@David0
Being new to ABB, I took a couple of hours to read various long threads on smoking, after I discovered the existence of this forum. I haven't read any thread on noise nuisance yet, but I suppose there must be quite a few fascinating conversations out there on the subject.
So in the end , it all boils down to ABB not helping owners to recover costs associated to smoke or noise damage, unless the Guest agrees to it. This is what comes out clearly from the various testimonies. Hum..... let's see....
So it should be clear to everybody by now that ABB system is not enough protective for owners of vacation rentals .
So what can we do about it ?
Can we force AirBnb to change its ways of doing business so that owners rights are better protected ?
Since the matter has been dragging on for years, the only solutions seems to take ABB to court .
How many of you , amongst those familiar with legal matters, ever thought about this ( no matter how many ever tried to ) ?
Which Achille's heel are you, or your lawyer, going to pick to make ABB understand that they must change their point of view ? In order to reply to this question, one must study how ABB contractualize with hosts.
1st principle : does ABB protect your constitutional right to contractualize freely and as you wish with the other party ? In principle "yes" , since ABB does not really prevent you to have a contract signed with renters, even though it is obvious that ABB could not care less.....
But in actual terms the answer is "no" since owners are not authorized to claim (separate) payment for a Security or Damage deposit which is an integral part of any vacation rental contract, as least in France and in a few other countries abiding by the same set of legal principles ( not sure about US tough , since US laws do not have this strong insistence on codifying written contracts, as we do have in France ) .
The European Commission has just opened a new boulevard for consumers legal action after endorsing the CPC Network position. The CPC network is the network of all " Offices of Fair Trade" throughout the EU. The CPC paper on AirBnb published in july is worth reading. In their general terms and conditions :
- ABB must stop bull**bleep**ting consumers ( my wording ! ) on making them believe that if they want to take ABB to court, they can do it only in Ireland (which is ABB HQ for Europe ). EU consumers are allowed to held professionals liable in their own country court of justice .
- Professional traders must disclose their identity in order not to deceive consumers
-For each host category ( professional , private etc) , ABB must indicate which checks exactly it performs in relation to their reliability ( this one is easy : no checks apart from owner's ID )
-ABB must distinguish between editorial content and advertising
-ABB must indicate whether listings/search results are "natural " or "sponsored" or whether there are serious limitations in the scope of the search.
Etc etc....
There are 13 pages by the same token , which, all together, amount the current model of ABB being a mere joke for protecting the rights of rental owners (IMHO).
The EC wants to put ABB under the custody of the european courts of justice. It is very clear when they state for exemple :
"AIRBNB PAYMENTS shall provide ( no "should provide" ) an easily accessible electronic link to Online Dispute Resolution platform on the website in addition to its e-mail address.... blablabla... (as there are ) currently no provisions of an mail address..... "
Since having a written backlog of written exchanges with the glorious flailing around ODR staff of ABB is a PREREQUISITE to prove that these fully incompetent guys have been positively DEPRIVING OWNERS from the possibility of enforcing national laws on smoking and noise nuisance, I really look forward to be able to discuss with them by MAIL.
As a consumer law specialist, I can assure you that those businesses who, like ABB, FORCE their customers to lodge their complaint over the phone while preventing them to do the same in writing, so that it becomes much more complicated for consumers to prove that their case has not been fairly dealt with by the corporation, thereby actively discouraging both hosts and guests from taking their matter to court, those businesses are those who have the highest number of things to be ashamed of.