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dougp26364 · 08-11-2008, 07:53 AM

I rarely trust an unsolicited E-mail from a hotmail account.

Spence · 08-11-2008, 10:49 AM

From information received so far, it looks like James City County may be after people with homes/vacation homes rented out saying that they can't operate as a hotel without authorization. Don't know if same would apply to timeshares which are essentially hotels, you can rent them on expedia, etc.

lawren2 · 08-11-2008, 10:51 AM

Are they going after individuals for violations or taxes or both?

rikkis_playpen · 08-11-2008, 01:01 PM

Taxes paid on short-term rentals....

As more local governments feel the pinch in their budgets- it wouldn't surprise me to see their suits get much more aggressive on both monitoring and enforcing collections.

Whether the amounts are actually due or are even worth the effort will be another matter entirely.. Can you imagine the time it would take to try to collect data on ads- and then prove they were actually rented?

You've got to love the government!

SmithfieldTim · 08-12-2008, 09:24 AM

Vacation Home in trouble

It was in the local paper that they are going after the home owners for past taxes and to stop the practice. Here is the story:

The first time a fleet of out-of-state cars filled the driveway at 304 Hempstead Road last spring, the neighbors across the street shrugged it off.

When it happened again — this time different cars, from different states — David and Barbara Reger began to grow suspicious.

"My husband said, 'Oh, maybe they have relatives staying at the house,' " said Barbara Reger, who lives at 305 Hempstead Road. "I said to my husband, 'I don't think so.' "

It turns out that Manoo A. Shivaee, of Virginia Beach, is one of possibly dozens of James City County property owners who are offering their houses as short-term seasonal rentals on Web sites such as VBRO.com and vacationhomerentals.com.

Last week, the county filed suit against Shivaee in Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court, asking a judge to declare the operation illegal and to immediately shutter it.

Shivaee's crime?

"Our zoning administrator has determined this type of rental is essentially a motel," said Deputy County Attorney Adam Kinsman, who filed the suit on behalf of James City County. "You've got a zoning ordinance that says you can't do it, and you've got a practical reason, too: You've got a motel in an established residential neighborhood."

The Windsor Forest subdivision, where the Regers live, is zoned general residential, which prohibits the operation of a motel under any circumstances. The county's zoning ordinance treats a vacation rental as a motel, according to the lawsuit.

Shivaee advertises his 2,600-square-foot property, which he paid $190,000 for in 2004, on a popular site for vacation home listings, describing it as a house "for the discriminating vacationer ... in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Williamsburg."

Shivaee said he bought the house expecting to move into it when he retires two years from now as a civilian employee of the Navy. To help pay the taxes and mortgage in the meantime, he said, he decided last year to try to rent out the house a couple months out of the year.

He said he asked a county zoning employee if his plan was legal and was told: " 'You don't need a permit. You can do anything you want with your own house.' "

Kinsman said that to his knowledge, county staff has had no contact with Shivaee.

Shivaee isn't the only homeowner who has run afoul of the law for trying to squeeze his house for extra income.

The Kingsmill Community Services Organization filed suit last month to stop Cherry Realty, a Williamsburg real estate company, from using two properties it owns in Kingsmill as short-term rentals. The company, whose owner didn't return a call last week, lists two rentals in the upscale subdivision for $2,000 per week.

Renting the homes in Kingsmill violates covenants that are built into the deeds of all homes built there, according to the lawsuit.

If a judge rules against Cherry and Shivaee, they could owe hundreds of dollars in back taxes.

James City County Revenue Commissioner Richard Bradshaw said a hotel would be subject to a bouquet of taxes that a residence wouldn't be, including a 5 percent state sales tax levy, a 5 percent local transient-occupancy tax levy and a nightly $2-per-room local hotel surcharge.

Bradshaw declined to talk about specific cases, but using his numbers, Shivaee could be on the hook for roughly $360 in back state and local taxes for every week he has rented his home.

Shivaee said he would be willing to bring himself into compliance with the law — if it's demonstrated that he's in violation, and if the dozens of other homeowners who advertise short-term rentals are held to the same standard.

"If they tell me I have to stop, I'm more than happy to stop," he said. "But they should do the same thing for the 40 other houses that advertise on the site."

Kinsman couldn't agree more. He compared Shivaee to the unlucky driver traveling at the speed of traffic who happens to be the one who gets the ticket.

"I can only handle so many at one time," he said. "I know there are others, and we're going to go after them."

JLB · 08-12-2008, 12:49 PM

When I first read this topic, I thought maybe it would be about why all of us ruined our swimsuits in the hottub at Sandpiper Beach Club, because they were not VRBO suits.

But, when I read what it is about, I see that I am involved in exactly the same thing in our local county, Bubba Country County.

Some locals here are very opposed to outsiders, those from anywhere else coming here to do what those already here are already doing, never mind the fact that those opposed to outsiders, people coming here doing what those here are already doing were once outsiders themselves, coming here wanting to do what those already here were already doing.

It's as simple as this:

Bubba Country County is a Planning and Zoning county. That means that every change of use of real property has to apply for a Special Use Permit. In most situations that means they have to have a public Hearing, publish notice of it twice in the most prominent newpapers, and mail notice of the hearing to all property owners within 1000 feet of the property applying for the Special Use Permit.

The person applying receives a list of those nearby property owners from Planning and Zoning, prepares the mailings, with postage affixed, and turns them in to P & Z, and P & Z mails them.

The two most contentious issues, the donneybrook, knock-down-drag-out hearings are:

1. Boat Dock Parking (a new boat dock being moved to a location where one has not been before), and

2. Using a residence for vacation rental.

I know way too much about both as:

1. Our neighbors are almost all among those who came here wanting to have what those here had but, since they are now here, do not want to share what they have with anyone else,

2. We are the only ones in our neck o' the lake who do not think this way, who don't mind sharing our little piece of what God has allowed us, so we are the ones who brought in a new boat dock, but in a legal manner whereby it did not require a P & Z Hearing, so that others could have what we have, across our property, and

3. The very first couple in the new boat dock is one from CA, and they misled us to believe that they were buying the nearby house for the purpose of moving here once they retire, when, in fact, it is on VRBO, with a different huge extended family and guests in it every week of the summer, and those people started using the boat dock, a use specifically prohibited by the US Army Corps of Engineers (and, of course, our neighbors.)

So, knowing it all, and doing our best to avoid it all, we did not.

Anyway, that is why counties are -------- about absentee vacation property owners, because the elected officials are reflecting the desires of the OFs who live there.

PS: I pass the local Chamber of Commerce twice a day almost every day. Normally I chuckle when I go by because they have big billboard with their slogan, "Our Lake is Your Lake." How it really is is a quiet little secret, of course, one the real estate people and official officials keep under wraps, down in the basement with the home-canned tomatoes.

Spence · 08-12-2008, 04:36 PM

Name: Shivaee
Email: dunken1327@hotmail.com
Phone:
Comments: Are you aware that James city is suing the owner for vacation home by owner. I am one, if you want , need to take legal action, and as a group hire an attorney. Your thought. Email me for more details. Thanks

Originally posted by SmithfieldTim

Shivaee said he would be willing to bring himself into compliance with the law — if it's demonstrated that he's in violation, and if the dozens of other homeowners who advertise short-term rentals are held to the same standard.

"If they tell me I have to stop, I'm more than happy to stop," he said. "But they should do the same thing for the 40 other houses that advertise on the site."

So, they solicit others to hire a lawyer but in the press sell all the others down the river?

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