I am a super-host in Jamaica who has listed a friend of a friend's home under my account, and am charging her a percentage of the guests' payments to be her listing and property manager. 6wks in and it is going well. Her role is keeping the home stalked with necessary items and paying all bills including the housekeeper. I do everything else, including scheduling the housekeeper and keeping a good rapport with her. The home-owner has no contact with her or the guests. She relies on me to make all decisions and I only update her when I make major changes - such as prices. We are both happy with this arrangement and I appreciate being independent in my role.
My only problem is payment. The original agreement was that I would transfer the payout into my paypal account, provide screen shots of payments on both sites and send her portion to her paypal account. However after her money was in my paypal account for several days, she decided - due to circumstances I don't quite understand, but which have to do with our Caribbean location and limits on our options – that paypal wouldn't work for her. She ultimately said she just needed me to give her cash a.s.a.p.. Because I get my payments by routing the money through my North American bank account (either via paypal or directly), then collecting cash in local currency from the ATM here, I did this for her. However I disliked having her money in my account, and dealing with her cash, and I feel it's unprofessional for us to continue on like this.
I investigated co-hosting and it seemed that the easiest way to solve the payout problem would be to add her as a cohost (she is already an airbnb member) and assign the percentage split on this site. Then I won't have access to her money at all, and it will be her responsibility to choose the airbnb payout method and collect her own money. However, there seems to be no choice options regarding what co-hosts have access to on the listing. Since we are both fine with our management plan, my choice would for her to have no access to the listing at all, and just receive her share of the money.
I would really appreciate advice on how to proceed. While the obvious answer is for me to add her as a co-host and get over my phobia of being micromanaged, I have good reason to fear it. I once had a boss who read my e-mail when he felt like it and became engaged when he wanted: sometimes giving wrong info which made us look bad and caused negotiations to break down, other times deleting mail I had never seen. He also changed settings on the company website without knowing what he was doing, without telling me, which caused ripple effects and gave me untold issues! I dread someone else having access to anything I am solely responsible for!
So, is the home-owner being a cohost the only way I can pay her through the site, and does that mean she must have full access to the listing? Are there any other options?
Thanks in advance, your assistance is greatly appreciated!
