# Plain Language Summary: The PLAN Act

This bill makes it easier for local governments and property owners to enforce rules about short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO listings. Right now, websites that host rental listings have broad legal protection that shields them from lawsuits when people use their platforms to break local housing rules. This bill carves out an exception specifically for rental property violations, allowing property owners and local governments to sue these platforms if they knowingly facilitate illegal rentals after being warned.

Here's how it would work in practice: If a city has a rule saying you can't rent out your apartment more than 90 days a year, or a condo building's bylaws prohibit short-term rentals altogether, the property owner or city could send a formal written notice to the rental platform explaining the violation. If the platform continues to list that property anyway after receiving the notice, they could be held legally responsible. The notice has to be detailed and specific—it needs to identify the property, explain which law or contract is being broken, and include contact information. The person sending the notice also has to swear under penalty of perjury that they're telling the truth.

The bill essentially says that while websites generally can't be sued for what users post on them, they can be held accountable when they knowingly help someone break property rental laws after being put on notice. This gives local communities more power to enforce their own housing regulations and protects property owners' rights to control how their buildings are used, even when a major online platform is facilitating the violation.

PLAN Act

Case, Ed

Protecting Local Authority and Neighborhoods Act or the PLAN Act This bill limits liability protection that applies to a provider of an interactive computer service that facilitates the lease or rental of real property (e.g., Airbnb) in violation of a state law or contractual agreement, such as a lease provision prohibiting short-term rentals. Current law protects providers and users of such services from liability for information provided by third parties, subject to specified exceptions. This bill removes that protection for providers that facilitate certain real estate transactions if the provider (1) receives written notice that a lease or rental violates a law or contractual agreement, and (2) subsequently facilitates the lease or rental in a manner restricted by the applicable law or contractual agreement. The bill also expressly preserves the authority of a state or locality to enforce laws that restrict a provider of an interactive computer service from booking, or providing ancillary services for, a transaction for the lease or rental of real property.