Back to: Essential Beginners Guide To Airbnb
Damage to your property is often rare, however, sooner or later guests who stay with you will break something and you will need to make a claim on Airbnb. You’ll need to make a claim on your guests’ security deposit. (You set the amount for security deposit in your listing)
What You Can’t Claim For
Some things will be considered as “wear and tear” but these type of items are hard to claim for and often not worth it. Things like that include wear and tear but not limited to
- Scuff marks on walls (often happen with bags moving in and out of the property)
- Small tears
- Small stains on the carpet
What You Can Claim For
You can claim anything that you can prove that the guests damaged and you can attach a monetary value to. Examples include a broken vase, heavy damage to walls, large stains of the carpet.
Making A Successful Claim
- Take pictures of everything, from the initial damage, invoices and receipts.
- Get the repairs done as soon as possible, collecting receipts and documenting the repair.
- Put your claim in as soon as possible via the Airbnb Resolution Centre. You currently have 14 days after the guests’ checkout to put in a claim.
- You’ll need to explain to the guests why you are claiming the monies that you are requesting
- Some guests may decline the request or either ignore it altogether. If this happens then you can escalate this to Airbnb by clicking the Involve Airbnb button. They will have the final say on the matter via arbitration.
Any payments will be processed within 7 working day. Co-Hosts can’t put in claims to request monies from guests. This can only be done by the account Admin.
What If The Deposit Doesn’t Cover The Damages?
In the rare case that the deposit you requested doesn’t cover the damages, then the guests can generally pay for the extra directly from their credit card. If it exceeds this then you can claim for Airbnb Host Guarantee which provides up to $1,000,000 in protection. This is provided at no extra cost to all hosts on all bookings. As before, this covers damages and theft, you just need to be able to prove it.
The Downside
If you are going to make a claim it’s likely you’ll get a bad review in the process if they claim they didn’t cause the damage.
Pro Tips:
- Use a tape measure and take a picture with the tape measure alongside the damage. This will help illustrate the size of the damage for any Airbnb customer service staff
- On a monthly/quarterly basis take pictures of all major items in the property, when you need to make a claim you can then prove that it was intact on a certain date.
- Set the correct time and date on your camera, if possible have the camera embed the time & date into the picture.