Listing suspended for being a "duplicate" listing from a prior host

[Jeremy1110]

Hello, I would love to get guidance from anyone who has been through a similar experience. We are superhosts and have run 3 listings on AirBnB for a couple of years. Recently, a host that we know who runs listings for a duplex on the same street as our property contacted us because he was vacating the property (he had been renting it from the owner and subletting it on AirBnB). He let us know that because he had moved out of state he couldn't manage it anymore. 

We purchased the furniture he had used in the property, signed our own lease with the landlord on August 1, 2024, rushed like mad to upgrade the interior of the property to our standards, and listed the property again under our host account as a new listing. This involved dropping thousands of dollars to secure the property, buy the previously used furniture, and add all of our own stuff to the house.  We got everything set up, listed the property, and have a guest who already checked in for a 3-month stay. The former host deactivated his listing before we published ours. 

Today, we received a message from AirBnB titled "Your listing will be removed on September 19". In the email body it says "This listing appears to be a duplicate of [Name of prior listing from prior host] which had recent issues. Because creating a duplicate of a listing with reported issues goes against our policies, your listing will be removed from Airbnb on September 19, 2024."

We immediately filed an appeal. In the appeal, we explained that we host another property on the street and that we acquired this new property on August 1, 2024 after we learned that the former host was vacating the property. We explained that we had no knowledge of any issues or warnings on his prior listing and we have exclusive control of the property and the current listing. We also provided a copy of the lease agreement that we signed with the landlord on August 1, 2024 giving us exclusive control of the property. 

AirBnB says they'll respond within 7 days. In the meantime, the listing is turned off and can't accept any new reservations. It's possible that they will accept our appeal and turn the listing back on, but I've heard enough horror stories from hosts who got blindsided by an obscure issue and it took months for them to resolve it that I'm trying to get ahead of this quickly. We signed a 12-month lease on the property and if AirBnB turns off the listing because of problems from a different host who ran a different listing we will be on the hook for thousands of dollars in costs with no good way to generate income to offset those costs. 

Obviously, that would be a big deal. Any advice from anyone who has experienced something similar would be appreciated. 

[Helen3]

I would suggest you list on all relevant other platforms until the situation gets resolved with Airbnb @Jeremy1110 

[Jeremy1110]

Good idea

[Jeremy1110 · Accepted solution]

I'll give AirBnB some real credit here. Within 4 hours of when I posted this (8 hours from when I submitted the appeal), they responded to the appeal and reapproved the listing.  I'm quite impressed with how quickly they resolved this.

[Arron92]

Hey @Jeremy1110

i am going through basically the same issue. I’m not sure if my property was previously listed to me having ownership but I have taken over a rental agreement from the landlord, completely in my name and listed on my account. It won’t show me the other property but mine is listed as “Elegant 2 Bedroom apartment” and This listing appears to be a duplicate of "Elegant Edinburgh 2 Bed flat", is it the name or the actual property, when I looked I couldn’t find the "Elegant Edinburgh 2 Bed flat". If the previous landlord has listed and named it as that I will be surely surpised as the odds of us naming the same if they did prior list is around 1 in 20,000 🧐. I read it can be the photos too but we have changed almost all the furnishings so it can’t be that! 

I am superhost also, I have 2 properties in total. This one is a new one and we have spent a lot of money furnishing it and repainting bringing it to our standard too.

I have went through so many feeds on community centre with absolute horror stories, you are the first one we have came across with a positive, speedy outcome.

did you do anything in particular to resolve the situation?

[Jeremy1110]

Hi Aaron! How long have you been waiting for them to fix this? I responded to them immediately when they delisted our properties and wrote them a long response explaining how we had complete control of the property, no prior host had any connection with the property, and if it was a duplicate of any prior listing that was unintentional, beyond our control, and had no effect on our exclusive right to control the property at this time. I also told him that I had a lease agreement in hand showing that I had exclusive legal control of the property and could provide that if they needed it to show the no prior host had control.

My understanding is that, in our case, the issue was that the listing from the prior host was removed for a violation and AirBnB thought we were helping him relist it under a different name. I’m not sure if that’s exactly your situation or not. We also spent a lot of money updating furnishings and decorating it to our standards. The same thing happened with two properties that we took over from the prior host, and in both cases, AirBnB had it resolved within about two or three days.