Lay My Hat

Anyone else had this email from HomeAway about "registration"? If so, what are you doing about it, if anything? (NB: same email says they'll be collecting taxe de sejour from Jan 1st)

"The French authorities have requested us to implement changes to how you list your property on HomeAway to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

Maximum number of nights rented

One of those changes is a 120-night limit for properties considered as primary homes and has asked vacation-rental platforms like HomeAway to enforce this rule in some cities.

If you have a primary home and you book more than 120 days, we'll send you a notification and block your calendar for the remainder of the year.

We are required to enforce the rule to any property declared as or that might be a primary home.

Navigate to the Registration link in the Description tab of your property editor to answer a few questions as soon as possible so we can confirm if this applies to you."

We got the same, doing nothing about the registration as its not our "primary" home.
As to collecting TdeS I dont know how thats going to work as even our local tourist office dont know the rates for 2019

bornintheuk wrote:We got the same, doing nothing about the registration as its not our "primary" home.
As to collecting TdeS I dont know how thats going to work as even our local tourist office dont know the rates for 2019

We too are planning on doing nothing. I did click on the link to find I was asked whether primary / secondary home and I clicked secondary. That should have been the end of it I would have thought, but no, it asked me to put in a registration number or go to the govt website and enter our info. So I just closed it down. Let sleeping dogs lie!
We do know what our TdeS will be and it will be a nightmare! HA are going to need to know, week on week: total number of visitors / any under 18 / our seasonal rate for that period / 3% all into a formula. The likelihood of mistakes is HUGE!

SPJ wrote: We too are planning on doing nothing. I did click on the link to find I was asked whether primary / secondary home and I clicked secondary. That should have been the end of it I would have thought, but no, it asked me to put in a registration number or go to the govt website and enter our info. So I just closed it down. Let sleeping dogs lie!

I think you will then be limited to 120 nights as you have not proved it's a secondary home. (Otherwise everyone will just declare it's a secondary home even if it's not so as not to have the 120 night limit)

We are required to enforce the rule to any property declared as or that MIGHT BE a primary home.

newtimber wrote:

SPJ wrote: We too are planning on doing nothing. I did click on the link to find I was asked whether primary / secondary home and I clicked secondary. That should have been the end of it I would have thought, but no, it asked me to put in a registration number or go to the govt website and enter our info. So I just closed it down. Let sleeping dogs lie!

I think you will then be limited to 120 nights as you have not proved it's a secondary home. (Otherwise everyone will just declare it's a secondary home even if it's not so as not to have the 120 night limit)

We are required to enforce the rule to any property declared as or that MIGHT BE a primary home.

We cannot see HA getting us more than 120 days rental in 2019! Current stats say we are getting around 15 hits a month on our advert with them. We are therefore also waiting to see. Our TO told us the amount for tax de sejour in Aug 2018 - for 2018 so not going to get anything from them any time soon.

Merry Christmas to all LMHers

VT

Hi VT - I don't think this is just bookings through HA but ALL bookings you get through the year. Presumably you keep your calendar up to date so that you don't get double bookings, so they can see you're place is occupied, even if not by one of their guests.

I'm assuming this is mainly aimed at people using ABB in big cities like Paris where there is real concern in the hotel trade at loss of business.

Good point NT. We're in the country and in fact our season is not all year so I'm nowhere near 120. In 2019 I'm already fully booked (I might take another week at most) and it's only 60 odd days. That assumes of course they can distinguish between the days when we have paying guests, when I have friends staying and when I've blocked out time between guests. Mmm this should be "fun"! I wonder how this will affect chambres d'hôtes who are open all year???

SPJ wrote:Hi VT - I don't think this is just bookings through HA but ALL bookings you get through the year. Presumably you keep your calendar up to date so that you don't get double bookings, so they can see you're place is occupied, even if not by one of their guests.

For other bookings we would always mark the calender as blocked rather than booked! None of their business why. Cannot see how it will actually work.

VT

vacancesthezan wrote:

SPJ wrote:Hi VT - I don't think this is just bookings through HA but ALL bookings you get through the year. Presumably you keep your calendar up to date so that you don't get double bookings, so they can see you're place is occupied, even if not by one of their guests.

For other bookings we would always mark the calender as blocked rather than booked! None of their business why. Cannot see how it will actually work.

VT

I agree with you VT, but if they just take all days blocked out then we will be hard up against the 120 days. Four months of our calendar this coming year is already greyed out. Talking it through just now with OH we are realising it's going to be simpler to register. The tax man already knows it's "just" a gite and not our primary home.