Lake County supervisors direct staff to offer short grace period for unregistered short‑term rentals after new software flags dozens

The Lake County Board of Supervisors directed staff on Oct. 26 to offer a short grace period and to draft a resolution updating county policy after the Treasurer’s office reported it had identified at least 172 unregistered short‑term rentals using new software.

County Treasurer Tax Collector Patrick Sullivan told the board the county’s new tool, Rentalscape by Decker Technologies, "as of April 30, the software and our staff was able to collectively identify 172 unregistered vacation rentals, or short term rentals rather, that we have sent letters out to." He added staff suspect "maybe another 50 out there that we don't have fully identified yet." Sullivan said the county has 209 registered transient occupancy tax properties and about 2,000 total online listings across platforms, noting that multiple listings can point to a single property.

The discovery prompted supervisors to seek direction on how strictly to enforce penalties and interest for past nonpayment. Supervisor Pysco said the board should act quickly and offered a practical compromise: "I'm willing to give, like, 30 days of a grace period if they're willing to work with us right now, come up with a payment plan right now, and we don't need to do it through an appeal, whatever is easiest for you." Supervisor Sabati said…