Airbnb has said it will enforce its rule that bans users in London from renting out their home for more than a total of 90 days in a year.
Legally, hosts cannot rent their home out for more than 90 days per year without planning permission.
The company caved in after it was revealed that it did not prevent users from turning their homes into hotel-style lets.
The tech giant will introduce a feature next spring which will block landlords from flouting the rules. In order to get around the ban, hosts must gain permission from their local council.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has written to MPs warning that short-term lets like these could be reducing the number of available long-term rental homes, adding that they may need to create legislation to combat it.
Some have blamed Airbnb for exacerbating the housing crisis, arguing that hosts were using the site, designed for short-term stays, to take homes out of the housing supply. However, there is little evidence for this.
A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research – and commissioned by Airbnb – found that the impact of such short-term lets on the housing supply was “negligible”, and that the average Airbnb home was let out for 31 nights a year.
Tom Copley, Labour’s housing spokesman at the London Assembly, said: “The problem was that a website that was about people making a little money letting out rooms was being abused by professional landlords turning their properties into hotels by the back door”.
