Airbnb Deleted Thousands of Illegal “Minpaku” Short-Term Rentals

June 22, 2018

Tokyo- Airbnb Inc. has deleted thousands of illegal "minpaku" short-term rentals in Japan from its website, since a Japanese law to regulate minpaku private lodging business took effect on June 15, company sources have revealed.

The properties were not registered with local authorities as stipulated in the new law, but were listed with fake registration numbers, the sources said.

The Japan Tourism Agency is investigating the possibility of other illegal minpaku properties remaining on the website.

Currently, work to verify minpaku registration numbers is basically left to voluntary efforts by rental agencies, including the U.S.-based vacation rental website.

Rival minpaku website operators Hyakusenrenma Inc. and Rakuten Lifull Stay Inc. check minpaku licenses issued by local authorities before listing new properties. No illegal properties have been detected on their websites so far.

"Verification work is a duty for minpaku website operators," a Hyakusenrenma official said.

Airbnb does not conduct such checks with licenses at the moment, but uses a system to detect fake numbers and automatically delete properties with the numbers, according to a company official.

"We aim to improve the system's capacity to detect irregularities," the official said. Jiji Press