Listing wrongly suspended as “duplicate” of a previous host’s property

[Frederik139]

I’m reaching out here because I’m facing what seems to be a serious misunderstanding with Airbnb’s system, and I hope someone from the community (or Airbnb staff) can help clarify or escalate this situation.

I recently purchased a summerhouse, which I now fully own and manage myself. After creating a new listing for the property, it was suddenly suspended and flagged as a “duplicate” of a previous listing that had once existed under the former owner.

Here’s the issue:

• I have no connection whatsoever to the former owner or their Airbnb account.
• The previous owner’s listing was never flagged or removed for any policy or quality issues.
• My listing has a completely new ownership, management, and account.
• I have a strong hosting record with only 5-star reviews from other listings.

Despite explaining all of this and providing proof of ownership, Airbnb has upheld the suspension, citing their “Relisted Listings Policy” — which apparently ties enforcement to the property’s address, not the owner. This means that even though I had nothing to do with the prior listing, my new one is being penalized automatically by their system.

This feels deeply unfair. A property should not be “blacklisted” because of a previous host, especially when there’s new ownership and new management involved.

I’ve also offered to contact the former owner personally to remove their old listing if that helps clear any confusion in Airbnb’s system — but I haven’t received any reply from support on whether that would make a difference.

I’m kindly asking Airbnb to manually review this case rather than rely on automated AI-based detection. Human review is crucial here, since automated systems can’t see that ownership has changed and the property is being run responsibly and professionally now.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Or does anyone know how I can get in contact with a department that handles ownership verifications or appeals beyond the standard support channel?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Any advice or support from fellow hosts would be greatly appreciated.

Best, Frederik ☺️

[Frederik139]

Just to give an update, Airbnb now say they cannot re-activate the listing. They cannot "override the system". I just spoke to their Senior supporter... So I am being punished as a result of the previous owner of the house. How does that make any sense?

"To set the proper expectations, we cannot override the denial of your appeal.

While I fully acknowledged that you are the new owner of the aforementioned property, and the original Host has already removed the listing under their account, the violations remain active. This is the reason that when you try to reactivate your listing, it does not go through. It is the system who recognizes that your listing has a duplicate listing that has active restrictions and violations.

There is no specific time frame on as when you can activate your listing once again, however based on my resources, it could take up more than a year for the system to stop flagging your listing as duplicate."

[Joan2709]

@Frederik139 

I was afraid of that....

Although their circumvention policy doesn't specifically say a new owner will still be held accountable for listing issues from a previous owner, they are applying the policy that way. They use the term "user" and don't make a distinction between original owner and new owner.

Alas, this is a case of the seller not being forthcoming and basically "dumping" a property most probably due to the listing issues. If they marketed the property as a potential investment for STR and didn't mention the listing issues, then you might have a case for the seller's failure to disclose.

If you cannot do well on another platform (I'm told Vrbo is not well know in some countries), then you would have to consider traditional long term renting until (or if) Airbnb allows your to list it, or sell. Of course, do not fail to inform any buyer of the listing issues with Airbnb.