One of those steps was to contract with Host Compliance, a software company that manages short-term rental complaints through a hotline. Nearly all short-term rentals in Summit County are covered through the hotline with Breckenridge, Silverthorne, Dillon, Frisco and Summit County governments all signing contracts with the company.
The Host Compliance program started in Summit County largely as a way to enforce regulations brought on by town and county governments in 2018.
Although the hotline has been helpful, officials have struggled to work through some hiccups. In November 2019, Host Compliance bought the original hotline software called STR Helper. The transition after that acquisition hasn’t been the smoothest, officials said.
Kroner said one of the biggest issues with the software comes in the form of automated phone numbers. When a short-term rental owner provides an automated number as its responsible agent, the hotline number, which is also automated, isn’t able to reach a real person.
“We were running into some issues where the responsible agent wasn’t getting the calls right away when the issue was occurring,” Kroner said. “In that case, we from our Summit County Planning Department are doing that follow-up when our staff is in in the morning on a Monday. We’re not able to address it immediately.”
In addition to the automated phone number issue, town of Frisco Housing Coordinator Eva Henson said some property managers and owners weren’t picking up the call from Host Compliance because it was an unrecognizable number.
Both Henson and Kroner said Host Compliance has been helpful to them as they try to work through the issues. Both entities have asked property owners and managers to ensure their responsible agent number is a real person.
Additionally, Henson said the software company will be adding a text message alert so that property managers will get a text and a phone call when there is an issue at their short-term rental.
“Those are the kinds of things that take time to build with a software company,” Henson said. “Even though the system isn’t perfect, we’re certainly working through some of those limitations and trying to come up with solutions.”
