Owners ask this constantly, usually after seeing how much better a nightly rate performs than a monthly one. The short answer is that renting a condo out night by night, the way a hotel does, isn't something the Condominium Act permits on its own, and doing it without a hotel licence puts both the owner and the building's juristic person at risk.
Where the line actually sits
The Condominium Act allows an owner to lease their unit. It doesn't authorize running it as short-term, hotel-style accommodation. The Hotel Act 2004 covers that separately, and requires a licence that almost no individual condo unit holds, partly because getting one means the building itself has to meet hotel-grade fire and safety requirements that most residential condominiums simply don't.
In practice, "short-term" is the part that matters. A tenant staying a month or more reads as a normal residential lease. Turning a unit over every two or three nights, especially through platforms built for that kind of booking, looks like the kind of commercial hotel operation the law was written to require a licence for.
How this actually gets enforced
- Most enforcement starts with a complaint from other residents, not a spot inspection, so a quiet, well-behaved unit rarely draws attention
- Juristic persons increasingly write minimum-stay rules into their own house rules, separate from what the law requires, and can fine or restrict access for owners who ignore them
- Buildings that get a reputation for short-term guests can see their resale values and long-term tenant demand suffer, which affects every owner in the building, not just the one renting nightly
What we actually recommend
For most condo owners, the safer and still profitable path is renting for stays of a month or longer, sometimes packaged as a flexible mid-term let rather than a rigid annual lease. It sits clearly within what the Condominium Act allows, avoids friction with the juristic person, and still captures meaningfully more than a standard 12-month lease.
Villas are a different situation. Standalone houses aren't governed by the Condominium Act, and short-term letting there carries far less of this specific risk, which is one reason we point owners toward villas when nightly holiday income is the goal. If you already own a condo and want the higher yield anyway, the honest move is checking your specific building's house rules and weighing that against the risk, not assuming the platform listing you copied the idea from was operating within the law.
Have a specific question?
Talk to us directly, no sales pitch, no obligation.