(The Center Square) — Short-term rentals are a hot-button matter nationally, in particular round high-profile occasions like the Super Bowl.
How states and native jurisdictions take care of rules round rentals varies broadly, and Georgia is not any exception.
“What we’re seeing in Georgia is similar to the kind of things we’re seeing across the entire country, where various [governments], whether it’s local municipalities or on the state level, are looking at rules and regulations and pieces to put in place to address some of the issues,” Pam Knudsen, an government at Avalara, a tax assortment and remittance device corporate, instructed The Center Square.
“It could be everything from caps on the number of short-term rental permits that they issue to regulations regarding noise and trash and parking,” Knudsen added. “It’s really a matter of what the jurisdiction is trying to solve for and determining how they think that they can best solve for those things.”
According to Awning.com, Georgia has no state-wide rules for short-term rentals. However, in 2021, Georgia lawmakers handed House Bill 317 to categorise authorized short-term rentals as very similar to lodges, and authorized condo house owners will have to pay lodge taxes — a $5 in keeping with evening accommodation tax and any native govt excise tax.
Nationally, the forms of rules neighborhood leaders will imagine varies broadly. The identical holds true for jurisdictions in Georgia, and it would range inside a county.
In September, for instance, Cobb County commissioners passed a short-term condo ordinance that took impact on Jan. 1. But officers in Smyrna, which is in Cobb County, prior to now passed their very own version of an ordinance that comes with parking rules and occupancy limits.
“Other jurisdictions have put some pretty interesting requirements on, saying you have to have your home inspected, and it has to be up to code before you can get a short-term rental permit,” Knudsen added. “…Some places have put in that it can’t be an unattended house, you can rent out a room in your house, but you can’t necessarily not be present.”
Knudsen notes that communities national noticed an build up in the short-term condo marketplace amid the COVID-19 pandemic, permitting other folks to paintings remotely and care for their livelihoods whilst keeping up their distance from others.
While some communities have began to address issues about birthday celebration properties or even installed position rules in opposition to single-night rentals, occasions like Augusta’s Masters Tournament pose a wholly other conundrum, Knudsen stated.
“You get things like the Masters where [renters are] going to come in for a week,” Knudsen added. “Well, those people aren’t necessarily going to party every night in that week; that’s just not what they’re there for. … One of the interesting things is the fact that there were a lot of short-term rentals that occurred in Augusta that were not regulated, and they knew that, and that’s one of the things that they’re looking at.”
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