Cancellation via resolution centre for breaking house rules: can a guest still leave a review?

[Zoran25]

Hi Everyone!

I would like to ask your oppinion on the following situation, since I got two contrasting feedbacks from two different employees of Airbnb Help Centre.

Namely, if a guest disregards the reservation contract by breaking the house rules, and cancellation via resolution centre (by calling Airbnb Customer Support) is the only course of action left in order to protect your property and/or the comfort of your other tenants, is that guest still entitled to leave a review and possibly retaliate?

- The first person that spoke with me on behalf of Airbnb told me: the reservation contract is legally binding, and thus in case of evident disreguard for the house rules stated in that contract, Airbnb resolves the issue by cancelling the reservation with no negative reprocussions on the host. The callendar remains blocked, the amount already payed is kept by the host (depending on the cancellation policy), the guest no longer has the right to leave a review, there is no automatic cancellation message showing up in the reviews section and Airbnb handles that guests stay from that point on. This person advised me to immediately call them and ask for this course of action on the first serious sign of trouble, and identified this as the only way to ensure your proper protection as a host.

- The second Airbnb representative told me a fundamentally different story: even if its evident via Airbnb message thread and/or photographic evidence that the house rules were broken, the guest still has the right to leave their review and potentially retaliate. Thus, the best (and only thing) you can do is indicate your house rules in the description and hope for the best. However, even so, if those clearly indicated rules are broken mid stay - no matter the further course of action - the guest always has the right to leave a review.

Any thoughts?

Thank you and have a great day, everyone!

[Fred13]

I would believe the second opinion (they can leave a review), considering guests that haven't even stayed have been allowed to leave reviews. Beware of rosy explanations by CS personnel, they can say anything but have very limited power to correct something they get totally wrong.

[Zoran25]

Hi Fred! Good to know, thanx!

Beyond what anyone of us believes would be right or wrong in terms of Airbnb cancellation rules, it would be helpful to at least get the proper access to the rules for these kind of particular issues. Receiving two contrasting feedbacks from the CS is a bit worrisome in that regard.

Any ideas on how to avoid this terribly unfair situation of a guest trashing your place mid-stay, and then retaliating with a bad review because they were offended by being refferred to the house rules? There must be some way of avoiding this, or are we completely at mercy of luck? Id like to point out that sometimes checking the profile of the guest prior to accepting the reservation as well as clearly stating house rules in the listing description just doesnt prevent this from happening. It is not terribly common, but it does occur!

Is there any way to avoid retaliation reviews, designed purely for spite and vanity,  affecting your business when a guest is undeniably and objectively putting you in a situation of having to cancel the rest of their stay?

Thank you!

[Kelly149]

@Zoran25 if you will search this very forum, you will find many posts discussing this very problem.

One would reasonably expect your first scenario to be correct, however, what really happens is the second.

As to your question of what to do, here are some possibilities:

1) Reviews be darned, do whatever it takes to secure your property and let the chips fall where they may.

2) Vet guests VERY carefully pre-arrival and then hope that protects you from bad actors (charge a good rate, reiterate all your listing foibles and rules, find out who is coming - all of them, check ID, require good reviews)

3) Remain entirely unfazed during any bad behavior, hopefully preserving a good review from a guest and then reveal their bad behavior after their stay via your review of them

Other hosts might have more suggestions, and each of these has its downside. You'll have to decide what works for you.

Search: reviews, cancellation, House Rules, damage claims...

You could read for days, good luck