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I am getting mixed messages from Airbnb Support on this. The Host TOS says "7.2.3 You represent and warrant that any Listing you post and the booking of, or a Guest’s stay at, an Accommodation will (i) not breach any agreements you have entered into with any third parties, such as homeowners association, condominium, or other agreements, and (ii) comply with all applicable laws (such as zoning laws), Tax requirements, and other rules and regulations (including having all required permits, licenses and registrations).
So if someone makes a claim against your property and Airbnb determines that your listing was NOT in compliance with local laws, zoning, regulations, does that void any coverage by AirCover? If your homeowners’s insurance does not cover STR’s, your insurance company can refuse to honor a claim by a guest or drop your coverage completely. Just wondering if anyone knows more about this.
As it seems Airbnb does everything possible to avoid paying out for damages with AirCover, I have little doubt they would decline to cover you if your listings are non-compliant.
I don’t understand then, why you would be concerned about whether Aircover would cough up for damages if a listing was non-compliant. I can’t imagine that you’d be concerned for the hosts who are non-compliant.
Yes, you need to have everything in order. If you’re not in compliance with your local laws, you have no rights. In addition, you’ll be fined by your municipality.
Perhaps you need to broaden the scope of your imagination. And I would point out that consumer confidence and trust in the overall Airbnb product is critical to everyone’s success. A big part of that is all contributing to see that everyone plays by the rules. I suspect that a lot of Airbnb’s are not compliant out of ignorance or laziness or a failure of local government to codify a process for compliance. I suspect a lot of those properties also haven’t thought through the insurance implications. Cheers.
If Airbnb made it clear in the host TOS that non-compliance with local regulations may void AirCover coverage, it would help to insure that all hosts are properly compliant… Which would be a good thing generally.
I’m pretty sure that the ‘arbitrage / remote owner’ crowd knows that they are not compliant and are assuming that they will get away with insurance fraud too. I am hoping that these folks get caught up and lose their ‘fights’ because they are trying to scam (which is what it is called when they are noncompliant with local regulations that protect others from their illegal buildouts, contract breaches, etc).
Sure, but that would negate Airbnb’s penchant for falsely assuring new hosts that they will be fully covered for damages, which many subsequently and sadly find out isn’t true.
And if Airbnb actually cared about non-compliant listings, landlords whose tenants are illegally Airbnbing their property in contravention of their no-subletting lease wouldn’t have such a hard time getting Airbnb to take down the listing.
I agree entirely. It is absurd that Airbnb requires local compliance but when you report, with abundant evidence, a listing that is not compliant, they say…“Oh report them to the local authorities”. By the time the local authorities act a: the STR has profited in the interim and b: guests who booked in good faith suddenly find the listing is gone. Airbnb can do better.
It seems that you really believe that. I don’t know about other hosts but I have never considered it part of my job to report hosts who don’t comply with local laws and regulations.
Unless, of course, a host wants to reduce the number of local competitors which certainly isn’t in the spirit of legal business practices these days.
Before you leap to too many assumptions, my interest in this is clarifying the pitfalls (like losing AirCover protection) so that current and prospective Hosts can make informed decisions about hosting. I am trying to get my county to include, in their FAQs about STRs, that people need to be aware of the larger consequences of not being compliant, either with zoning or the terms of their own homeowner’s insurance.
Unfortunately, the “every man for himself” model is the motto of far too many these days, rather than caring about the common good. Just ask all those people who refused to wear a mask to prevent spreading a deadly virus.
Air Cover is useless even for hosts who have legal listings. I’m sure they figure out how not to provide claims to very host, whether legal or illegal listing. That’s their job.
My job is to prevent getting scammed by Airbnb and the scammers that use the service. I have not been successful at that. I have had large amounts of payouts stolen from me by Airbnb.
I don’t trust them to act in my interest. I actively do things that hurt Airbnb.
