Hosting - Damages Claim

[Umesh-and-Nessa0]

Dear Community , 

My AirBnB experiences as a host barring one or two minor mishaps have been great.  We work in London and rather than leave our family home empty we decided to share it (and earn money) however we had a guest who caused a great deal of damage nearly 8k worth as well as damage to sentimental items.  We made a formal request as recommended by AirBnB but other than leaving messages no one has yet got back to me and am being told that it is being investigated.

Is there a time frame or am I doing something wrong please would someone who knows let me know what I should do or who I should be speaking to ( I have left several messages but not one response 😞 )- as repair costs have started to come in.

Many thanks

Umesh

[Linda108]

With that amount of damage and presuming you have provided proof the damage was caused by the guest, it will take months for the process to result in your collecting from the host protection.  There are many many posts about how frustrating this process is, but there are some stories with positive results.  

Meanwhile, if you are able to prove the damage you should look to other means of remedy such as the courts, small claim.  Or, you should investigate your own insurance if it covers short term rentals.  Most hosts that allow guest to access an entire house, especially if it is also your personal home, advise that all valuable items should be removed.  Even the best guest can have an accident.

Search this site for other host experience and make sure to stay in touch with Air BNB.  They may take their time but when they ask something of your, they usually have a short turn around expectation.  Good luck!!

[Fred13]

You have unfortunately entered the complicated, frustrating and unpredictable 'Host Guarantee Zone', as you are already may be sensing. There is an extensive amount of posts worth reading on this very subject on this board already, they will educate you quickly on its realities. Good luck.

[Post moved from duplicate topic]

[Sarah977]

@Umesh-and-Nessa0    I'm so sorry this happened and wish you luck on the damage claim.

I do think you need to understand, for the future, if you continue with renting out your home, that you aren't "sharing" your home. Sharing is when the hosts are living in the home and STR

 rooms or a suite in the house. What you are doing is allowing perfect strangers to stay in your family home, while you are elsewhere. That tends not to work out so well, according to many posts I've read here. General concensus is that you need to make an Airbnb fairly bulletproof, which is the antithesis of having the place full of your own belongings, some probably irreplaceable and many sentimental. 

You don't say whether you work during the week in London and come home on the weekends, or are in London full-time for the foreseeable future. If you are not going to be living there at all for some time, you might consider clearing the house of all personal items and easily breakable stuff and putting it in storage if you want to continue to do STRs, or get a long term tenant who you can properly vet re references, work history, and who signs a lease and gives you a damage deposit.

[Patty147]

I am in the SAME boat as I have damages and an open claim since 10/2/18 for over $3k and NO ONE IS RESPONDING...SO extremely frustrating.  I have submitted a video, pictures and receipt of work done to fix the damages and still NO REPLY.  I am considering canceling my Airbnb if I do not hear back soon.  Why should I continue to make them money when they can't reply in a timely fashion and reimburse for expenses per their "guaranteed insurance".  I'm sure they will never collect my deposit from the people that did all the damage to my place...as they are likely long gone and have canceled any credit card that the deposit was held on.  Any advice is appreciated.