Oh wow. Here’s a woman who has a Central Park West duplex − let me repeat that: duplex − apartment under rent control who has had the effrontery to rent out rooms via Airbnb.
Here’s how this stinger in the New York Law Journal begins:
A woman has been “profiteering” from her rent-controlled Central Park duplex by renting out bedrooms through the website Airbnb in violation of city and state laws, according to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Robinson Edmead. (See Profile)
The judge, who issued a temporary injunction against Noelle Penraat, said records Penraat presented indicated she made substantial income from renting to visitors arranged through Airbnb in 2013 and 2014 in an “incurable” violation of Rent Control Laws.
The laws prohibit occupants of rent-controlled apartments from subleasing their units at rates higher than what the building owners can charge.
All of us New Yorkers have known people with rent controlled apartments. Whatever the risks some of these tenants take, doing what this woman did is egregious by any standards and brings up the question: you live in a rent-controlled duplex apartment on Central Park West, so why would you risk your tenancy to engage yourself with Airbnb???
Because given that the judge called her a ‘profiteer,’ I don’t think she’ll be a tenant in that building for very much longer. (Her landlord is dancing in the park in anticipation of getting that apartment back into his market value apartment portfolio.)