Good morning. I was alerted to this Community Chat by a friend in Cape Town who knew of the stress and frustration that I have been experiencing since June this year. My seaside house in Cape Town is a guest favorite and I have enjoyed hosting it on the AIRBNB platform over the past 5 or 6 years. The platform works beautifully. My guests have been courteous and considerate and the support team has been responsive. Rental payments were smoothly processed.
However in June this year I began receiving repeated messages from the KYC team asking me to verify my business. My house is owned by a family company. The shares which I hold are explicitly linked to the house which I rent on AIRBNB. Our shareholders' agreement (which is registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission of South Africa) explicitly grants me the right to rent the house for my own profit. I sent AIRBNB compliance a signed and stamped letter from our auditors, explaining and confirming this. But the compliance team subsequently began to ask for more and more information about the company - the shareholders, the beneficial owners, the trustees of the two trusts etc. They asked for an organogram explaining how the company is structured. I sent this. There are three shareholders, myself and the two trusts. Airbnb asked for the deeds of the two trusts and then proceeded to ask for information about every trustee and every beneficiary. These two trusts do not have control over the property that I rent on Airbnb. Nevertheless I tried to answer all the questions and send all the documents to which I had access. Every time I upload a document, AIRBNB compliance asks for more. Presently the compliance team is wanting information about a trustee which is actually a professional and internationally respected trust management company. They want to know about the 'shareholding' of this trustee. Professional trust administrators are not allowed to hold shares in the trusts which they administer. This has now been going on for more tham two months and I am becoming desperate. Payouts were 'paused' in early August 2025. I have blocked all the empty days on my calendar so that no new bookings can be made, but I have to honour the bookings that I already have. How am I to pay the garden service, the laundry, the cable TV station, the cleaners, the electricity etc? I have had no payments from Airbnb since early in August 2025. There are two payments withheld presently and I have a guest arriving next week. I do not expect to be paid ...
I have reached out many times to AIRBNB support and the young women who have answered have been sympathertic and polite. But they are unable to do more than send a note to someone in the KYC department.
Please can you help me resolve this issue.
