Short-term rental properties; human trafficking awareness training.
Summary
SB985 amends Virginia’s human trafficking training law to expand training requirements beyond traditional hotels to certain short-term rental and accommodations providers. The bill requires hotel proprietors to ensure employees complete an approved course on recognizing and reporting suspected human trafficking, and it adds a parallel requirement for accommodations providers that list properties through accommodations intermediaries. The Department of Criminal Justice Services would provide a free online training option and approve alternative courses within 60 days.
The bill also requires accommodations providers to make sure their employees complete the training within six months of employment and then every two years thereafter. For properties listed on an accommodations intermediary platform, the intermediary must notify providers of the training requirement, allow digital or written certification of completion, and provide information to the Department of Health upon request. The bill further authorizes a court, if an accommodations provider is found to have been the site of human trafficking, to order closure of the accommodations for up to six months.
Impact
The bill would amend and reenact § 35.1-15.1 of the Code of Virginia, broadening the scope of mandatory human trafficking awareness training to include certain short-term rental and accommodations-provider operations, while excluding real estate licensees who manage short-term rentals from the definition of accommodations provider. It also creates compliance duties for accommodations intermediaries and establishes a potential court-ordered closure remedy for properties used in human trafficking. The measure affects hotels, short-term rental operators, platform intermediaries, employees with guest contact or room access, and state agencies responsible for training approval and enforcement.
Sentiment
The available voting history suggests broad support in committee for the bill’s anti-trafficking purpose, with unanimous 15-0 reporting from the Senate General Laws and Technology Committee. It then advanced unanimously 14-0 in the Finance and Appropriations Committee before being passed by indefinitely, indicating no recorded opposition in the available votes but also no final enactment. No committee transcript is available, so the public discussion record here is limited to the procedural votes.
Contention
The main policy issue appears to be the expansion of training and compliance obligations from hotels to short-term rental and platform-based accommodations providers. Potential points of contention include the administrative burden on hosts and intermediaries, the scope of who qualifies as an accommodations provider, the exclusion of real estate licensees managing short-term rentals, and the practicality of enforcing training and certification requirements across online rental platforms. The bill’s authorization of a court-ordered closure for properties found to have been used in human trafficking may also raise concerns about the severity of the remedy and due process.