Consultation to short-term rental initiative

In addition, it should be thoroughly examined to what extent the existing regulations (DAC7 Directive, VAT Directive) already contain data sharing obligations for platforms that cover desired information. Multiple transmission of reports with the same or highly similar content on the basis of different laws should be avoided and minimized as much as possible. We also believe that the data reports and requests should be designed in uniform and standardized format across the European Union in order to ease the administrative impact and compliance with the regulation.

We further believe that the individual capabilities of differently sized companies should be taken into account, so that exemption rules for small companies are included. Otherwise, smaller companies, for which processing a large number of inquiries would quickly represent a resource burden difficult to bear, might be forced out of the market or prevented from entering it.

In addition, the introduction of any data sharing obligation should provide sufficient legal certainty for the transfer of data. Especially in light of the GDPR, a clear legal basis for the collection and use of data is, not least due to liability reasons, indispensable for companies. It should also be ensured that data sharing requests of official authorities are compliant with existing EU law, as we have become aware of instances in which authorities made collective requests to companies, which are not permissible within the framework of the GDPR.

Finally, we believe that it is essential that new data sharing obligations provide the platforms with an adequate amount of time to sufficiently implement the requirements.

Common Registration Scheme

The European Commission explicitly mentions the possibility of a ‘common registration scheme’ for landlords, who want to rent out living space on a short-term basis, as well as the introduction of an obligation to publish corresponding offers with a mandatory registration number. Such an obligation could either be introduced for all landlords renting out living space on a short-term basis or could be restricted to landlords renting out in areas where short-term rental is already regulated in a special form.

From our point of view, the option of introducing an area-wide registration obligation, decoupled from authorization processes and irrespective of the location of the rental space, appears preferable for two reasons. First, such a unified regulation helps small and medium-sized companies that avail of fewer resources to also participate in the market – even across different regions and countries. If such a registration obligation, however, were introduced in a regionally differentiated – i.e. fragmented – form, the high degree of legislative fragmentation of the numerous regions of the Member States would pose a considerable administrative burden, that would hardly be manageable for SMEs. A nationwide registration obligation, on the other hand, would considerably reduce the regulatory and administrative strain.

Second, the establishment of an area-wide registration obligation offers the advantage that knowledge on the STR market would significantly be expanded through the data gained, providing legislators with a well-founded overview of the number of overnight stays and bookings that take place in a city or region. The gained transparency can enhance and ease evidence-based regulatory decisions.

We further emphasize that such a registration scheme should be separate from authorization processes. By reason of proportionality and to keep bureaucratic efforts for authorities as well as for peers or professional operators on a low level, the instrument of authorization requirements should only be used locally and only as long and to the extent that evidence-based problems in those regions were identified.

The introduction of a ‘common registration scheme’ should also adhere to the established principle of platforms not being obliged to verify whether the registration numbers provided by users are legitimate. Changing this principle would not only push forward the problematic outsourcing of sovereign verification tasks to private companies, but the additional expense caused by the expansion of responsibility would also place a considerable burden on already challenged companies.

Among and within the Member States of the European Union a high degree of fragmentation in regards to registration obligations, as well as the registration process per se, exists. In order to keep the administrative hurdles as low as possible whereby compliance would be increased, the introduction of a registration obligation should be designed in such a way that a uniform, central, easily accessible and non-discriminatory online application for the registration is established across the European Union. This registration system should preferably be established in a central office at national but ideally at EU level and should consist of a common standard, as a pronounced divergence between the application systems would run counter to the purpose and objective of the Commission’s regulation. Best practice examples of successful and user-friendly systems include the system currently being used in Portugal and the opt-in system of the Netherlands.

With kind regards,

Michael Buller

Chairman – Verband Internet Reisevertrieb e.V. (VIR)