Brookhaven Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Brookhaven and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that renting the house out is perfectly legal here, and the town runs a license built for exactly that. The bad news arrives about one sentence later, though, because Brookhaven refuses to issue that license for what it calls a transient residential occupancy. Unfortunately for most people reading this, that phrase covers the entire nightly-rental business, and it closes before it opens.

To be clear about which Brookhaven this is, we're talking about the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, the largest town in the state by area, taking in Patchogue, Coram, Medford, Selden, Mastic and Stony Brook along the mainland side of the Great South Bay. It isn't the city in Georgia, which has friendlier rules and keeps turning up in search results for the same word. The town board wrote the transient definition into its code in December 2023, then raised the fines a year later, so a first offense now starts at $2,500 and every additional week counts as a separate violation.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: what the town will and won't license in 2026, what the registration costs, the paperwork and the inspection behind it, the tax layers Suffolk County and the state stack on a stay, how hard any of it gets enforced, and who to call when you get stuck. Every figure below comes from Brookhaven's own code and forms, or from Suffolk County and New York State pages, checked in July 2026. Where I couldn't confirm something, I've said so rather than filled the gap.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Brookhaven

Everything in that walkthrough hangs on a single sentence in the town code, so let's start there. Brookhaven doesn't hand out a license for the business you probably came here to run.

Two provisions of Chapter 82, Neighborhood Preservation do the work. First, § 82-10A makes it unlawful for any rental occupancy to exist in any dwelling in the town without the owner having obtained a rental registration from the Chief Building Inspector. Then § 82-10A(2), added by Local Law No. 13-2023 and effective December 29, 2023, adds one sentence that ends the conversation: "A rental registration shall not be issued to a transient residential occupancy."

Renting without a registration is illegal, and the registration you'd need can't be issued. That's a ban, written as a refusal.

The definition sets the line. Under § 82-2, a transient residential occupancy is a dwelling occupied by someone other than the owner or an owner's family member, for rent, "for a period of less than 28 nights". The same definition then goes on to cover "all non-owner-occupied, single-family residences, two-family residences, and townhouses rented for a period of less than 28 nights". Two things sit outside it: property used exclusively for non-residential commercial purposes, and hotels, motels or bed-and-breakfast establishments that already hold a certificate of occupancy.

Now, you might think the spare-room version survives, since the definition leans on the phrase "non-owner-occupied". It doesn't, and the town closes that door on a separate hinge. Brookhaven's own Rental License Application carries two disclosure questions that each end with the word STOP. One asks whether you intend to rent individual rooms or any separate portion of the dwelling, which the form calls a rooming house and describes as "a non permitted use, prohibited pursuant to the Brookhaven Town Code". The other asks whether you intend to offer the dwelling for fewer than 30 nights. Answer yes to either and the application stops there.

So what's genuinely left in Brookhaven?

• The whole house, on stays long enough to clear the transient line, with a rental registration in hand. This is the real market here, and it's a furnished mid-term let rather than a weekend business.
• Fire Island. Under § 82-1B, Chapter 82 does not apply to property in the Great South Beach, which is instead governed by the Great South Beach article of the zoning code. The town's renewal form says the same thing in its title, "Non-Owner Occupied Dwellings (excluding Fire Island)". Reading that article start to finish, I found no minimum-stay or registration rule in it at all, which is not the same as an affirmative permission, so do check your specific parcel with the Building Division before you assume anything.
• A hotel, motel or bed-and-breakfast with a certificate of occupancy. That's a zoning and building project, not a listing decision.

If your numbers only worked at nightly rates, the honest answer is that they don't work in this town. The pivot most owners here make is the 30-plus-night furnished rental, which sits outside the transient definition entirely and rents to traveling nurses, relocating families and contractors instead of weekenders. Before you commit either way, run the property through BNBCalc first, because a mid-term rate in Medford is a very different number from the nightly one you had in mind.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Brookhaven

Assuming your plan survives all of that and you're renting the house on a long enough stay, you'll still need the registration itself, and it's more involved than the word "registration" suggests.

The fee is set by Town Board resolution under § 82-5 and printed on the application form, which was last revised in April 2025 and is still the current form linked from the town's Building Division forms page as of July 2026. It's non-refundable, and it's the same on renewal:

• One-family dwelling, 1 to 5 bedrooms: $500, plus $500 for each additional bedroom over five.
• Apartment complexes: $1,500 for 4 to 50 units, $2,000 for 51 to 100, $3,000 for 101 to 200, and $5,000 above 200 units.

The process runs in two stages, and the gap between them catches people. File a complete application and the Chief Building Inspector issues a temporary rental registration valid for 90 days. Inside that window you either book an inspection with the Building Division or supply an inspection report from a New York State licensed professional engineer, registered architect, or home inspector holding a current code enforcement official certification. Either way, the report has to certify that the structure meets the applicable housing, sanitary, building, electrical and fire codes.

Pass, and you get a Provisional House Rental License running 15 months from the date the temporary registration was issued, or two years for a multi-unit apartment complex. Miss the window and no registration can be issued at all. So make sure you schedule the inspection the week you file rather than the week it expires.

Renewal works the same way, with one trap worth marking on a calendar. Under § 82-10F you file the renewal on or 90 days before the expiration date, you affirm in writing that nothing has changed and that no federal, state, county or town violations are outstanding, and you go through the inspection again. The town will not accept, review or approve a renewal once the expiration date has passed. Let it lapse and you start over with a brand-new application, at full price.

A registration also carries conditions that have nothing to do with the guest and everything to do with the neighbors:

• Parking is capped. Each rental dwelling gets one registered motor vehicle per legally designated bedroom, plus one more. Anything beyond that needs an application to the Board of Zoning Appeals.
• Distant owners need a local human. If you live more than 25 miles outside the town, the application requires a designated alternate contact, based in the town or within 25 miles of it, who will actually respond when police, fire, emergency or town inspectors can't reach you.
• The town wants to know who's inside. Owner and alternate must keep a current list of occupants and produce it on request, tenant names go on the application, and any change gets reported within 15 days.
• Eight or more units means a 24-hour site manager, whose contact details are filed with the Building Division within five days of appointment or of any change.

Then there's the advertising rule, which is the one that reaches Airbnb directly. Under § 82-12, amended by the same December 2023 law, it's unlawful for any person, company, broker or agent to place a listing for a rental dwelling "on any website, in the mass media, or in printed materials" without first verifying that a valid rental registration exists. Accepting a deposit, rent or a commission on an unregistered rental is separately unlawful, and a convicted real estate licensee gets reported by the Town Clerk to the Department of State's Division of Licensing Services. Keep in mind that the listing is the evidence here, because it's public, dated and searchable.

One genuine inconsistency deserves flagging, since the town's own documents disagree with each other. The code says less than 28 nights. The application form's banner says short-term rental occupancies of 30 nights or less, and its Transient Residential Occupancy Affidavit uses both numbers in a single paragraph: less than 28 nights for anything advertised on Airbnb, HomeAway or Vrbo, and less than 30 nights for anything offered for lease through any medium. Both documents are current. Going through them side by side, the only safe operating line is 30 nights, which has the useful side effect of matching Suffolk County's tax threshold too.

Finally, a registration can be taken away. Under § 82-11 the Chief Building Inspector revokes it where a violation of the Multiple Residence Law, the state fire prevention and building code, or the town code has been allowed to persist for 14 business days after written notice and an opportunity to be heard. You can appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals within 30 days, and filing the appeal stays the revocation until the board rules, which it must do within 30 days of closing the hearing.

Required Documents for Brookhaven Short-Term Rentals

Since that $500 doesn't come back whether you're approved or not, it's worth getting the file right the first time. The application itself runs seven pages, and most of the work sits in the attachments rather than the form.

• Four notarized affidavits, covering the rental license, the rooming-house prohibition, other residential dwellings you own in the town, and the transient occupancy acknowledgment.
• Every certificate on the property: certificates of occupancy, compliance, existing use and zoning compliance, plus any previous rental licenses, for each dwelling unit in the structure.
• Two surveys, drawn to scale, showing all buildings, structures, walks, driveways, other physical features and the on-site parking, carrying the surveyor's seal, the survey or revision date, and the distance to the nearest tie street. A townhouse or condominium supplies a deed instead.
• Three copies of floor plans for each rental unit, in scale, covering every floor level and the basement, with room dimensions and uses, window type and size for each sleeping room, and the location of the smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms.
• A recorded deed, if you've owned the property less than a year.
• Entity paperwork, where an LLC, corporation or trust owns the property: articles of organization, the operating agreement and the membership certificate.
• A sworn statement that nothing is outstanding, meaning no open violations of any federal, state, county or town law, and a signed acknowledgment that you understand the town's limits on unrelated persons occupying a residence.

Two details on the physical property are easy to miss and expensive to discover late. Adding a bedroom to a rental unit requires Suffolk County Health Department approval unless an existing certificate of occupancy already covers it, so a finished basement you counted as a bedroom may not count as one.

The second is about doors. Section 82-3 bans locked internal doors that bar access between segregated portions of a dwelling, along with interior key locks or dead bolts on any bedroom, and it requires carbon monoxide alarms on every habitable floor with a carbon monoxide source plus a working smoke detector in every rental dwelling. Watch out for the lock rule in particular, because a keyed bedroom door is exactly what an owner fits before renting rooms out separately, and it's one of the first things an inspector looks for.

One more thing worth knowing before you sign: the application states that the town reserves the right to send information from it to the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance.

Brookhaven Short-Term Rental Taxes

Paperwork aside, any stay you're able to rent legally still gets taxed, and the taxing is done above the town rather than by it. I found no Town of Brookhaven bed tax on any of the town's own reachable pages, which leaves Suffolk County and New York State.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Hotel and motel occupancy tax	5.5% of the per diem rate	Suffolk County Comptroller
New York State sales tax	4%	NYS Dept. of Taxation and Finance
Suffolk County local sales tax	4.375%	NYS Dept. of Taxation and Finance
Combined sales tax rate	8.75%	NYS Dept. of Taxation and Finance

The county piece comes first. Suffolk's hotel and motel occupancy tax has been 5.5% of the per diem rental rate since June 1, 2023 under Chapter 523, Article II of the county code, and the Comptroller's office is emphatic that it reaches "all lodging facilities including residences and tourist homes, not just traditional hotels and motels". New York Tax Law § 1202-o is what authorizes it, capping the county at "five and one-half percent of the per diem rental rate for each room". Note the awkward position that creates: Suffolk County taxes a category of stay that Brookhaven declines to license, so the tax rules and the town rules genuinely do not line up.

The compliance mechanics are strict, and they're worth reading even if a platform is doing the collecting. You register with the county within 10 days of the first lodging rental, display the Certificate of Authority you get back, and file quarterly returns due on the 20th of March, June, September and December. Failing to register costs $50 per day, per facility. A late return draws a 10% penalty plus 1% per month in interest, and willfully failing to collect or remit is a misdemeanor carrying up to $1,000 and up to a year. Guests who stay 30 consecutive days become permanent residents and drop out of the tax, and the county says the tax collected over their first 30 days becomes refundable to them at that point.

Sales tax is the state's, and it moved twice on the same day. New York extended sales tax to short-term rental unit occupancy effective March 1, 2025 wherever the rate exceeds $2.00 per unit per day, with booking services registering as sales tax vendors and collecting on the occupancies they facilitate. On that same date, Suffolk County's local rate rose from 4¼% to 4⅜%, taking the combined state and local rate from 8⅝% to 8¾%.

Where a platform handles all of your bookings you're relieved of collecting the sales tax yourself, though only if you hold Form ST-155, the Booking Service Certificate of Collection, or a publicly available agreement saying the platform will collect. Don't forget to actually get that document and keep it, since the relief depends on holding it rather than on assuming it.

Platforms do collect here. Airbnb's own New York occupancy tax page says it collects the Suffolk County "Hotel and Motel Occupancy Tax: 5.5% of the listing price including any cleaning fees, for reservations up to 29 nights", along with New York State sales tax on reservations of 89 nights or fewer outside New York City. Do check how that lines up with your stay length, though. A 30-plus-night booking is the only kind Brookhaven will license, and it's also the point where the county tax stops applying, so the tax that platform collection is built to solve mostly isn't yours to worry about.

New York Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That mismatch between a county tax and a town prohibition is easier to understand once you see how little the state does to referee it.

New York does not preempt local short-term rental rules. A New York Department of State training presentation for local governments puts it flatly: it is "up to each municipality to define, prohibit and/or regulate short term rentals as they choose". Towns keep full zoning, permitting and prohibition authority, which is precisely how Brookhaven arrived at a license it will not issue.

What the state did build is a registry, and it sits at the county level rather than the state's. S885C, signed December 21, 2024 as Chapter 672 of 2024, created the framework and brought booking services into the sales tax vendor system. S820, signed February 28, 2025 as Chapter 99 of 2025, then restructured it so counties run the registries and may opt out by local law.

Real Property Law § 447-b sets what a registered unit has to carry: a conspicuously posted evacuation diagram, posted emergency numbers for police, fire and poison control, a working fire extinguisher, insurance of at least $300,000 for third-party property damage or bodily injury claims, and two years of guest-stay records. It also preserves any registry a jurisdiction already ran, and it bars a town from starting a new one inside a county that operates its own.

The opt-out window has now closed. Working from the New York State Association of Counties implementation memo, the registry provisions took effect around September 25, 2025 and the last date for a county to opt out by local law was roughly June 25, 2026. NYSAC also notes the fiscal nudge: a county that opts in is automatically authorized to update its local occupancy tax law for short-term rentals, and a county that opts out is not.

Whether Suffolk County opted in or out, I could not confirm. Suffolk's own pages block automated access and its Legislature's annual local-law compilations wouldn't open through any route I tried, so I'm not going to assert an answer. Be aware that it matters less inside Brookhaven than almost anywhere else in the state, because a county registry doesn't override a town's refusal to license the use. Elsewhere in New York the picture varies enormously, which is why the New York statewide guide is the better starting point for a portfolio, the Nassau County guide covers the rest of Long Island's commuter belt, and the Westchester County guide covers the northern suburbs where several towns do license nightly stays.

Does Brookhaven Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Brookhaven is emphatically not one of those towns. It enforces, and it's been unusually public about deciding to.

The December 2023 law didn't invent the prohibition so much as sharpen it. Reporting the unanimous town board vote at the time, The Real Deal noted that rentals shorter than four weeks "were already against town rules, but enforcement was spotty and penalties were vague". Officials made the same point during the hearings, telling Patch that transient rentals were already illegal and the amendments only added clarification. What changed was that vagueness stopped being a defense.

Then the numbers moved. Section 82-14, as amended by Local Law No. 21-2024 and effective December 3, 2024, now carries a fine of not less than $2,500 and not more than $6,000 for a first offense, or up to 15 days' imprisonment, or both. A second of two offenses inside five years runs $5,000 to $10,000, again with up to 15 days. And each week's continued violation is a separate additional violation, so this isn't a one-off ticket. It accrues, and that's where owners who decide to wait it out get hurt badly. The town went as far as enacting the section under the Municipal Home Rule Law expressly to supersede Town Law § 268 and lift the statutory caps.

The politics behind that are on the record. TBR News Media covered the November 4, 2024 press conference where Supervisor Dan Panico said the town was "going to break the slumlord business model, with exponentially higher fines through robust enforcement". Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich framed the increase more precisely: "For too many irresponsible landlords, the relatively low cost of fines has just been part of the cost of doing business." All six council members attended, alongside three county legislators. Raising the floor was the whole point.

Three mechanisms make a case easy to build, and they're worth understanding in order. The listing is public, and § 82-12 makes the advertisement itself the violation, so nobody has to catch a guest in the driveway. Under § 82-8E, any dwelling not occupied by its legal owner is presumed to be rented for a fee, a presumption you then have to rebut. And where an owner refuses entry, § 82-9 lets the Chief Building Inspector apply to Suffolk County District Court or the Supreme Court for a search warrant. Prosecution runs through the town's Law Department, which handles "prosecuting all violations of the Town Code".

What I could not find is a published count of transient-rental prosecutions or fines collected since the law took effect. The town publishes no enforcement dataset comparable to what larger cities put out, so treat the deterrent as real but the volume as unmeasured.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Brookhaven

Given how the enforcement side is set up, the order you do things in matters more than usual here, because the first two steps tell you whether the rest is worth paying for.

1. Decide your minimum stay before anything else. Thirty nights is the safe floor, given the conflict between the code's 28 and the application form's 30. Anything shorter isn't a licensing problem you can solve, it's a use the town won't register.
2. Check whether Chapter 82 even applies to your parcel. Fire Island property is excluded by § 82-1B and governed by the Great South Beach zoning article instead. Everywhere else in the town, it applies.
3. Pull your certificates before you spend a dollar. Certificate of occupancy, compliance, existing use, zoning compliance, and any prior rental license. A converted basement or an unpermitted bedroom surfaces here, and it's cheaper to find now.
4. Clear any open violations. You'll be swearing that nothing is outstanding at federal, state, county or town level, and the affidavit is notarized.
5. Get the survey and floor plans drawn. Two sealed surveys and three sets of scaled plans showing room dimensions, sleeping-room windows, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms.
6. File the application with the $500 fee and take the temporary rental registration you're issued. The clock starts that day.
7. Book the inspection immediately. You have 90 days, either through the Building Division or via a licensed engineer, architect or certified home inspector, and there's no extension once the temporary registration expires.
8. Register with the Suffolk County Comptroller if you'll be taking stays under 30 days at any point, within 10 days of the first one, and display the Certificate of Authority.
9. Sort out the sales tax position with your platform. Get Form ST-155 or the equivalent public collection agreement, and keep it on file.
10. Diarize the renewal for 90 days before expiry. Fifteen months goes quickly, the renewal needs a fresh inspection, and the town will not process it at all once the date has passed.

Who to Contact in Brookhaven about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, four offices cover almost all of it, and knowing which one owns your question saves a lot of time on hold.

Rental registrations, inspections and the application itself

The Division of Building issues and renews rental registrations, runs the inspections and answers questions about certificates of occupancy.

• Address: 1 Independence Hill, Farmingville, NY 11738
• Phone: 631-451-8696 (general Building Division), or 631-451-6333 for the rental license desk printed on the application form
• Fax: 631-451-6341
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 4:15 pm
• Online: the town's Building Division page carries the Lookup Rental License tool, and renewing a permit or license online takes 10% off the renewal fee

The lookup tool cuts both ways, mind you. Anyone can check whether an address holds a current rental license, which is as useful to a neighbor drafting a complaint as it is to you checking a property before you buy it.

Complaints and code enforcement

Code Enforcement, inside the Public Safety Department, handles town code complaints and staffs the radio and communication center that acts as the town's after-hours contact point.

• Address: 1 Independence Hill, Farmingville, NY 11738
• Phone: 631-451-6161
• Fax: 631-451-9041
• Hours: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

The town's general line, 631-451-TOWN, is staffed Monday to Friday and will route you if you're not sure which department you need.

Prosecutions, appeals and records

The Law Department prosecutes town code violations and processes Freedom of Information Law requests, on 631-451-6500, Monday to Friday from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, at the same Farmingville address. Appeals from a revoked rental registration go to the Board of Zoning Appeals under § 82-11, within 30 days of the revocation.

The county occupancy tax

The Suffolk County Comptroller's Office administers registration, the Certificate of Authority and the quarterly occupancy tax returns.

• Tax Collections Center: 330 Center Drive, Riverhead, NY 11901-3311
• Phone: (631) 852-1770, fax (631) 852-1425
• Email: [email protected]
• Filing: through the county's remittance portal at suffolkcountyny.taxandrevenue.opengov.com

State sales tax and vendor registration belong to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance rather than to the county, and its Sales Tax Information Center takes calls on 518-485-2889 on business days.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Brookhaven on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Contacting the right office is one thing, and living with the rule is another, which is where local sentiment gets interesting. Before I characterize any of it, one disclosure: Reddit blocked automated access throughout this research, and the BiggerPockets Long Island forum returned navigation without readable threads, so nothing below is a claim about what any specific thread says. What follows is drawn from sources I could open, and it's my read rather than a survey.

• Owners organized, and quickly. Within days of the town announcing the amendment in 2023, a group calling itself the Brookhaven Alliance for Homeowners Rights started a Change.org petition that has since drawn 828 verified signatures. Its central line is the one you hear repeatedly from owners here: "We believe that short-term rentals should be inspected, registered, and taxed, not outlawed."
• The 28-night line is what people find hardest to accept. Adam Banks of the owners' group put the objection to Patch as plainly as it can be put: "They've determined that rentals over 28 days are okay and under 28 days are not okay. We need to ask them why 29 days is okay and 27 days is not okay." The town's answer, in effect, is that a month is where a guest becomes a resident.
• The constitutional argument keeps coming up, and it hasn't been tested here. Owners point to an October 2019 State Supreme Court decision striking down a comparable Village of Bellport law as arbitrary and capricious. Brookhaven's version has been in force since December 2023 without a reported challenge, so treat that precedent as an argument owners make rather than as protection you can rely on.
• The complaints that drove the law were about parties, rather than about Airbnb as such. Council members described noise, crowds and quality-of-life calls, and reporting at the time said the same package reached owners who rent a swimming pool out separately from the house. I couldn't locate that pool provision in the current Chapter 82 text, so I'd treat it as reported rather than confirmed. Remember that the political constituency here is neighbors, which is why the fines went up rather than down.
• Platforms didn't fight it. Airbnb's response to the 2023 vote, quoted by The Real Deal, was that the company would work with hosts to "help them understand the new local rules". Nobody is litigating this on your behalf.

If Brookhaven's answer is a no and you'd rather compare it against places in the state where an entire unit can legally go on Airbnb, the New York market data is where those numbers sit side by side.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Brookhaven, New York in 2026?

Not for short stays. The Town of Brookhaven requires a rental registration for any rental occupancy, and Chapter 82 § 82-10A(2) of the town code states that a rental registration shall not be issued to a transient residential occupancy, defined as a rental of less than 28 nights. The town's own application form uses 30 nights or less and separately refuses registrations for room rentals, treating them as a prohibited rooming house. Renting the whole house on longer stays is legal with a registration.

How much does a Brookhaven rental registration cost?

$500 for a one-family dwelling with one to five bedrooms, plus $500 for each additional bedroom above five. Apartment complexes pay $1,500 for 4 to 50 units, $2,000 for 51 to 100, $3,000 for 101 to 200 and $5,000 above 200 units. The fee is non-refundable and identical on renewal. A registration for a one-, two- or three-family dwelling runs 15 months from the date the temporary registration was issued.

What is the penalty for an illegal short-term rental in Brookhaven?

Under Town Code § 82-14, as amended effective December 3, 2024, a first offense carries a fine of not less than $2,500 and not more than $6,000, or imprisonment for up to 15 days, or both. A second of two offenses within five years carries $5,000 to $10,000 on the same terms. Each week the violation continues counts as a separate additional violation, so the exposure compounds rather than capping.

Do Fire Island rentals follow the same Brookhaven rules?

No. Town Code § 82-1B states that Chapter 82 does not apply to property in the Great South Beach, which covers the Fire Island portion of the Town of Brookhaven, and the town's rental renewal form is titled for non-owner-occupied dwellings excluding Fire Island. Those parcels fall under the zoning code's Great South Beach article instead, which sets use districts but contains no minimum-stay or rental-registration rule. Confirm your specific parcel with the Building Division before relying on that.

What taxes apply to a rental in Brookhaven, New York?

Suffolk County charges a hotel and motel occupancy tax of 5.5% of the per diem rate on lodging of less than 30 days, including private residences, and it has since June 1, 2023. New York State and Suffolk County sales tax adds a combined 8.75%, made up of a 4% state rate and a 4.375% local rate since March 1, 2025. Guests staying 30 consecutive days become permanent residents and drop out of the county occupancy tax. I found no Town of Brookhaven bed tax.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.