a. It shall be unlawful for a booking service to charge, collect or receive a fee from a person in connection with a short-term rental of a dwelling unit or housing accommodation unless such booking service has used the electronic verification system maintained by the administering agency either to (i) verify that such short-term rental is for a dwelling unit or housing accommodation within a class B multiple dwelling on the list of class B multiple dwellings published pursuant to section 26-2103, as added by local law number 146 for the year 2018; or (ii) to verify that the dwelling unit or housing accommodation that is the subject of such short-term rental is associated with the short-term rental registration number submitted by such person to the booking service and such registration is currently valid, that the uniform resource locator or listing identifier being used to offer the short-term rental is associated with the short-term rental registration number, and that the host and physical address information provided by such person to the booking service match the information contained in the electronic verification system, including, but not limited to, the full legal name of the host and the full physical address of the dwelling unit or housing accommodation. The electronic verification system shall provide a unique confirmation number reflecting that such verification has occurred. A booking service shall reconfirm the active registration of a dwelling unit any time it knows or should have known that any data it used to complete the verification in this section has changed, and the administering agency may establish by rule a minimum reverification period.
b. A booking service shall report to the administering agency on a monthly basis in a manner and form established by the administering agency for each transaction relating to a short-term rental: the booking services public uniform resource locator for the listing or other identifier, and the unique confirmation number obtained from the electronic verification. Upon submission of such report, a booking service shall certify that the verification required by subdivision a of this section has occurred for each transaction in the report.
c. Electronic verification system fee. There shall be a fee for the use of the electronic verification system in an amount to be established by rule by the administering agency. Such fee shall not exceed the cost to build, operate, and maintain such system.
(L.L. 2022/018, 1/9/2022, eff. 1/9/2023)