Hi @Jo150,
Airbnb Listings and Accounts are not transferable – by definition.
It is also against the rules of Airbnb to transfer your account to someone else.
This question pops up quite frequently, as there are obviously a lot of other hosts around the globe. Who are dealing or will get to deal with such a situation, sooner or later.
There are a number of things you can do, in such a situation (or a combination of those):
I can imagine, this list is not complete or there may be other options and/or possibilities. So feel free to add those.
- Start blocking your calendar for the infinite future. So you will not get any more new reservations.
When you start blocking your calendar is up to you. I.e. When you start thinking about selling, or at the moment you do agree the sale with the new owner. - Serve out your current reservations, while in close contact with your future guests and the new owner. Work out payment details with the new owner (in case the property already changed or will soon change ownership).
It is formally against the rules of Airbnb to serve as a host for a property. When the property is no longer owned or to be used by you. It is also very risky! I.e. What if the guests cause a lot of damage, while the property is no longer yours. What if there will be a difference of opinion between you and the new owner – on what can be considered as tolerable behavior. How will you solve issues. How will you let guests in. And many more of these sort of questions and issues. - Ask the new owner to setup his own listing, and try to get Airbnb involved in order to get the current reservations transferred. I’ve been told that there is only a very low chance, in you to be able to succeed in this.
Obviously you should agree this way of working with your future guests first! - Agree with the new owner to transfer the property – after you served out your current reservations (When seasonality is a factor, you could agree with the new owner, to transfer the property in low season).
- Inform all your future guests about the sale, and cancel all outstanding reservations.
Future guests will absolutely not like this and Airbnb will fine you for this.
Obviously these cancellations will be visible in your profile + all other negative aspects of cancelling confirmed reservations.
So when you have multiple properties on Airbnb, and you are only selling 1 property.
This has quite some impact.
We are not thinking about selling our property (for now, that is).
But when we bought our property, we were dealing with a similar situation (the previous owner was on VRBO). So we had to work out a similar scenario. In the end we took over 1 group of guests, and it was entirely at our own risk – of course (as it basically became a bilateral agreement between us and the guests). It all worked out very satisfactorily – in the end, to both us and the guests. Obviously these guests could not leave us a review on Airbnb. As we didn’t rent out the apartment through Airbnb, during this particular stay of guests.
I hope this little bit of thought will help you in dealing with such a topic.