Hi Fellow Hosts 🙂
Please can someone provide some light on this topic, as I might be missing something.
Whilst I am fairly new to renting my property (Hosting) via Airbnb, I have many years of experieince in renting several properties, both in UK and South Africa.
I do think Airbnb serves as a good platform for reaching a much greater market, however the associated risks (in my opinin) seem very high. Appreciate there is the Host insurance that covers damages to your premises and 3rd party claims.
However due to the fact that it is not std practice in Airbnb to take a sizeable security deposit (compared with associated estate agent type lettings), and that Airbnb do not do the same stringent tenant vetting, that's also always done when renting via a lettings agent (I understa Airbnb's is based on a ratings system around trust).
I therefor assumed that Airbnb had some form of insurance/protection that they offer their hosts in the event of a Guest/Tenants refusing to continue paying and leave your property (especially after a lengthy stay).
To put things into perspective:
I received a request off of a guest to stay in my property, which is done up to a fairly high standard, I have been renting it to corporate companies for many years. She requested to stay for the full duration I had my calendar open for that month (3 weeks). On chatting to her via messaging it turned out that she would like to stay at the property longer term. She mentioned owning a massage parlour in the area (the fact that she was so open and blouse about it, I assumed it is not the erotic type). She also has a sideline business in psychic healing and with this business customers will come to the house.
After lots of chatting and questions she mentioned that she is blacklisted and therefor needs to use the likes of Airbnb to find a place to stay (obviously becuase airbnb do not do the same sort of stringent checks, combined with it being cheaper to get into the property as they don't need to pay the usual 1 month security deposit upfront for unfurnished and 2 months security deposit upfront for fully furnished - making Airbnb a hot spot for people in adverse circumstances).
Now usually I would never consider this type of tenant/guest. However had she come in through Self Check In (as she qualifies with all the requirements) and/or told me a load of lies, I would never of known any different. The fact that she has been so pleasant, honest and upfront in everything gave me a little more comfort.
I did decline her in the end as I wanted more time to speak to Airbnb to establish if after the initial paid 3 weeks (or even longer), she cannot make the payment for the next months stay and likewise refuses to vacate the property (for whatever reason - the most common one being that their situation has changed, therefor they do not have the money to pay and they also have nowhere else they can go to).
I have seen this happen in both UK and SA on my network several times, so it does exist. The usual scenario is a lenghty eviction process involving the courts - very costly, especially when factoring in not receiving a rental whilst seeing the eviction process through that usually takes 3 months plus (longer if you don't have a properly structured lease agreement in place).
As there are many people letting/hosting their property on Airbnb, has anyone else considered this and is it not a concern to them?
After speaking to 2 call centre staff at Airbnb, neither of them seemed able to provide me with a solid answer of the support we can expect from Airbnb in this situation, other than Airbnb will call and ask the guest to vacate the premises and advise the host to call the local authorities if they still refuse. However they also both mentioned that it is above their pay grade and usually in this situation a different dept deals with the case and would be able to provide the process and level of support better - but without having an open case/being in the situation, there is no way to speak to them.
I know that in most cases the authorities are unable to get a tenant out, without following the normal timely and expensive eviction process (SA has the PIE act and like UK, the law protects the tenant more than the landlord).
Does anyone know if Airbnb has some form of insurance to help Hosts that could find themselves in this position - again mostly due to guests/tenants not needing to go through the usual stringent tenant vetting process and due to the fact that there isn't the same high amount of security deposit taken compared to std lets?
Thanks in advance.
