Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22598/iele.2025.12.1.1
NUANCING NUISANCE: DEVELOPMENTS IN SHORT-TERM RENTAL LAW AND POLICY IN FRANCE AND CROATIA
Hano Ernst
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The rise of the platform economy has dramatically expanded short-term accommodation throughout the last decade, often leading to unease over its inadequate regulation and its impact on the availability of long-term affordable housing and the urban
landscape. The paper examines the recent development of national STR (short-term rentals) regulation in Croatia and France, as well as supranational developments in the EU. Both countries have enacted similar, yet distinct reforms, and both share a common tourism-oriented economy marked by a high concentration of STRs in major urban and coastal cities. STR controls are covered by both public and private law frameworks. Public law sets access rules across a larger geographical area aligned with urban and housing policy objectives. Under private law, decision-making authority is further distributed among the owners of multi-unit buildings, pursuant to general property law. Because STRs are essentially treated as potential nuisances,
the logic of public and private nuisance should apply; yet the approach taken under reformed law creates public-private links which conflate the underlying rationales of these doctrines, compelling courts and regulators to navigate a fine line between
constitutional property protections and the imperatives of affordable housing policy.
Keywords
short-term rentals; Airbnb; nuisance; condominium; property
Hrčak ID:
332612
URI
Publication date:
24.6.2025.
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