Airbnb legal issues involving long-stay reservations

[Jesse188]

Why is Airbnb withholding funds on reservations that roll over a month?  They are paying on a monthly scale and the payments are not received until after 7 days into the month.  It seems very obvious what's going on...  Airbnb has already collected the fee from the guests and they are sweeping their bank account(s) each night and collecting interest on the host's payouts!

It seems to me that this is a very serious legal issue and something must be done.  If the funds are already collected, in which case they are, then the money should not be withheld so Airbnb can draw interest on funds that don't belong to them.

Are there any attorneys out there that are interested in filing a class-action lawsuit to stop this illegal practice?  This must end...

The Airbnb chief ethics counsel should be well aware of this practice and stop this from continuing!  @Peter Urias

[Lorna170]

@Jesse188   As most guests pay AirBnB for their reservation immediately upon booking, EVERY guest who books could have AirBnB collecting interest on their payment.  It is not just long-stay guests.  

Of course, AirBnB may be operating under the same restrictions that I as a host in NC have; guest payments made in advance must be placed in a non-interest-bearing account until the guest has completed their reservation. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Jesse188 Airbnb are very clear as to how they collect and disburse payments. If a guest or host doesn't like their terms then they are not forced to use Airbnb.

[Jesse188]

Liking or disliking has nothing to do with the legality of the issue.  Thanks for your input captain obvious,

lmfao!  

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Jesse188 You are correct - Liking or disliking the agreement YOU have with Airbnb is irrelevant. The facts are that LEGALLY they are doing nothing wrong.

If you truly believe that are breaking the law then take them to court. You will likely lose but hey, it will at least prove you are wrong.

[Huma0]

@Jesse188 

Airbnb normally collect the payment from long term guests monthly rather than upfront. I know this, because if there has been any issue collecting the monthly payment, I get an email about it from Airbnb  and then another email letting me know that the issue has been resolved and the payment collected. I had a guest who stayed with me for six months and that seemed to happen every month, I guess probably because she was no longer using the same card.

What's much more of a concern than Airbnb making interest on these payments is that, if they are unable to collect the monthly payment from a long term guest, there is no guarantee that you will be paid even though the guest is already in your home, i.e. it could lead to a squatter situation. If Airbnb had collected the funds upfront, rather than doing it monthly, that wouldn't be an issue.

"If your guest doesn't successfully submit payment or if they cancel the reservation before making the payment, Airbnb isn't liable for issuing your host payout."

[Debra300]

@Huma0,

I've had the same situation happen with Airbnb having difficulty with collecting subsequent payments for long-term stays.

@Jesse188,

There used to be many posts from hosts that reported guests staying in their spaces for weeks beyond the payment due date before Airbnb would send them a message about it or finally canceling the reservation.  Their current process is to attempt to collect payment seven days before the due date, and immediately notify the host of any payment issue.  If payment isn't confirmed by the penultimate day of the reservation the host can cancel any dates that go beyond the paid period. 

My payouts are usually generated 24 hours after check-in, and don't take seven days to reach my account.  I work in fintech, and know that large volumes of payments are batch processed, and the time that it takes from generation to scheduled transmission to scheduled reception to the clearing house to scheduled transmission from their to receiving financial institution can take days.  When Airbnb sends out the payment notification the funds have been debited from their balances, and are no longer eligible to collect interest.

[Mary419]

It’s true that long term stays have actual laws that apply to them. The payment taking a week is not the major one I had pinpointed. 

Regarding the “like or dislike” question I would absolutely point out that short term rental does seem to allow for a TOS free for all. They can literally put someone in your home and never pay you. They can keep the money and spend it on advertising apparently and shame on the host for not reading the fine print. 

However… Mike and Jane… this free for all technically does have a hard stop when it comes to long term leasing. There are laws about this ranging from advertising to exactly how the money should be handled for residential leasing and nobody, not even Airbnb, can publish any rendition of  “we do it our way” to get around those laws.

I know this for the USA Federal laws and cannot speak for the rest of the world but many posts are from US hosts regarding this topic. 

And so far this inconvenient Federal regulation on housing and leasing hasn’t stopped Airbnb from announcing monthly stays are now a huge part of their business and “replacing landlords” Or “making leases obsolete”

It is only matter of time before this catches up with them but hosts are getting stuck in unfair situations in the meantime. 

[Rebecca181]

Airbnb would seem to pride themselves on how many legal requirements they can bypass - And get away with it. It has been working stupendously well for them all these years - Why spoil a good thing?