The city received multiple complaints about the building “being used as an illegal ‘Airbnb hotel,’” since 2011, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also names Esther Yip, the managing member of building owner Apex East Management, as a defendant. Latimer received more than 2,200 payment transactions and $2 million from Airbnb between 20 from illegal short-term rentals, mostly at the Midtown Manhattan brownstone home, according to Christian Klossner, the executive director of the city’s Office of Special Enforcement. But real estate broker Arron Latimer created 30 distinct Airbnb host accounts to advertise 85 separate listings to offer short-term rentals at the Midtown Manhattan brownstone home, according to the lawsuit. The brownstone is located at 344 East 51st Street, which is supposed to house eight families and a doctor’s office. Online reviews describe the building as “astonishingly dirty,” the mayor added. ![]() “We’re not going to stand by while shady brokers use illegal listings, fake host accounts, to skirt the law and defraud customers,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference Tuesday. Hosts can only offer rentals for less than 30 days and only if they stay with their guests, with a limit of up to two guests, according to New York city and state law. The suit was filed as New York City is in the grip of a tight housing market, with critics blaming Airbnb for the squeeze by reserving units exclusively for tourists. The city was able to discover the identity of the host from data obtained by Airbnb. The lawsuit comes under a relatively recent New York City law that requires rental platforms like Airbnb to give information about short-term listings to the mayor’s office - such as the identity of the host and which bank accounts payments were made to. New York City officials have filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the owners of a brownstone in Midtown for illegally renting their units on Airbnb.
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