Watauga County North Carolina COVID-19 Ban on Short-Term Rentals

[Tehane Gallimore]

I was recently notified that Watauga County in NC has recently banned short-term rentals due to COVID-19. We have a lot of reservations on the calendar still despite the current state of the world, but I was curious what other local hosts were doing? The way I read the ban is that any renters that we have existing rental agreements with are still ok to host, but I am not sure if I am understanding this correctly. The ban states that "Persons currently subject to a written rental agreement shall be able to remain for the rental period and shall be able to extend said period with no time limitation provided it is continuous." We have stopped taking any new reservations and are requiring new reservations to be 30 days or more, but what about the existing reservations that we do have rental agreements with?