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Is this new??
Because I (think I) have gotten that note from Airbnb and accepted as I agreed with the guest to do. If I had not accepted at that time the guest would not have been refunded. p/s We are super hosts w/ 0% cancel rate.
Has this changed in the new host penalties??
To be honest I think it’s a good option as too many dodgy hosts try to get guests cancelling on their behalf to avoid host cancellation fees, leaving the guest out of pocket as they are still charged the Airbnb fee. @muddy
Guest should be able to flag when it is a host initiated cancellation.
@Helsi - I think you misunderstood @muddy ’s comment. It’s not bad to have the option as a guest. But if it’s not made clear to a host that they will be penalized for agreeing they asked the guest to cancel, then that’s sneaky of AirBnB.
Exactly. I have read so many posts over the years where hosts were totally caught out by this. The guest wanted to cancel, and were often savvy to the fact that it would go down as a host cancellation, and they would get a full refund they were not entitled to.
This feature should not exist in its current form unless the request is accompanied with an Airbnb message that accepting this will be registered as a host cancellation.
Perhaps it is explained sommewhere in Airbnb articles, but I have never found it. I am only aware of it because of other hosts’ warnings on hosting forums.
Otherwise, in the case of a host asking the guest to cancel, when it would be the host’s responsibility to do so, there should just be something for the guest to check and fill out, saying the host asked them to cancel, and Airbnb can check the message stream to verify that this was indeed the case.
This is a very pertinent thing to me, I hate to ask a question on someone else’s thread, but…. I’m a jack of all trades, have built my own home and others from the ground up, so the likelihood of me hiring anyone to repair the HVAC, Waterheater or whatever is slim at best. I read some comments on here about having to provide documentation to ABB, but what if there is none to provide? The “fine” sounds exorbitant, I had a similar problem with paypal/ebay, there was no complaint at all, but I didn’t leave enough $$$ in my linked account in case there WAS a complaint and I got a fine, which overdrafted my account, caused a fine, paypal fined me again, etc… by the end of it they claimed I owed them about $1,000 dollars for doing absolutely nothing wrong, I had 100% feedback on ebay and never a claim, I just didn’t keep enough in the linked account in case there WAS a claim??? Is this a similar thing with ABB? Do I have to keep X dollars in my linked account that they can take away from me at a whim if they’re not satisfied with my pictures of a busted HVAC system (which would have nothing pertinent to take a picture of) or similar?
They won’t reimburse you for repairing damages caused by renters if you do the work yourself and don’t have official receipts from some tradesperson running a business, even if you could do a better job faster for less money.
I have the impression that a lot of us hosts, especially those of us who are “hands-on”, as opposed to investors who just buy properties for the sole purpose of listing them as strs, are pretty handy with household stuff. I can fix most basic stuff around my house, and even if it’s something I’ve never done before, there are you tube videos that show you how.
There’s a few things I wouldn’t have the tools or confidence to undertake, and would have to call someone for, but my place is pretty simple and I don’t have complex electronic appliances or gadgets.
It’s a good idea to charge enough that you can set an amount aside from each booking in a special fund, so if a guest causes some minor damage, you can fix it yourself without feeling like you need to involve Airbnb or that you’re digging into your own living expenses budget or savings. The less you depend on Airbnb to bail you out, the better. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to charge the guest, or put in a claim, but most of us have better things to do with our time than spend hours on the phone or in back and forth messages if it turns into a battle with customer service over something that costs $50 in materials and a hour or two of our labor time to rectify.
The way refunds to guests work on Airbnb is that if you already were paid for the booking, they will take that amount out of future payouts.
They can’t take money out of your bank account.
Same with incurring a monetary penalty for a host cancellation. It will be deducted from your payouts for future bookings.
That may be so, although unless there were witnesses to an oral agreement, I’m not sure how a court of law would be able to determine that one person was lying if they denied making an agreement.
But in any case, you are talking about an agreement made strictly between two parties. The problem is that Airbnb is in the middle when it comes to making decisions about what transpires between a host and guest if there is contention, and their TOS basically gives them the right to make any decision they choose to. Challenging that generally means taking a dispute to small claims court, which may be successful, but most people wouldn’t consider to be worth the time, effort and expense, unless there is a relatively large amount of money at stake.
I could see a guest taking a host to court for reneging on a promise to refund if the guest cancelled, if it meant the guest was out a thousand bucks or more, but if it was only a few hundred, the guest is more likely to just never use Airbnb again, and post their negative experience and warnings all over social media.
Have you found the Airbnb Help website yet @Farminfeller if not do have a look it has Q&As around most of the basics of running your STR business on Airbnb @Farminfeller
Many people think contracts are signed documents. In the USA most of the time, this is not so. There are special exceptions for real estate under a common law called the Statute of Frauds.
Evidence is a separate issue.
At my guest house all we have to do is stand on the front porch and the whole conversation is automatically stored on video–camera in plain site and disclosed on the listing. If I even have a disgruntled AirBnB guest, that’s where we are talking! :))
No, I have not even started setting up an account yet, I found this forum while googling stuff trying to decide between platforms. I have the property, just put a “tiny house” on it and plan to be operational no later than the first of the year. I want it to be as nice as it can be when I do start, rather than just habitable and safe. I will start checking it out though, thank you for the advice 
yeah, I wouldn’t involve them with a “claim” unless it was something major. I may have miscommunicated my question though. It’s more along the lines of when I have a host cancellation because lets say the HVAC system dies and I have to wait on parts, how do I prove that to them if I’m going to repair it myself? Seems like I need to just get a friend that has a contracting company to make me a fake invoice?
I see that you are getting plenty of good suggestions here. I’ll toss in another one. First, sorry ABB is doing this. As hosts, there’s no way to predict how long or how extensive something like this will be.
ANYway, it seems to me that you might be able to scan copies of your receipts for some of the others and even some of the pictures again as they are ALL RELATED. Don’t give up!! It’s ridiculous of ABB to penalize you for trying to be a good and diligent host. Harumph. 
Pretty much. If you weren’t planning on making a claim for the actual repair, a letter on a contractor’s legit business’ letterhead or invoice confirming that the HVAC was indeed non-functioning and required repair might take care of getting a penalty-free host cancellation.
Then you could fix it yourself on your own dime.
I know you’re kidding, but for the sake of those for whom English is not a first language, of course such fraud is not necessary.
You’ll send copies of the parts order or a receipt to AirBnB and they will accept this, no problem. Also they LOVE photographs, so you’d get somebody to take a photo of you working on the HVAC.
I just got off the phone with ABB customer support. Our casita now has mold in it from the rainwater leak, so that’s $7500 in mold remediation plus structural repair.
ABB did not say anything about their 7 day deadline this time–I am definitely past that deadline. All I need to do is send the documents and, they say, there will be no penalties for me having canceled multiple guests.
I’ll keep this updated for those who are curious !
I just received confirmation from AirBnB that all penalties are waived from my cancelling guests owing to the ceiling water leak. I did not meet the 7 day deadline as described originally, because I simply could not get contractors out to the place any sooner, but they accepted my documents today. Yay!
Glad everything worked out for you @SleepingCoyote. That’s a helpful case study for all of us! I know this is an Airbnb forum but I can share a personal experience with a vrbo cancellation for those who are also on that platform. I have an off grid cabin with a solar system that’s plagued me since the beginning of time. I’m finally getting the system where it needs to be but this season brought a lot of hiccups. It got very bad at one point and I realized that I needed to proactively contact a couple who were scheduled to arrive in about a week. Ironically, it was my first booking of the 2022 season (note I only rent late may through early October). The guests booked November of last year and were very excited for their stay. The conversation went seamlessly and at first the husband said it sounded like a great adventure but later called to say they would have to cancel because his wife wasn’t wild about the idea of a glitchy solar system. I dreaded the call to vrbo but unbelievably the rep immediately said vrbo would cancel with zero penalty to either party since I had alerted the guests and the guests had agreed to cancel. Literally the call was over and everything was squared away within 10 minutes. I know I usually assume the worst with these STR companies but sometimes one is pleasantly surprised when it’s least expected.
