Hi Everyone,
I’m the primary host for a property based in the UK and we have a guest refusing to leave the property, despite checkout being due yesterday.
The guest made a booking for the entire house for a month and verbally stated that they would extend. I instructed them to submit their request via Airbnb, however, despite my chasing them on at least 3 separate occasions via written messages and additional phone calls over the course of two weeks, the guest never actioned their request. Now they can’t extend the booking as much as they wanted to because we have had another booking so they have refused to leave the property claiming that we had a ‘periodic tenancy agreement’, which is not the case.
I have called Airbnb on several occasions, being told that my call will be escalated to their specialist team. I still have not received any call backs or any responses to my written messages. In fact, as I post this message, I’ve currently been on hold for over 120 minutes to Airbnb support having been told I was being transferred to this same, mysterious specialist team.
I have contacted the police and they say it’s a civil matter, they’ll only get involved if the guest threatens/assaults me (as if I would want to put myself in that position!). I feel totally let down both by Airbnb and the police for the lack of support. My question is, if it’s really this easy for someone to apparently claim they have a ‘periodic tenancy’ in a holiday let, then what is the role of holiday let platforms such as Airbnb? How are we truly safeguarded from this happening?
I have, historically, received a good service from Airbnb when I’ve had to contact them with regards to other issues. But when I have truly needed them the most, in a particularly distressing situation, I feel they have failed miserably on their core values to ‘champion the mission, be a host’. I’m appalled with the level of service from Airbnb.
Has anyone else experienced a similar issue in the UK? I would greatly appreciate some advice and guidance.
Many thanks.
