme, there’s no baseline to even begin proactive enforcement. You can’t fine what you can’t find.
That’s why licensing makes sense. Councils like Blackpool are already using enforcement fines and planning penalties to reduce rogue short-term lets. With proper registration and licensing, fines could absolutely help fund enforcement teams and make the system largely self-sustaining.
I’m not sure if it’s dawned on you, but if you have cite examples from all over the world to make your point it would suggest the frequency of occurrence is actually very low.
Hasty generalisation, false equivalence, and argument from ignorance…going for the hat-trick today, Atticus?
I didn’t misrepresent global frequency; I cited real, recent examples of what happens when short-term lets operate without oversight. These aren’t rare because we lack registration; they’re underreported, untracked, and often only surface after something goes wrong. I hope that dawns on you.
But since you’re not convinced, here’s a local batch to beat the dead horse further:
Devon (2017) – An Airbnb was branded a “death-trap”: no alarms, no emergency lighting, fire extinguishers decades out of date. Host fined £6k.
In 2024 a holiday let fire caused over £20k in damage—insurance covered only £10k. No fire risk assessment and insufficient cover turned a small blaze into a serious financial nightmare.
Manchester (2023) – Three deaths in a short-let fire. It prompted new legislation.
London (2024) – A TikTok user documented her Airbnb burning down.
Kent Fire & Rescue – Now mandates fire risk assessments for all Airbnb-style rentals.
These aren’t hypotheticals. They’re the consequence of letting commercial businesses masquerade as private homes without checks. Brighton needs registration and licensing; just on safety grounds, never mind fairness. If they’re running as businesses, they should be treated like businesses.
Just to prove you can, in fact, reply to my comments, I’ll leave one here. “Disabled replies”? That’s a new one.
Your latest post hits all the hallmarks: classic ad hominem, misrepresenting evidence, whataboutism, ironic use of the strawman accusation, and a conspiratorial framing that borders on paranoia.
Atticus, the point wasn’t that Airbnbs are always private homes; it’s that they exploit their classification as private residences to evade regulation. That’s not a strawman; it’s a documented reality.
If you’re genuinely concerned about housing conditions in Brighton, as you appear to be in other comment threads, then surely you’d agree that all accommodation must meet basic safety standards.
You dismiss examples from across the UK, but they illustrate exactly the kind of loopholes that regulation is designed to address. Pretending the issue doesn’t exist unless it’s on your street helps no one.
And if it’s local evidence you want, here’s some. In July 2016, a balcony collapsed at an Airbnb on Montpelier Road. Several guests were seriously injured: one was impaled on a railing, and another suffered spinal and pelvic fractures. And in 2018, a report by East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service found that many short-term lets in Brighton lacked fire risk assessments, had no escape routes or alarms, and were often in unsafe converted buildings.
Finally, no; I don’t need to “reveal who I am” to make a valid, well-supported point. The facts speak for themselves.
For some reason Benjamin has removed the reply option on his comments. I suppose like many in local politics, he’s not that keen on being scrutinised.
As for his comment; laughable. He’s provided four ‘local’ examples to shore up his case. Local, as in Manchester, Devon, London. no mention of where the other one is from. No mention of the several thousand rental properties in Brighton and Hove owned and run by BHCC who were found to have serious safety omissions such as no fire risk assessments, no current electrical safety certificates etc.
The rest of his comment is essentially a masterclass in deflection and ‘straw mannery.’
“These aren’t hypotheticals. They’re the consequence of letting commercial businesses masquerading as private homes”….. Since when was an Air B’n’B a private home? By definition it is a short term let. And he accuses me of false equivalency.
Benjamin.. stop masquerading as a regular reader/commenter and tell us who and what you are. Do you really think your political bias and motivations are being hidden whilst in plain sight?
Atticus, you have used this site longer than me, and know full well that when a comment chain reaches a certain number of replies, you can’t go further.
Unfortunately, your lack of knowledge isn’t evidence of a conspiracy.
And in regards to your challenge on my statement about AirBnBs, I agree. They are businesses.
And business should follow business regulation and legalisation, and be taxed business rates, because as we have just agreed. They are business rates.
I think the interesting thing is there is almost no evidence to demonstrate a health and safety risk in AirBnBs. Evidence of two fires in two properties in the UK have been produced which aren’t even in Brighton over seven years. How many fires in long term lets or hotels in Brighton alone? How many in council Brighton run properties. What about the same figures since 2017 nationwide. Perhaps we are looking at this all wrong and council properties should be licensed and we should be paying AirBnB inspection companies to license and inspect them to bring them up to standard of AirBnBs if the percentage of issues is higher?
Kate, the issue isn’t the number of fires; it’s that Airbnb often evade even basic safety checks required of other housing. Long-term rentals, hotels, and council homes are already regulated. The fact that some council housing may also have issues doesn’t justify leaving short-term lets unregulated. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and regulation should raise standards across the board, not allow loopholes.
If a guest is paying hotel-like rates, they deserve hotel-level safety. To do that, they need registration and regulation. That’s the core of the argument.
Active Airbnbs make up 1.7% of homes in Brighton & Hove. Give your heads a wobble
The actual figure is closer to 3%, nearly double that. This also doesn’t account for how concentrated these listings are in tourist-heavy areas, where the impact is far greater than the citywide average might suggest.