§ 22-02 Verification of lawful short-term rentals.
RCNY § 22-02
1.A booking service shall not charge, collect, or receive a fee from a person in connection with a short-term rental of a dwelling unit or housing accommodation unless such booking service has used the electronic verification system maintained by the administering agency either to: a. Verify that a short-term rental is for a dwelling unit or housing accommodation within a class B multiple dwelling on the list of class B multiple dwellings published pursuant to § 26-2103, as added by local law number 146 for the year 2018; or b. Verify that 1) the dwelling unit or housing accommodation that is the subject of such short-term rental is associated with the short-term rental registration number submitted by such person to the booking service, 2) such registration is currently valid, 3) that the uniform resource locator or listing identifier being used to offer the short-term rental is associated with the short-term rental registration number, and 4) that the host's full legal name and physical address information provided by such person to the booking service match the information contained in the electronic verification system.
2.The electronic verification system will accept from a booking service through an application program interface the street address, host name, registration number, and the uniform resource locator or listing identifier being used to offer the short-term rental. If the street address matches an address on the list of Class B multiple dwellings, the electronic verification system will provide a unique confirmation number to the booking service, reflecting that such verification has occurred. If the street address does not match an address on the list of Class B multiple dwellings, the electronic verification shall verify that the registration number is currently valid and associated with the host name, street address and the uniform resource locator or listing identifier being used to offer the short-term rental. If the data submitted matches the records related to the registration number, the electronic verification system will provide a unique confirmation number to the booking service, reflecting that such verification has occurred. The confirmation number shall be formatted such that the booking service shall be able to identify whether the verification match was based on a Class B list or a registration status.
3.The administering agency shall incorporate the registration expiration date into the unique code and shall provide all bookings services that use the electronic verification service information sufficient to understand how the date is included. The processing of a transaction by a booking service relying on a code that contains the expiration date shall be presumptive evidence that the booking service is aware of the expiration date of the registration.
4.The booking service must retain all unique confirmation numbers for use in meeting the reporting requirement below.
5.A booking service shall reverify each listing: a. within twelve calendar months of the previous verification, except where the previous verification's unique confirmation number indicates that the verification was based on Class B dwelling list match; b. within 15 business days of the expiration date contained in the unique confirmation number; and c. whenever it knows or should have known that any data it used to complete the most recent verification has changed, including but not limited to the host's name and the address of the listing.
6.A booking service will be required to provide an email address to the administering agency that will be used by the administering agency to transmit notices of revocation.
7.A booking service will be presumed to know that a registration has been revoked if an email notifying the booking service of the revocation was sent to the email account provided by the booking service and 15 business days have passed since the email was sent. (Added City Record 2/3/2023, eff. 3/5/2023)
