Running a Short-Term Rental Legally: A Practical Guide

Summary. Five documents, five calls, one hour with a flashlight, and then the operation.

The mistake everyone makes first

They ask the city.

The city answers, correctly, that a permit is available and here is the application. The host applies, gets the permit, lists the property, and considers the legal question closed.

It was one of four questions.

The city governs whether the use is permitted, on what conditions.
The HOA or condominium declaration may prohibit it entirely, and can enforce with daily fines and a lien.
The lease or mortgage may prohibit it, and a tenant listing a unit is almost always in breach.
The insurance policy probably excludes it, which means a guest injury may be uncovered.

You can be perfectly legal under the ordinance and exposed on all three of the others. Answer all four before you list.

Part one: the research, before you buy or list

Five documents to read

1. The municipal code. Search the code for "short-term rental," "vacation rental," "transient occupancy," "home sharing." Read the entire chapter, not the city's FAQ page. You are looking for: whether a permit is required, whether there is a primary residence requirement, whether there is a cap and whether it is full, occupancy limits, parking requirements, the local contact response time, insurance minimums, and the fine schedule.

2. Your state's preemption statute, if there is one. A number of states limit local authority to prohibit short-term rentals. This layer changes fastest — check it annually.

3. The HOA declaration, bylaws, rules, and the last two years of board minutes. The declaration is where a use restriction lives. The minutes are where you learn one is being drafted. This is the step people skip and the one that most often ends the plan.

4. Your lease, if you are a tenant. Sublease, assignment, and residential use clauses. Assume the landlord will find out; listings are public.

5. Your mortgage, for occupancy covenants and business use provisions, particularly on owner-occupied and government-backed loans.

Five calls to make

Planning or code enforcement: "Is a short-term rental permit required for [address]? What are the conditions? Is the permit cap full, and is there a waiting list?"

Revenue or tax office: "Which lodging taxes apply to a short-term rental at [address]? Which of them does [platform] remit under its collection agreement? What registration and filing obligations do I have regardless of who remits?"

Your insurance agent: "I intend to rent this property to paying guests for stays of [N] nights. What coverage do I need, what does it cost, and what does my current policy exclude?" — get the answer in writing.

The HOA manager: "Is short-term rental permitted, and where is that addressed in the governing documents? Has the board discussed it?"

Your lender, if the mortgage has occupancy covenants and you are unsure.

One hour with a flashlight

Walk the property looking for what will hurt someone.

Stairs and railings — height, spacing, tightness, lighting
Decks and balconies — the most catastrophic failure category in this field. If it is over ten years old, have it inspected.
Smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors — in every required location, tested, with fresh batteries
Fire extinguisher, accessible, current
Egress — every bedroom, and windows that actually open
Pool or hot tub — barrier, self-closing self-latching gate, depth markings, compliant drain cover
Water heater temperature — scalding is a real and common injury
Loose rugs, uneven thresholds, dark hallways
Firearms, medications, chemicals, tools — removed or secured
Space heaters, fireplaces, grills — instructions posted, or removed

Photograph what you inspect, dated. That record is your defense, and it takes an hour.

Part two: getting permitted

The application

Expect to provide: proof of ownership · proof of primary residence, if required · a floor plan · a parking plan · a certificate of insurance meeting the minimum · a local contact with a 24-hour phone number · a safety self-certification or inspection · tax registration numbers · and the fee.

Get the permit number before you list. Many ordinances require it in every listing and enforce by scraping the platforms and matching against the permit database.

The conditions are the real document

The permit typically carries conditions, and the conditions are what get violated:

Maximum occupancy — commonly two per bedroom plus two
Quiet hours, often shorter than the general noise ordinance
No events, parties, or commercial gatherings
On-site parking only, with a stated number of vehicles
A local contact who responds within 30 to 60 minutes, 24 hours a day
Annual renewal, with fees and updated documentation
Posting of the permit, occupancy limit, evacuation plan, and complaint number inside the unit
Trash placed out and retrieved on schedule

Read them. Print them. Post the ones that must be posted. Most permit revocations are for repeated violation of conditions rather than for operating without a permit.

Part three: insurance — the conversation that matters most

Assume your homeowner's policy does not cover this. Standard policies exclude business pursuits, and renting a dwelling to paying guests is a business pursuit.

Have this conversation, in writing:

"I intend to rent this property to paying guests. Stays average [N] nights. There will be up to [N] guests. There [is / is not] a pool. I am not present during stays. Please confirm in writing what my current policy covers and excludes for this use, and quote coverage appropriate to it."

What you are looking for:

A short-term rental endorsement, or a dedicated short-term rental policy, or a commercial general liability policy for a larger operation
Liability limits well above the ordinance minimum — $1,000,000 is a floor for a property with a pool or a deck
Property coverage including damage caused by guests
Loss of rental income
An umbrella policy, and a written confirmation that it sits above a policy that covers this use

On the platform's protection program. Read the actual terms. It is typically excess over your own coverage, subject to exclusions and conditions, administered by the platform, and available only for bookings made through that platform. It is a supplement, not a policy.

And the sentence that matters: a host who does not tell the insurer what the property is used for is frequently uninsured for the largest risk they face, and finds out at the claim.

Part four: taxes

Register, even if the platform collects

Call the taxing authority and ask three questions:

Which lodging taxes apply to this property — state, county, city, and any special district?
Which of them does [platform] remit under its collection agreement?
What registration and filing obligations do I have regardless of who remits?

Platform collection agreements are partial and jurisdiction-specific. A host who assumes they are comprehensive frequently owes a county or district levy and, more commonly, faces failure-to-file penalties on returns that were required even though the tax was remitted.

Federal income tax

The fourteen-day rule. If a dwelling is used as a residence and rented for fewer than 15 days in the year, the income is generally excluded from gross income — and the related expenses are not deductible. This is the provision behind renting during a nearby major event.

Personal use matters. Where personal use exceeds the greater of 14 days or 10% of rental days, deductions are limited and expenses must be allocated. Keep a contemporaneous log of personal use days. It is the one record nobody keeps and the first one an examination requests.

Schedule E or Schedule C. Ordinary rental goes on Schedule E and is not subject to self-employment tax. Where substantial services are provided — meals, daily housekeeping during the stay, concierge, tours — the activity may be a trade or business on Schedule C, with self-employment tax. Cleaning between guests, utilities, and trash are incidental and generally do not cross that line.

Passive losses. Rental activity is generally passive with limited exceptions. Short-term rental with an average stay of seven days or less is treated differently for passive activity purposes, which can permit loss offsets where the host materially participates. This is technical and casual advice about it is frequently wrong — talk to a tax professional who does this specifically.

Keep: booking records · platform statements · receipts · mileage · the personal use log · depreciation schedules · records of hours worked if material participation matters.

Part five: operating

House rules that are actually enforceable

Rules matter only if they are disclosed before booking, agreed in the rental agreement, and enforced.

Include:

Maximum occupancy, stated as a number, matching the permit
No parties or events, with a stated consequence
Quiet hours, matching the ordinance
Parking — where, how many vehicles, and that street parking is prohibited if it is
Smoking policy
Pet policy — and understand that an assistance animal is not a pet, that a no-pets policy generally must yield to one, and that a pet fee generally may not be charged for one
Pool and hot tub rules, including supervision of children
Check-out procedures
Trash and recycling — when and where
Consequences, including that a violation may end the stay without refund

Disclose any camera or recording device. Indoor cameras are prohibited by most platforms and unlawful in many places; hidden recording can be a crime; audio is treated far more strictly than video. Exterior cameras with disclosed fields of view are generally acceptable.

The local contact requirement

This is the condition that revokes the most permits.

If the ordinance requires a contact who responds within 30 to 60 minutes, 24 hours a day, that contact must actually answer the phone at 1 a.m. A co-host who checks messages during business hours does not satisfy it, and a neighbor who documents three unanswered calls has documented a permit violation.

Options that work: a genuinely local property manager · a 24-hour answering service that dispatches · a neighbor or friend paid to be the contact, with clear instructions · yourself, if you live nearby and will actually answer.

Noise, before it becomes a complaint

Noise monitoring devices that measure decibel levels and alert you on a threshold breach — without recording audio — are inexpensive and effective. Disclose them. They let you intervene at 11:15 rather than learn about it from code enforcement.

Neighbors — the cheapest insurance available

Knock on the doors of the nearest neighbors, introduce yourself, and give them your cell number.

A neighbor who can reach you calls you. A neighbor who cannot calls the city, the HOA, and the platform, and starts a log.

Also: enforce your own occupancy and parking rules with actual consequences; handle trash on schedule; and respond to a neighbor's message within minutes, not days.

Screening

Apply written, neutral criteria uniformly. Document the reason for every declined booking.

Do not ask about or act on protected characteristics — race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, disability, and whatever your state and locality add, which frequently includes source of income, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and age.

Watch the advertising rule — discriminatory statements in a listing are prohibited even where an exemption might otherwise apply.

If you use a screening report for a booking decision, consumer reporting rules apply, including permissible purpose and adverse action notice obligations.

The long-stay trap

In most states a transient lodger is not a tenant. But length of stay can change that, frequently at a 30-day threshold, and a guest who becomes a tenant cannot be removed without a court proceeding.

Hosts have lost the use of a property for a season this way.

What to do: find out your state's threshold; consider capping stays below it; if you accept longer stays, use a written lease appropriate to your state rather than a booking confirmation; and never accept an open-ended stay.

Documenting every stay

Dated photographs before and after every stay. Not a video you delete — a dated record you keep.
Log the guest, the dates, the occupancy, and anything that happened.
Damage claims have short deadlines, especially platform-administered ones. Photograph and file immediately.
Keep maintenance and inspection records — this is your premises liability defense.

Part six: when something goes wrong

A guest is injured

Get them care. Everything else is second.
Notify your insurer immediately — most policies require prompt notice.
Photograph the scene and the condition before anything is repaired or moved.
Preserve maintenance records, inspection logs, prior guest communications, and any prior complaints about the condition.
Do not make statements about fault to the guest, the platform, or anyone else.
Do not repair the condition before it is documented — but do make it safe.
Notify the platform per its process.

A neighbor complains

Respond within minutes. This is the whole game.
Deal with the guests, and document what you did.
Follow up with the neighbor and tell them what you did.
Review your rules and screening if it is a pattern.
If a city complaint has been filed, respond to the notice on time and document your corrective action. Ignoring a code notice is how permits get revoked.

The city sends a notice

Read it for the deadline and the specific provision cited.
Respond in writing before the deadline, even if only to request the hearing.
Request the hearing if there is one — defaults are how people lose.
Document compliance with the cited condition.
Ask what corrective action closes the matter. Frequently there is one.

The HOA sends a violation notice

Request the specific covenant or rule relied on.
Request the hearing.
Check whether the restriction was adopted by board rule or by declaration amendment — many declarations do not authorize use restrictions by rule, which makes a board-adopted ban vulnerable.
Document selective enforcement — screenshots of other units' listings, dated, collected now while they exist.
Check your state's common interest community act for notice, hearing, and fine limitations that associations routinely fail to follow.

Part seven: four hosts, and what turned each one

The condo bought without reading the declaration

Rosalind Achterberg-Nwosu checked the city ordinance, got a permit, and listed her beach condo. Eleven days later the association sent a violation notice: the declaration limited use to "single family residential purposes," and the board had adopted a rule defining rentals under 30 days as prohibited commercial use. Fines: $250 per day.

Three things saved her, and all three were research she should have done before buying.

Her state construed restrictive covenants narrowly, resolving ambiguity in favor of free use of land, and there was appellate authority holding that a residential use clause restricts the nature of use, not its duration.

The board rule was ultra vires. Her declaration required a use restriction to be adopted by declaration amendment, not by board rule. That question — rule or amendment? — is the first one to ask about any HOA short-term rental ban.

And four other units had been listing openly for years without enforcement. She collected dated screenshots.

The board withdrew the fines and put a proper amendment to a vote. It passed, with a grandfather clause for owners holding permits — which she did.

Read the declaration, the bylaws, the rules, and two years of minutes before you buy. Then ask: rule, or amendment?

The deck

Cassius Delacroix-Ibarra rented his lake house three summers on a standard homeowner's policy without ever telling his insurer. A guest's teenage son fell when a 1994 deck railing gave way. Serious injuries.

The claim was denied under the business pursuits exclusion. The platform's program was excess over his own coverage, subject to conditions, and paid a fraction.

What would have prevented it, in order of cost:

Telling the insurer in writing and buying a short-term rental endorsement — a few hundred dollars a year
An umbrella policy confirmed in writing to sit above a policy that covered the use
A documented annual inspection of the deck and railings, which had never been examined in thirty years

The largest exposure in this field is not the ordinance and not the HOA. It is a guest injury on a policy that excludes the use.

The four taxes

Ignatius Vasquez-Thorne relied on the platform's statement that it collected occupancy taxes. It collected the state lodging tax and the city transient occupancy tax. It did not collect the county tourism development tax or the special district levy — neither was in the platform's agreement — and his jurisdiction required him to register and file quarterly regardless of who remitted.

An audit three years later assessed about $9,400 in tax, penalties, and interest.

Fifteen minutes on the phone with the county revenue office would have prevented all of it, with three questions: which taxes apply, which does the platform remit, and what must I file regardless.

The permit that was revoked

Thaddeus Oyelaran-Beck ran two houses on a quiet street from forty minutes away, with a co-host who answered messages during business hours.

A neighbor kept a log for four months: nineteen quiet-hours violations, six occasions exceeding the permitted occupancy of eight, eleven street-parking violations — and, decisively, three documented calls to the posted 24-hour contact number with no response within the required 30 minutes.

Permit revoked, with a one-year bar on reapplication.

The 24-hour local contact requirement is the condition remote operators most commonly fail and the easiest for a neighbor to prove. Everything else on that log was arguable. That one was not.

Part eight: a calendar

Before buying or listing

Read: municipal code · state preemption statute · HOA declaration, bylaws, rules, and two years of minutes · lease · mortgage · insurance exclusions
Call: planning · revenue · your insurance agent (get it in writing) · the HOA manager · your lender
Walk the property with a flashlight and photograph what you inspect

Before the first booking

Permit issued and permit number in the listing
Insurance in force for this use, confirmed in writing
Tax registration complete, filing schedule calendared
House rules written, disclosed, and in the rental agreement
Safety items installed and photographed: alarms, CO detectors, extinguisher, egress, pool barrier
Permit, occupancy limit, evacuation plan, and complaint number posted inside
Local contact arranged who will actually answer at 1 a.m.
Noise monitoring installed and disclosed
Neighbors met and given your cell number

Every stay

Dated photographs before and after
Occupancy verified against the permit
Log the guest, dates, and anything that happened
Damage claims filed immediately — deadlines are short

Monthly

File any required tax returns
Review the personal use log
Check for new city or HOA notices

Quarterly

Safety walkthrough, photographed and dated
Test alarms and CO detectors
Inspect decks, railings, stairs, and pool barriers

Annually

Renew the permit before it expires
Renew insurance and re-confirm the coverage in writing
Re-check the ordinance and the state preemption statute — this layer moves fast
Check HOA board minutes for pending amendments
Professional inspection of decks and balconies over ten years old

Part nine: the mistakes that end permits

Asking only the city. Four questions, not one.

Not reading the HOA declaration and minutes before buying. The single most expensive omission in this field.

Not telling the insurer. The single largest financial exposure.

Assuming platform tax collection is complete. It usually is not, and the filing obligation frequently survives it.

A local contact who does not actually answer. More permits are revoked for this than for anything else.

Not posting what must be posted. Permit, occupancy limit, evacuation plan, complaint number.

Listing without the permit number in a jurisdiction that requires it. Cities scrape and match; it takes days.

Ignoring a code notice or an HOA notice. Defaults are how people lose, and the deadline is in the first paragraph.

Never meeting the neighbors. The cheapest insurance available, and free.

Charging a pet fee for an assistance animal. A fair housing violation, and a common one.

Indoor cameras. Prohibited by platforms, unlawful in many places, and potentially criminal if hidden.

Accepting a stay past the tenancy threshold without a proper lease. You may have created a tenant you cannot remove for months.

No before-and-after photographs. No damage claim, and no premises liability defense.

Repairing the condition before documenting it after an injury. Make it safe, but photograph first.

Part ten: situations with their own rules

If you are a tenant

Assume you cannot, unless the lease says you can and the landlord agrees in writing.

Listing a rented unit almost always breaches the sublease clause, the assignment clause, or the residential use clause — frequently all three. Consequences run from eviction to forfeiture of the deposit to liability for the profits, and some leases now say so explicitly.

Many ordinances also require the landlord's written consent as a condition of the permit, which means the city will ask.

If you want to do it lawfully: get written landlord consent, get the permit, get renter's insurance that covers the use, and put the arrangement in a lease amendment. Anything less is a tenancy you can lose.

If the property is your primary residence

This is the easiest posture, legally, and it is what most ordinances are designed to permit.

Hosted stays — you present — are permitted almost everywhere a permit regime exists
Unhosted stays of your primary residence are frequently capped at 60 to 120 nights a year
Keep records proving primary residence: voter registration, driver's license, tax returns, utility bills. Cities audit this.
Track your unhosted nights against the cap. Exceeding it is a permit violation and it is trivially provable from booking records.

If you own several properties

You are operating a business, and it should be structured like one.

Check the per-owner cap — many ordinances limit the number of permits one owner may hold, and several use beneficial ownership rules that see through entities
Insurance should be commercial, not a stack of homeowner endorsements
Professional management or a genuine 24-hour contact operation
Formalized inspection and maintenance schedules, documented
Take the accessibility question seriously — a professionally operated multi-unit lodging business is a harder case for arguing it is not a place of public accommodation
Employment law applies to cleaners and staff, including classification. Treating a full-time cleaner as an independent contractor is a common and expensive error.
Sales and use tax may apply to some services and supplies

If the property is in a resort or planned community

Deed restrictions recorded independently of an HOA may prohibit transient rental
Some communities have rental programs you are required to use, with commission structures
Some have minimum stay requirements in the covenants
Master association and sub-association documents may both apply — read both

If you inherited the property

Confirm title is actually in your name and probate is complete before listing; a property still in an estate raises insurance and liability questions
Check for deed restrictions you did not know about
Insurance on an inherited property is frequently a vacant dwelling policy, which excludes almost everything relevant
If there are co-owners, get written agreement on the use, the income split, and who carries the insurance. Co-owned short-term rentals produce more family litigation than almost any other asset.

If you are in a flood, fire, or coastal zone

Confirm what your policy excludes; flood is never in a standard policy
Some ordinances impose additional requirements in hazard zones — evacuation plans, posted routes, communication requirements
Wildfire zones increasingly carry defensible space requirements enforced against owners
Check whether your locality restricts short-term rental during declared emergencies, and what obligations attach to guests already in place

Part eleven: the money, honestly

Prospective hosts consistently model revenue and consistently omit the cost side. Here is what is actually in it.

Recurring costs the pro formas leave out:

Insurance appropriate to the use — frequently two to four times a standard homeowner's premium
The permit fee, annually, plus any inspection fee
Lodging taxes — 10% to 18% in many markets once state, county, city, and district levies stack. Even where the platform remits, it comes out of the guest's total, which affects your competitive rate.
Platform fees
Cleaning, which is a real cost even when charged to guests, because turnover cleaning between short stays is far more expensive per night than long-term turnover
Consumables — linens, towels, paper goods, coffee, soap. These are replaced constantly.
Utilities, higher than a long-term tenancy because guests do not economize
Wear, which is dramatically higher than long-term rental. Budget for repainting, floor refinishing, and furniture replacement on a cycle measured in a few years, not decades.
The 24-hour contact, if you are paying someone
Noise monitoring subscriptions
Vacancy — the number nobody models honestly

One-time costs:

Furnishing to a standard guests expect
Safety compliance — alarms, extinguishers, pool barriers, egress
The deck or railing inspection you are going to need anyway
Photography
Any permit-required inspection or upgrade

The comparison to ask: what would this property earn as a long-term rental, net of a management fee, with a tenant paying utilities, one turnover a year, no lodging tax, ordinary landlord insurance, and no permit that can be revoked?

For many properties the honest answer is that short-term rental produces meaningfully more revenue and meaningfully more work, cost, and regulatory risk — and for some it produces slightly more revenue for a great deal more of all three.

And one risk that belongs in the model: the ordinance can change. A city that permits unhosted rental today may adopt a primary residence requirement in two years, and grandfathering is not guaranteed. A business plan that requires the current ordinance to persist is a business plan with a regulatory bet in it, and it should be named as one.

Part twelve: exit, transfer, and sale

The end of the operation has its own set of problems, and hosts rarely think about them until they arrive.

The permit usually does not transfer. Most short-term rental permits are personal to the owner and non-transferable, which means a buyer relying on "it's a permitted short-term rental" may be buying a property with no permit and a full cap. Disclose this accurately if you are selling, and verify it independently if you are buying.

Disclosure obligations on sale. Many states require disclosure of known material facts. Pending code enforcement actions, unresolved HOA violations, a revoked permit, or a pattern of neighbor complaints are frequently material. A seller who conceals them is buying a lawsuit.

Tax consequences. A property used as a rental has depreciation to recapture, and the interaction with the primary residence exclusion is complicated where the property was both. Talk to a tax professional before listing, not after closing.

Existing bookings. Confirmed reservations extending past closing must be addressed in the purchase agreement — assumed by the buyer, cancelled with refunds by the seller, or handled some other agreed way. Leaving it unaddressed produces an angry guest and a dispute at the worst moment.

Furnishings. Specify in the contract what conveys. A furnished short-term rental sold as "turnkey" should have an inventory attached.

If you are simply stopping:

Cancel the permit formally — some jurisdictions continue billing or continue treating you as an operator otherwise
File a final tax return and close the lodging tax account, or you will keep receiving failure-to-file notices for years
Notify your insurer that the use has ended so the policy can revert
Honor or cancel existing bookings per the platform's terms
Tell the neighbors. It costs nothing and it ends the log.

Part thirteen: what to say

To the planning office: "I'm looking at [address] for short-term rental. Is a permit required? Is there a primary residence requirement? Is the cap full, and is there a waiting list? What are the permit conditions, and could you send me the fine schedule?"

To the revenue office: "For a short-term rental at [address] — which lodging taxes apply, at what rates? Which of them does [platform] remit under its collection agreement? What registration and filing obligations do I have regardless of who remits, and how often do I file?"

To your insurance agent, in writing: "I intend to rent the property at [address] to paying guests. Typical stay is [N] nights, up to [N] guests, there [is/is not] a pool, and I am not present during stays. Please confirm in writing what my current policy covers and excludes for this use, and quote appropriate coverage including liability limits, property damage caused by guests, and loss of rental income."

To the HOA manager: "Is short-term rental permitted at [unit]? Where is that addressed in the governing documents — the declaration, the bylaws, or the rules? Has the board discussed any amendment? May I have copies of the last two years of board minutes?"

To a neighbor, at the door: "Hi — I'm [name], I own [address] and I'm going to be renting it to guests sometimes. Here's my cell number. If anything ever bothers you — noise, parking, trash — call me directly, any hour, and I'll deal with it. I'd rather hear from you than from the city."

To a guest, on a rules violation: "I'm getting reports of noise at the property. The maximum occupancy is [N] and quiet hours start at [time] — both are in the house rules you agreed to. Please bring the number down and keep it quiet from here on. If it continues, I'll have to end the stay."

To the city, on a violation notice: "I received the notice dated [date] regarding [provision]. I am requesting [the hearing described in the notice]. I have taken the following corrective action: [specifics, with dates]. Please advise what further action closes this matter."

To the HOA, on a violation notice: "Please identify the specific covenant or rule relied on, and whether it was adopted by declaration amendment or by board rule. I am requesting the hearing described in your notice. Please also provide the association's records of enforcement of this provision against other units."

After a guest injury, to your insurer: "I am reporting a potential claim. On [date] a guest was injured at [address]. Here is what happened, the photographs I took before anything was moved, and my maintenance and inspection records for the area. Please advise on next steps and whether I should have any further communication with the guest."

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a permit? Check the municipal code, not the platform. And check whether the cap is full.

My HOA says "residential use only." Courts have split on whether that bars short-term rental. Language matters, and many states construe restrictive covenants narrowly. Get advice, and check whether a ban was adopted by rule or by amendment.

Is my homeowner's policy enough? Almost certainly not. Tell the insurer in writing.

Is the platform's coverage enough? No. It is excess, conditional, and limited to that platform's bookings.

The platform collects my taxes. Am I done? Probably not. Verify with the taxing authority which levies are covered and what you must file regardless.

Can I refuse a booking? For neutral, uniformly applied reasons. Not for a protected characteristic, and generally not because of an assistance animal.

Can I charge a pet fee for a service or assistance animal? No.

A guest won't leave. If they are a transient lodger, the remedy is generally a police assist rather than eviction — and a written agreement stating the departure date and the transient nature of the occupancy makes that conversation go very differently. If the stay crossed your state's tenancy threshold, you may need an eviction.

Can I put cameras inside? No. Indoor cameras are prohibited by most platforms and unlawful in many places, and hidden recording can be criminal.

How do I keep the permit? Respond to the local contact number, enforce occupancy and parking, handle noise before it becomes a complaint, respond to notices on time, renew on schedule, and know your neighbors.