Hi guys I am in escrow to sell my airbnb and new owner would like to honor my current bookings. does anyone know how do do that ? thanks for any info you have!!
You can’t transfer your Airbnb to the new owner. You will have to cancel the reservations and ask them to rebook again under the new owner. The new owner will need to create the listing. Make sure to contact Airbnb and explain that you need to cancel because you sold the property, this way you won’t get charged.
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thank you so much!! that makes sense. will the guests get double charged?
Have you tried calling Airbnb?
Not if you have Airbnb cancel their reservations.
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My neighbor did that. He was on Airbnb. The new owner on VRBO
He scraped their personal phone numbers & names off Airbnb & gave the info to the new owner.
He notified the guests of the change & the VRBO account number. Unfortunately the new owner had/has a much higher nightly rate
Prior Owner notified Airbnb of the ownership change. I don’t know who did the cancellations but he was loudly complaining that he couldn’t list a new property under his account because of the cancellation penalties. Of note, he was a rather self-important guy who was into drama so I don’t know how accurate he was.
He never paid the fees to Airbnb because he didn’t have any upcoming payments for Airbnb to collect from.
He didn’t take it well when I asked if he considered shuttering his listing before putting it on the market. I believe I was called the B-word for not taking his side….ok.
A local Facebook group for rentals by owners has a new cancellation story every day by cancelled guests looking for a rental because the property they booked has been sold—downside of a crazy booming real estate market.
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thanks just what we are trying to avoid! the new owner wants to honor bookings at same price because he didn’t want to disrupt peeps vacations
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not yet but wanted to get some info first thank you!
Thank you Ritz3 this is just the kind of info I need!
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You can. His plan started off correctly with a booking “transfer” but the guest had to take the lead & set up a VRBO account & book. The combination of booking on a new platform and requiring the guest to pay a higher rate were the downfalls.
This is not a new situation. I’m hoping that Airbnb has a process we don’t know about.
Please share what you end up doing.
It isn’t honoring guests to continue to take reservations when your place is for sale. You can’t just pass guests on like part of the furnishings.
Guests book based in part on the reviews and ratings. You have no assurance that the new host will run the place as well as you have, and neither do guests. And if the new host’s standards aren’t up to snuff, that will also disrupt people’s vacations.
Slippery slope.
Friend (not neighbor) took summer reservations. Huge unexpected change in family finances. Put rental house on market. Sold. New owner is not planning to rent.
It wasn’t planned. Her summer was booked before need to sell presented.
Her’s was a sad situation for everyone EXCEPT the new owner.
Neighbor’s situation was different. He thought having committed rentals would enhance the selling price. I honestly think he thought the future owner would honor the prices & reservations. Foolish, possibly unethical does not equal illegal.
Fair question. They will not be double charged if either you cancel the reservation or Airbnb does.
I would hope if you involve Airbnb they would refund the booking fees or not charge a fee if the reservation is rebooked under a new owner.
I know a few years ago when one of my rental HOAs outlawed STR, Airbnb refunded rents, booking fees & taxes. I hope that continues since this is out of guest control
Btw Airbnb did not charge me the cancellation penalties because I submitted documentation of HOA STR ban.
I would hope if you present evidence of sale, they will do same for you
Yeah, I get that. Unforeseen things happen. It’s when hosts try to wring every last penny out of the rental, by continuing to accept bookings right up to the time a house sale is just about finalized, and haven’t done any research to know they can’t just transfer the listing and guests, that I find unethical.
@jenscourt - I was in this scenario as the buyer. The owners had listed the house and then (unexpectedly) had to sell. We worked together to transition the bookings, giving as much communication and notice to vacationers as possible. I opened a listing in Airbnb, she contacted Airbnb and cancelled penalty-free, she provided my information and listing in her cancellation message, and all but two(?) of her bookings rebooked with us. This was in 2018 and Airbnb was very helpful then, and I’m hopeful they would be to your situation. Best advice would be to call Airbnb first. Good luck!
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Would this work —
Airbnb doesn’t know the house sold. Make the new owner a co-host so you can easily transfer money to them (how you divide it up would be a side contract).Or just do it off platform per your side contract.
Block all dates after the last booking.
New owner sets up listing and you shut down then the new owner goes live the day after the last booking,
The new owner might lose some bookings for a short period due to the block.
I don’t see anything wrong with transferring
The reservations — if you sold a traditional B&B reservations would’t reservations be expected to continue?
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Some thoughts about that. The current owner would have to rely on the new owner’s ratings, as I believe they would continue to go to the current owner. I’m not sure, but I don’t think the new owner would get any ratings at all from those transactions. Therefore, the new owner’s listing would start at zero ratings.
I would make a clean break. Current owner has Airbnb cancel the bookings (I believe that can be done with no fees or penalties to host or guest), after gathering all the contact info from those bookings. New owner creates a new listing and, with the current owner’s willingness, contacts the existing bookings to ask them to book, explaining the situation.
Regardless of whether a traditional B&B’s reservations would transfer, Airbnb doesn’t permit it from owner to owner.
That’s not true Airbnb can and do charge cancellation fees in this situation as the owner should have stopped taking longer term bookings when they put their place up for sale.
On the plus side Airbnb would give the the pricing & placement NEW LISTING boost.