Is it legal and compliant to transform one's own house into a homestay without the consent of neighbors? Recently, Wang, a party in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, was jointly sued by 11 neighbors for changing the use of his house without authorization. The Yantian District People's Court in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province ruled that Wang should cease the operation of the property in question, restore its residential use, and compensate his neighbors for reasonable expenses. Wang posted a house in his own residential community as a homestay on an online platform to attract customers. After a period of time, neighbors noticed an increase in outsiders in the community, resulting in problems such as out of control access control, ringing doorbells indiscriminately, and loud noises at night, seriously affecting the peaceful life of the residents in the community. Therefore, Yao and 11 other property owners sued Wang to the Yantian District Court. Yao and 11 other homeowners believe that according to the provisions of the Civil Code, the "residential to commercial" renovation of houses should be approved by the owners with vested interests. Wang, without seeking the opinions of other property owners, illegally changed the house from residential to commercial use, seriously infringing on the rights and interests of property owners with vested interests. Therefore, the court is requested to request Wang to restore the residential use of the house and compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 20000 yuan. Wang argued that renting out the house is only for the purpose of reducing monthly payment pressure, not for profit as the main purpose, and most of the tenants are his classmates and friends. Therefore, the house does not belong to a homestay and its purpose has not changed. After the court's trial, it was determined that this case belongs to a dispute over the ownership of a building partition. According to the Civil Code, if a homeowner changes their residence to a commercial property, in addition to complying with laws, regulations, and management rules, they must obtain unanimous consent from all interested homeowners. In this case, Mr. Wang entrusted a third party to publish housing information on the Internet, mark prices, accept bookings, configure fire equipment and register people according to relevant requirements. It is obviously a house providing accommodation services, which is a case of changing the house into a commercial house. Wang did not obtain the consent of stakeholders such as Yao and converted all of his residential properties into commercial properties. Now, Yao and 11 other homeowners have legal basis to demand that Wang cease the operation of the property in question, and the court supports this request. In summary, the court ruled that Wang should cease the operation of the property involved in the case, restore the residential use of the property, and compensate Yao and 11 other property owners for reasonable expenses of 2000 yuan in safeguarding their rights. The verdict has now come into effect. The judge stated that in recent years, with the rise of short-term rental platforms, short-term rental housing and daily rental housing, mainly consisting of vacant houses in residential areas, have quickly seized some of the housing rental market due to their advantages of convenience, speed, and affordability. However, problems such as irregular tenant registration and difficulty in supervising mixed personnel can seriously affect the living experience of other normal residents, and bring negative impacts such as noisy environment, chaotic hygiene, increased fire hazards, and reduced safety factor. Therefore, if the property owner uses residential houses as online rental housing, in addition to complying with laws, regulations, and management rules, they must also obtain the unanimous consent of the owners with vested interests, and should try to avoid affecting the normal lives of neighbors. If the owner uses the house for business purposes without authorization, interested owners have the right to demand that they stop operating and restore the residential use of the house. (New Society)