As a community we should not be critical of Airbnb without good cause, but we do have a duty as users to make the company as good as we can. And when we see something wrong we have a need to point it out so that a solution can be found. That’s the only way we can all improve.
Every few weeks we see posts of hosts who have not been paid for their service despite the fact they have fulfilled their part of the Airbnb hosting agreement! Most of these cases stem from the fact that Airbnb have not been able to secure payment from the guest!
In fact Airbnb because of their stance on host/guest payments could be on quite shaky ground here. The other night we had dinner with a local major legal identity and this exact topic of missing hosting payouts surfaced.
You can form the basis of a contact and then turn around and pick out which parts of it you will honour and which parts you will not…..but the law will not necessarily see it that way. There are all sorts of consumer protection laws which override individual terms of service, such as….’Fitness for Purpose’!
What Airbnb are saying is they choose to honour payments they have received but choose not to honour payments they have not received. The enacting of the contact was the same, the end result was not. The hosting service was provided, the pursuant payment was not. This is contrary to the law of business.
Let’s put it another way, your local retail vehicle dealership acts as a broker for a vehicle you wish to sell. A buyer signs a contract for that vehicle and puts down a holding deposit against the contact amount and requests modifications to the purchased vehicle. Before he takes delivery the vehicle is destroyed in an accident. The dealer has to make good the loss. They can’t say, oh I’m sorry we lost your vehicle, bad luck, you don’t get paid! The law of business does not operate this way. The dealer may state in their contract terms, from the point of contract signing the vehicle becomes the new owners responsibility but that is not the end of it, the dealer has to exercise a duty of care while the vehicle is in their control and is responsible for any resultant loss. This is why they have insurance.
If Airbnb are going to act as brokerage agents….and that is what they are…….. they should have insurance to cover missing hosts payouts.
Airbnb are quite at liberty to say….’all care but no responsibility’ but my legal eagle the other night said, he would just love to get his hands on a case like that!
Cheers......Rob
