Beverly Hills Vacation Rental Hosts File Federal Lawsuit to Protect Property Rights
Beverly Hills, CA — Today, the Beverly Hills Vacation Rental Alliance (Rental Alliance), a local association of homeowners and short-term and mid-term rental hosts, filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court challenging the City of Beverly Hills’ restrictive short-term rental (STR) ordinance. The ordinance imposes a sweeping ban that prohibits homeowners from renting their home to guests for any period under 12 months.
The Rental Alliance argues that the ordinance — one of the most restrictive in the country — violates the U.S. and California constitutions by stripping residents of their constitutional right to use and rent their own homes, eliminating a vital source of income for homeowners and threatening their livelihood. The lawsuit also details how the City Counsel rushed the ordinance through the legislative process without the standard approval process required by California law.
According to the complaint, Beverly Hills' hotel industry was the driving force behind the ban. Luxury hotels engaged in extensive lobbying to convince the City Council to eliminate competition from residents who host guests in their own homes. Public records show hotel interests, including major Beverly Hills luxury properties like the Peninsula Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Hotel pressed the City for the restrictions. The ordinance also includes a highly unusual "bounty" provision that allows hotels to profit from suing homeowners who do not comply with the rental ban. The Rental Alliance contends the City Council inserted the bounty provision at the last-minute – at the request of a luxury hotel – and outside the City's standard legislative process. The result, the plaintiffs argue, is a law that protects hotels' bottom line while punishing the same hospitality when it happens in a family home. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the City from engaging in that kind of favoritism.
Beverly Hills is one of the least affordable places to live in the country. For many Beverly Hills homeowners, hosting is not a luxury — it is how they keep their homes. The City’s ordinance strips them of income they have relied on for years and, in some cases, decades. It also shuts out the guests who depend on these homes: traveling nurses, physicians, students, and teachers who cannot find affordable, flexible accommodations anywhere else in the community and are now forced to look outside Beverly Hills entirely — deepening the community's exclusionary character.
"I've welcomed guests into Locke House for nearly twenty years, the same home where I was born and raised and where my father once hosted stars of old Hollywood. On a fixed income, hosting is how I cover the upkeep and keep this historic house in my family. When the city banned short-term and mid-term renting, I, like many other residents in this city, lost the income I've depended on for years. I haven't even been able to find a long-term tenant to replace it,” said Deborah Blum, Founder and President of the Beverly Hills Vacation Rental Alliance. “That's why the Rental Alliance is challenging the city’s ordinance — this rental ban strips homeowners of the right to decide who we welcome into our own homes, and we're asking the court to overturn it so residents like me can afford to stay in the homes we love."
Through the lawsuit, the plaintiff asks the court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional and to permanently enjoin the City of Beverly Hills from enforcing its short-term and mid-term rental restrictions.
About the plaintiff: The lawsuit is brought by the Beverly Hills Vacation Rental Alliance (the Rental Alliance), an association of property owners and hosts who believe that short-term and mid-term rental options are an important part of the community’s economic diversity, visitor appeal, and property rights. Including:
Deborah Blum– A retired widow living on Social Security in Beverly Hills. She owns and resides in "Locke House," a 1913 historic landmark on Rodeo Drive. Her father, a Hollywood screenwriter, once hosted stars like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall there. She has hosted guests since 2006 and relies on income from short-term and mid-term rentals to cover the home's upkeep, and she has been unable to find a long-term tenant since the ban took effect.
