Edificio do Lago
Residents have exposed a situation involving two houses, suspected to be located in the public housing complex Edifício Do Lago, being advertised on the Airbnb website, according to a recent report by Macao Daily News (Ou Mun Yat Po).
Airbnb is an international home-sharing website based in San Francisco that provides a platform for people to offer their homes for temporary rent.
Both houses comprise two bedrooms and one living room, and are priced at between HKD745 and HKD496 per night. The places hold records of previous successful transactions, but have now disappeared from the website after being uncovered by Macao Daily News. The newspaper published screen shots of the advertisements on its front page.
Residents living in the buildings reported frequently seeing strangers carrying luggage into the apartments. Moreover, the residents expressed doubt that only two house owners were practicing this kind of business.
The Housing Bureau (IHM), which is responsible for housing management, promised to closely follow the situation. The Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has claimed that it has not received any information whatsoever about the location of the suspected houses.
According to IHM, five cases relating to illegal accommodation in economical housings have been reported since the implementation of the Economical Housings Law.
On Airbnb, more than 140 local apartments are registered, including those available for daily and monthly rent. In comparison, only about 10 apartments were available two years ago, according to a previous Times report. The prices range from 70 patacas to thousands of patacas per day. Customer reviews indicate that foreign and mainland guests visiting Macau have stayed in these houses.
As the Times reported, the “sub-renting” activities provided by the home-sharing website Airbnb may exist in a gray area in the law. Lawyer Sérgio Almeida Correia told the Times in 2014 that there’s “nothing illegal” about subletting a private room or an entire apartment in Macau, according to the civil code. This means that subletting is an option for tenants as long as the landlord doesn’t disallow it in the contract.
“It depends on what the two parties have agreed. If I’m a tenant and the contract I signed with my landlord specifically states that the whole apartment is for me to use, the landlord [or I] will not be entitled to sign a rental agreement for one of the rooms in my apartment [with a third party],” he said. Staff reporter
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