Claiming for damage when you had another booking straight after

[Andy511]

Some recent guests made a major spillage on my living room carpet. The carpet has been bleached by the incident and will need replacing, at a cost of £1,100. The guests immediately owned up to the damage and even sent me a picture.

There was another stay straight after theirs, which Airbnb help texts seem to suggest voids my right to claim, at least against the security deposit.

What do I need to do to progress my claim? How does one invoke the Host Guarantee? Or failing that, how do I get my money from the guests? Airbnb are only giving the vaguest replies to my messages requesting help and advice, or not responding at all.

[Roberta2]

Hi @Andy511 

You need to start the claim with the guest.

If they owned up, they should be OK to pay, but you need to start the claim before the next guest arrives.

Maybe call them?

Here you have telephone numbers 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Contact-Airbnb-A-Community-Help-Guide-UPDATED/td-p/413245

[Andy511]

Thank you for your reply. As I said, there was another stay straight after the one in which the damage was caused, so the possibility to start a claim before the next guest arrived does not exist. How do I proceed in view of this? It would seem a rather fundamental flaw of Airbnb's system if it was impossible to claim if you have consecutive stays.

[Helen3]

Hello @Andy511  from a fellow Bristolian.

Having a guest straight after doesn't void the guarantee of course as long as you notified Airbnb and the guest who did the damage before the next check-in about the damage and that you would be making a claim.  @Andy511 .

This is just matter of sending a message through the system to the guest raising the issue of the damage, so easy to do before the next guest arrives.

You can then get quotes for the damage and submit.

If you look at Airbnb Help centre under Airbnb Guarantee it gives you the process you need to follow.

Good luck.

[Andy511]

Unfortunately I had no idea of this time limit. There was only a matter of hours between the damage and the next guests arriving and I was out of the country at the time. In the moment I believed that, since the guest said my guidance for dealing with spills (wet-blot-wet-blot and don't rub or use detergents) had been followed, it would be a simple matter of getting a carpet cleaner in. If the guest hadn't owned up to the damage I wouldn't have even known about it until after I got back home.

This is all starting to sound as though I'm screwed. Is this the case?

It sounds as though one can have an entire carpet trashed and the window to claim closing before one has even inspected the damage. If this is something I have to just learn to live with, Airbnb is clearly an unviable form of letting.

[Helen3]

Quite honestly although I feel for you. You can't blame Airbnb for you not being in the country and not being available to inspect the damage,  or you not checking the terms of the guarantee to submit a timely claim. @Andy511 

Presumably your cleaner who did the turnover could have taken photos?

Anyway certainly try submitting a claim.

If you can't then just make a claim on your home insurance for STRs.

[Andy511]

Thank you for your reply.

No, my cleaners cannot be relied upon to do that kind of thing, even though I ask them to do so and they say they check for damage. In this case, they didn't even notice. In any event, the chances of the whole process being turned around before the next guests' check-in (3pm) seem to have been virtually nil.

If my worst fears are realised here, this seems to invalidate the idea of going away and leaving your home to Airbnb lets. Time for a re-think.

[Helen3]

Hi @Andy511 

That's why it's always a good idea to employ a co-host when you are going away.  Personally I would never go away without having one in place.

If you can't rely on your cleaners to spot £1000 odd worth of damage on carpets and take photos of the damage it may be time to get new cleaners 🙂 

As previously mentioned you don't have to manage the whole process in the three or four hours or more that you would have had inbetween check in and check out. All you had to do was message the guest to confirm that you would be asking them to reimburse you for the damage and would let them know once you had the quotes.

[Andy511]

Thanks, yes my cleaners are indeed up for review. The present lot have been good but far from perfect.

Do you know any cleaners  in Bristol that can be counted on to do a complete between-stays inspection? Airbnb is beginning to look unviable without that, except when I'm back straight after every stay.

[Linda108]

Hopefully the messaging from the guest about the incident and taking responsibility occurred on the Air BNB messaging. The window rule is to help establish responsibility which gets muddied if your next guest arrives before you start the process.

Have you started the claim yet?  No harm in going ahead with your claim since the guest accepted responsibility.

[Andy511]

I'll give it a go. Can someone tell me what the route to claiming is? If I click on Resolution Centre it just takes me to a message saying "Need to send or request money?" and a link that goes to my Travelling Inbox.

[Helen3]

In your situation If the information in the link given above doesn't work for making a claim, I would call Airbnb on this @Andy511