that requires rental platforms like Airbnb to give information about short-term listings to the mayor’s office — such as the identity of the host and which bank accounts payments were made to. The city was able to discover the identity of the host from data obtained by Airbnb. The suit was filed as New York City is in the grip of a tight housing market, with critics blaming Airbnb for the squeeze by reserving units exclusively for tourists.
“We’re not going to stand by while shady brokers use illegal listings, fake host accounts, to skirt the law and defraud customers,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference Tuesday. Online reviews describe the building as “astonishingly dirty,” the mayor added. Latimer received more than 2,200 payment transactions and $2 million from Airbnb between 2018 and 2022 from illegal short-term rentals, mostly at the Midtown Manhattan brownstone home, according to Christian Klossner, the executive director of the city’s Office of Special Enforcement. The lawsuit also names Esther Yip, the managing member of building owner Apex East Management, as a defendant.
Latimer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apex East Management could not be reached.