It’s about time I air some dirty laundry to you and everyone. For the past several years fellow owners and myself have been having absolute HELL from Summit County. What has happened is a fleecing of short term rental properties on a scale like I never imagined. Just as you have rising housing prices and interest rates in your area of the USA, Summit County also has this same rising market. The only difference between your area and Summit County is that our local government has decided to take advantage of this, calling it their “housing crisis”. As such, they have required us to pay hefty permitting fees and taxes. They are currently trying to quaduple our property taxes, add a “per bedroom fee”, and limit how many nights you can stay! The local government has poloarized the community. In Summit County we have a strange phenomena of local workforce wanting to live in tourist areas. I call it strange because you don’t see local workforce trying to live in beachfront condos in Orange Beach, Alabama. Not the case in Summit County – your ski lift operator wants himself a ski in/ski out townhome at the base of 4 o’clock run! (and he wants you and me to pay for it!) I’ve heard such ugly things said by people including, “Tourists belong in hotels, not our neighborhoods!” and “My commute used to be 10 minutes, but now it’s 15 minutes because of all these damned tourists!”. This is only the tip of the iceberg of everything that is happening.
After having enough, myself and 130+ owners pooled our money together to accumulate several hundred thousand dollars and serve Summit County with a lawsuit. We believe constitutional property rights are being violated. The mission of our lawsuit is to preserve the experiences of guests who visit Summit County and protect the property rights of owners who host guest like you.
Our lawsuit is a big one that is likely to gain national attention and could possibly end up in the Colorado Supreme Court. The expenses will be steep, but we think it will be worth it to prevail. This has the potential to affect not just property owners, but you as well. Please visit our website dedicated to this cause and please help us with this fight.
https://www.summitcountyresorthomes.org
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