THE LEGAL METAMORPHOSIS OF RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY: A STUDY OF SECTION 5 OF THE TRANSFER OF PROPERTY ACT WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO AIRBNB AND SHORT-TERM RENTALS IN INDIA
AUTHOR – ANNAREYA MARIA D’ALMEIDA, STUDENT AT ST. JOSEPH’S COLLEGE OF LAW
BEST CITATION – ANNAREYA MARIA D’ALMEIDA, THE LEGAL METAMORPHOSIS OF RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY: A STUDY OF SECTION 5 OF THE TRANSFER OF PROPERTY ACT WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO AIRBNB AND SHORT-TERM RENTALS IN INDIA, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (10) OF 2026, PG. 62-70, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344.
ABSTRACT
The proliferation of digital platforms such as Airbnb, MakeMyTrip, OYO Rooms, and Zostel has fundamentally reconfigured how Indian homeowners monetise residential property. This paper examines the legal complexity that arises when a private dwelling is converted — even temporarily — into a commercial hospitality venture. Anchoring the analysis in Section 5 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, which defines “transfer of property” and delineates permissible interests in immovable property, the paper interrogates whether short-term letting constitutes a “licence” or a “lease” under Indian law and what cascading regulatory consequences flow from that classification. Deploying doctrinal legal research, comparative statutory analysis, and qualitative case-study methodology, the paper maps the multi-layered framework of municipal laws, zoning regulations, fire-safety codes, foreign exchange management norms, GST obligations, and income-tax provisions that a homeowner-turned-short-term-host must navigate. The paper concludes that while no single statute prohibits the short-term rental model, the absence of a dedicated regulatory architecture creates profound legal uncertainty for individual hosts, platform operators, and local governments alike, and advocates for a bespoke legislative framework akin to models adopted in Singapore and France.
Keywords: Section 5 TPA; short-term rental; Airbnb India; OYO; licence versus lease; zoning law; GST; sharing economy; residential-to-commercial conversion.