Repairs

[Galina94]

I have a guest staying for a whole month. She notified me that the AC was not working. The next morning I had a company come out and take a look. I needed a new part and he had to order it and than came a few days later to repair it. For the time being I bought a few fans and the room she is staying in also has ceiling fan. She chose to stay at a hotel for the days that the AC was not working. After it was fixed she came back but now wants me to refund her for the nights she stayed at the hotel. I did everything from my end as soon as possible. I feel bad for the inconvenience but am I obligated to refund her for the nights she didn’t stay? 

[Anonymous]

@Galina94   On the one hand, I think your guest is a total douchebag to ask for a refund while the stay is in progress. That does not bode well for the remainder of the stay; you can be sure that if you grant a refund now, she's going to find more ways to get money out of you. But on the other hand, if an essential amenity isn't working and the guest isn't comfortable staying, they're going to be due some kind of compensation. So it's really best to get right out in front of it with a proposed resolution before they have a chance to start squeezing you for refunds.

What's done is done, so the offer I'd make now is to calculate a discount at the end of the stay, as long as the guest completes the booked month and doesn't leave behind any damage. Don't offer anything toward the cost of the hotel, and don't let her take the upper hand. If she isn't happy with your offer, you can counter with an offer to move forward the checkout date and refund the remaining nights so that she can relocate to a much more expensive hotel room at her own expense. 

[Christine615]

Yes. You are. She paid twice. Once for your nights and once for hotel nights. You should have offered (I did when my A/C went out)

it’s not her fault the system failed. This is the cost of business. It happens. She’s not asking for a full refund or even that you pay her hotel which is likely more expensive.

I don’t see the problem in refunding the nights she requested.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Galina94 I agree with @Christine615 

[Laura2592]

@Galina94 don't take month long bookings/bookings longer than a few weeks. Airbnb is not well suited to that sort of stay, despite their encouragement to do so. If a tenant stays over 28-31 days in most states that gives them a lot of rights that you don't want to deal with. Also if its not a good fit, or things break, you are better off moving them along quickly with a smaller refund than a month long payout. 

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Galina94 

I agree with what @Laura2592  said. Make sure you know what your state/local laws are about. Tenants Rights kick in after a certain amount of time, and you don't want that. If you want to have long term bookings, it is better to craft a really good lease, have it reviewed by a legal person. STR means Short Term Rental. Your local ordinance should guide you on this, whatever you agreed to when you got your business permit. Your business insurance policy should also have guidelines for you.  Also, there are Innkeeper's legal obligations which are different in different locations. You - we all - should be well schooled in them.When we were hired as resort managers back when, the first thing the owners did was give us a book on local innkeeper's laws. It was important information for us, and quite necessary. I know this is a digression from the original message of this thread, however, I consider this to be important information for all of us in this business. 

[Galina94]

What if this situation happened with just a regular landlord and month to month tenant. In the state of South Carolina the landlord has 14 days to fix any major issues. In that case the landlord would not be refunding for any nights the tenant chose to stay somewhere else. Just trying to see the differences between renting through Airbnb and just renting out to people not through any websites. 

[Gordon0]

>>What if<<
But it isn't, @Galina94. You can't compare apples with onions. 

[Anonymous]

@Galina94   Regardless of how your state regulates STRs, the payment is going through Airbnb, so it's Airbnb's terms that apply when it comes to refunds. See the full policy here: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2868/rebooking-and-refund-policy

As you can see in that article, Airbnb does consider non-functioning AC to be a Travel Issue that's eligible for at least a partial refund, so if this guest were to escalate a complaint she would get some compensation deducted from your payout. I don't think you have any way around refunding the nights that she was unable to stay. It's not a question of if, but rather of when, which is why I suggest persuading the guest to accept a delay until her departure date to complete the Resolution.

[John2406]

@Galina94  In reading what you wrote, my only comment would be that if she had said to you BEFORE she decided to move out, what she would do, and that she would be grateful for you to refund the nights not spent at your accommodation, that would have made more sense than what she did (right or wrong)

Ultimately you have to abide by what Airbnb says, so have you contacted them for their advice/determination?

All the best with whatever the outcome 

[Galina94]

So the first month she stayed was through Airbnb… than she asked if she could just pay me cash, month to month. I’ve decided to just subtract the amount of nights she didn’t stay at the house from her next months rent, but I’m going to tell her that after that if she wants to continue staying to book through Airbnb again. She’ll be paying almost twice as much through them  than when she was paying cash if she wants to be petty. 

[Helen744]

@Galina 94, I think you have not read the Airbnb rules . It is always a good idea to read all the rules and to know the dashboard . We do not accept 'cash ' on Airbnb. Have you read that bit? Why you are on this forum is beyond me as you seem to be running some type of business where Airbnb guests are being converted to cash and therefore not being covered by any policies or insurances ,nor are you yourself  . You are making up rules as you go along , which is fine but nothing to do with the regulations available on your dashboard and specific to Airbnb , which we all try to assist you to understand but if you are not following these rules then you are putting yourself and guests at risk. H

[Galina94]

It was her idea to convert to cash. I’m not making up any rules. She wanted to save some money. I got the problem solved as fast as I possibly could. I just wanted to hear other hosts opinions on the matter. No need to be rude.

[Anonymous]

@Galina94 Are you sure this is someone you want as an ongoing tenant?

[Gillian166]

@Galina94  I've no  issues with you converting a guest to a direct booking. ABB brings us the guests, and they charge both the guest and us for that privilege. BUT to get a repeat booking is 100% on you, that's what YOU did. People handle this situation differently, and insurances are certainly part of this situation, to be considered, but i think we can read plenty of stories here that perhaps might challenge our loyalty. (Seeing people having their listings suspended based on nothing is very concerning as a host.)

At least if you convert her to a direct booking there's no need to worry about the review system, or providing a refund for stupid reasons, and your own insurance can probably be more useful anyway. 

Honestly I would have gotten ahead and left a "thanks for understanding" gift. We had a hot water system fail last xmas and our guest was marvellous, we had a back up shower system available on the farm, and he was so accommodating ( he was doing covid quarantine so perhaps this is why he was happy to tolerate it). it took 2 days to get the hws replaced. We left a thank you bottle of wine.