Sponsor
Diana Harshbarger
Representative · R-TN
Representative · R-TN
Requires short-term rental platforms to ask owners about registered child sex offender status and disclose it (with registry link) to prospective guests before purchase.
Official title: To provide transparency in short-term rental listings, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 15, 2026 by Diana Harshbarger · Last progress July 15, 2026
The bill increases transparency and potential safety for short-term renters and strengthens enforcement, but does so at the cost of privacy and data‑security risks, possible misidentification and reputational harm to owners, and added compliance costs for platforms.
Prospective short-term rental guests (renters) will receive clear advance notice when a listed property owner self-discloses a registered child sex-offender status, letting renters make more informed safety decisions.
Short-term rental platforms will be required to ask owners about child sex-offender registration, increasing transparency about who is offering rentals and making such information more likely to be surfaced to consumers.
Consumers and state governments gain stronger enforcement tools—FTC authority plus state parens patriae actions—to stop noncompliance and obtain relief, which can deter violations and provide remedies for affected renters.
Homeowners and renters risk harm from misidentification if registry data is inaccurate or out-of-date—incorrect labels or links could falsely suggest an owner is a registrant and confuse or alarm guests.
Owners who must disclose registration status may suffer reputational harm, lost rental income, or effective exclusion from the short-term rental market.
Collecting and storing sensitive criminal-status information creates privacy and data‑security risks for platforms and owners; breaches or mishandling could expose individuals and magnify harm.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires online short-term rental platforms to ask property owners whether they are registered child sex offenders and to display a clear, conspicuous disclosure (including a link to a public sex offender registry) to prospective guests before purchase when an owner discloses such status. Treats failures or materially false responses as unfair or deceptive acts enforceable by the FTC and allows state attorneys general to bring parens patriae civil actions; defines key terms and sets the law to take effect one year after enactment.