Laissez-faire prevails in nightly-rental industry

(Park Record) Last summer Sen. Kevin Van Tassell, R-Vernal, whose 26th District includes Park City, pondered sponsoring a bill to regulate the vacation rental industry. The previous spring two of Park City's largest and most-respected property-management companies imploded under lost sales from the recession.

On Tuesday, Van Tassell told The Park Record he had decided against sponsoring legislation because he was satisfied with changes voluntarily made within the industry.

"I opened a bill file, but as people worked on that it appeared there was a resolution with the Realtors some wording in the leases. I decided to allow that to work and go from there," he said.

The resolution with the Realtors was an agreement that condominium buyers need to be better educated on how to choose a property manager, said Park City Area Lodging Association officer Teri Whitney.

Van Tassell said what he wanted most was for certain monies to be kept separate from the normal working budgets. That practice might have prevented Deer Valley Lodging and David Holland Resort Lodging from finding themselves unable to pay condominium owners their portions of January and February profits last March.

But that isn't part of the resolution worked out. Property managers will do nothing different moving forward because of outside pressure. If everything goes according to plan, property managers will need to justify their accounting practices to potential clients before winning their business.

Original Article