Renters in Melbourne Can Now Be Evicted for Listing on AirBnB

Melbourne renters be warned—listing your place on AirBnB could get you evicted after a landmark decision by the Victorian Supreme Court.

St Kilda landlord Catherine Swan has won the right to evict her tenants Barbara Uecker and Michael Greaves because the pair had been AirBnBing their apartment while they were away on holidays.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) had earlier ruled that Uecker and Greaves couldn't be evicted because they were not subletting the apartment but instead "granting guests a licence to occupy it."

However, Swan appealed and her case was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday. The court decided that Uecker and Greaves listing their "Art Deco Treetop Escape" on AirBnB did qualify as subletting, violating their rental agreement.

"You've got to give landlords certainty, we can't just be leasing out our properties and not knowing what's going on in them," Swan told the ABC. "It's not really Airbnb … it's tenants taking advantage of sort of a gap in the system."

Handing down his decision, Supreme Court Justice Clyde Croft said this shouldn't be read as a ruling on AirBnB's legality in Victoria more broadly. He specified that Uecker and Greaves contravened their lease because they AirBnB'd their entire apartment, not just one room.

Dylan Smith, a Airbnb spokesperson, told Fairfax the case highlights Victoria's laws are outdated. "If two court judges can come out with two different outcomes, how can everyday people stand a chance of interpreting the rules?" he said.

Around the world, the popular house-sharing website—which has more than 1.5 million listings in 190 countries—has faced backlash around allegations it's compounding housing shortages in already-expensive cities.

In 2015, the Californian city of Santa Monica wiped out 80 percent of AirBnB listing by enacting the strictest regulations in the US: requiring hosts to register for a business license, pay occupancy tax, and remain on the property while any guests are staying there.

AirBnB has been pushing for clear federal laws around home-sharing for nearly a year in Australia, engaging a local lobbying team after several renters in Sydney were threatened with fines of $1 million for listing their properties.

However, with more than 6500 listings on the site in Melbourne alone, Justice Croft's decision could have wide-ranging implications for the booming sharing economy.