UK Host's property insurance

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21

Hi,
Sorry to hear its just as hard to make a claim in the US.

Re “take charge of the property”. Here’s what I was referring to:

The “guests” wouldn’t leave. Their check out time was mid day but by 5pm, we could see from doorbell footage that they had not. Infact we heard them specifically say (not realising everything was being recorded) that they were going to just fob us off with excuses and stay! I got polite messages about delayed flights etc all the while I was watching them saying the exact opposite! They were incredibly stupid! They would sit on the doorstep smoking. I heard on of them tell another not to press the doorbell because then it would start recording not realizing that the recording mechanusm is triggered by motion (Nest).

Eventually after a progression of firmer and firmer messages from me asking them to leave, I called the police at around midnight while I hid in the car round the cornereatching them on Nest camera on my phone. I’d driven back from visiting my mother in law in hospital but had been stuck in the car as I didnt want them to know I lived next door and they were all sitting outside. Then they left about 10 mins before police turned up. I was too afraid to go in without police incase some were still inside. Police went in first. So much was left behind in terms of phones on charge, playstation etc that they said that it was obvious the “guests” were coming back. At this point I had didnt know for sure who these people were or what they were doing, only that the whole thing felt wrong, that there were way more people than had been booked and that they had no intention of leaving. Police got called to another situation so left without a full search of the flat thinking this was just a bunch of overstaying guests and therefor a civil issue not a crime They advised us to collect all the things, remove them from the property, change the locks and send them a message advising them that Police had been and that they could collect their things the following day. I did this. But the gang turned up again at about 3am and broke in, setting off the alarm etc. All on camera. We believe they were collecting drugs stashed on the propety that neither the police ir I had seen earlier. The next day I inspected the place more carefully and came across bags of cocaine which had been left behind in their break in earlier. The police returned. They took photographs of everything including phones in police evidence bags that had been apparently seized according to info on bags in 2019 and returned. They removed the drugs but said that they could not take anything else. They dont gave the soace they said. I reported everything to Airbnb and asked them if I could deliver everything that the drug gang had left behind and the - clothes, phones, sim cards, playstation etc" to their office so that they could handle communication with the gang about collecting them. Quite honestly I was terrified by now understanding more fully what I was dealing with. I had no wish to deal with the gang or for them to know that I lived next door. But Although it sounds ludicrous given the damage they had done to the flat, by law, the guests property was still their property and they were legally entitled to it back. Airbnb froze their account so no communication was possible but then refused to accept their belongings or communicate with the guest about them on my behalf. So I asked Airbnb to at leaat advise the guest as police had suggested that I would hang onto their property for 3 months during which time I could organize for them to collect from a pick up point on a specified date to be agreed. Airbnb wouldn’t confirm that they would do this quoting data protection of all things! And yes this would he the drug gang’s data protection!!! Nor would they take responsibility for either holding the property or communicating with the so called guest.

In the end i hung onto everything for 3 months which seemed more than reasonable then gave everything to a local charity shop. But 4 months later, one of the gang turned up demanding his play station. I called the police who werent too interested on a busy friday night and reported to Airbnb. Airbnb’s supposedly urgent safety team called back 24 hours later! Same thing happened a second time and the third time he accosted my guest. Nightmare. You’d think with all the evidence that the police would have got more involved but I think they’re just too overwhelmed. Despite all the video evidence I downloaded the drug crine deoartnent have never been in touch.

The whole experir has been utterly terrifying and Airbnb’s support be it from a safety point if virw id a financial one has been heartless and non existent.

Hope that makes sense.

22

Hi,
Sorry to hear its just as hard to make a claim in the US.

Re “take charge of the property”. Here’s what I was referring to:

The “guests” wouldn’t leave. Their check out time was mid day but by 5pm, we could see from doorbell footage that they had not. Infact we heard them specifically say (not realising everything was being recorded) that they were going to just fob us off with excuses and stay! I got polite messages about delayed flights etc all the while I was watching them saying the exact opposite! They were incredibly stupid! They would sit on the doorstep smoking. I heard on of them tell another not to press the doorbell because then it would start recording not realizing that the recording mechanusm is triggered by motion (Nest).

Eventually after a progression of firmer and firmer messages from me asking them to leave, I called the police at around midnight while I hid in the car round the cornereatching them on Nest camera on my phone. I’d driven back from visiting my mother in law in hospital but had been stuck in the car as I didnt want them to know I lived next door and they were all sitting outside. Then they left about 10 mins before police turned up. I was too afraid to go in without police incase some were still inside. Police went in first. So much was left behind in terms of phones on charge, playstation etc that they said that it was obvious the “guests” were coming back. At this point I had didnt know for sure who these people were or what they were doing, only that the whole thing felt wrong, that there were way more people than had been booked and that they had no intention of leaving. Police got called to another situation so left without a full search of the flat thinking this was just a bunch of overstaying guests and therefor a civil issue not a crime They advised us to collect all the things, remove them from the property, change the locks and send them a message advising them that Police had been and that they could collect their things the following day. I did this. But the gang turned up again at about 3am and broke in, setting off the alarm etc. All on camera. We believe they were collecting drugs stashed on the propety that neither the police ir I had seen earlier. The next day I inspected the place more carefully and came across bags of cocaine which had been left behind in their break in earlier. The police returned. They took photographs of everything including phones in police evidence bags that had been apparently seized according to info on bags in 2019 and returned. They removed the drugs but said that they could not take anything else. They dont gave the soace they said. I reported everything to Airbnb and asked them if I could deliver everything that the drug gang had left behind and the - clothes, phones, sim cards, playstation etc" to their office so that they could handle communication with the gang about collecting them. Quite honestly I was terrified by now understanding more fully what I was dealing with. I had no wish to deal with the gang or for them to know that I lived next door. But Although it sounds ludicrous given the damage they had done to the flat, by law, the guests property was still their property and they were legally entitled to it back. Airbnb froze their account so no communication was possible but then refused to accept their belongings or communicate with the guest about them on my behalf. So I asked Airbnb to at leaat advise the guest as police had suggested that I would hang onto their property for 3 months during which time I could organize for them to collect from a pick up point on a specified date to be agreed. Airbnb wouldn’t confirm that they would do this quoting data protection of all things! And yes this would he the drug gang’s data protection!!! Nor would they take responsibility for either holding the property or communicating with the so called guest.

In the end i hung onto everything for 3 months which seemed more than reasonable then gave everything to a local charity shop. But 4 months later, one of the gang turned up demanding his play station. I called the police who werent too interested on a busy friday night and reported to Airbnb. Airbnb’s supposedly urgent safety team called back 24 hours later! Same thing happened a second time and the third time he accosted my guest. Nightmare. You’d think with all the evidence that the police would have got more involved but I think they’re just too overwhelmed. Despite all the video evidence I downloaded the drug crine deoartnent have never been in touch.

The whole experir has been utterly terrifying and Airbnb’s support be it from a safety point if virw id a financial one has been heartless and non existent.

Hope that makes sense.

23

My other point about Airbnb not being a UK company is that they appear not to have to abide by UK law with regard to Subject Access Requests. But if anyone knows differently, please let me know.

I personally feel that if Airbnb want to operate here in the UK, then they should operate through a UK subsidiary company bound by UK law. That way they can be more regulated by bodies set up here for the public’s protection.

24

Why on earth would you think Airbnb would deal with the guests’ left behind possessions? Airbnb is an online booking platform, nothing more. They have no physical interaction with users and aren’t a storage facility.

1 Like
25

My goodness! That is a total horror story, and makes one question the whole point of using the ‘unbrella’ of a big firm like Airbnb.

We already insist on involvement in the booking process, so we can endeavour to get the feel of what potential guests may be like, BEFORE contracting with them - no ‘instant booking’, thank you! But this can so easily be scammed by plausible rogues.

But, if not Airbnb, who to use? Our property isn’t heavily let, and I doubt many letting companies would wish to take on ‘part-timers’.

Running it entirely yourself means competing on the advertising front with Airbnb and the other big players, which is a daunting prospect.

But you have shown in stark relief how difficult it is to deal with a big company in a foreign jurisdiction, which cynically doesn’t give a damn.

Serious food for thought!

2 Likes
26

Because after the guest left a message saying he wanted to collect their possessions, Airbnb banned the guest from the site and removed any means of communicating with the guest or the guest communicating with me or anyone on behalf of me. The guest phone number provided turned out to be false.
Were it not for being stuck with his property I’d have been relieved. But they then refused to communicate with the guest on my behalf quoting data protection, so my last resort was to ask them to take on dealing with returning the property should the guest want it themselves, thereby protecting me, the host from having to deal with people who had turned out to be known criminals.

Police subsequently advised that since lockdowns ended, county line drug gamgs had been using Airbnb properties in London to get drugs back in to new areas. Their trade had suffered during lockdown and so police were reporting a massive increase in drug activity in West London end if summer last year and they reported that they were using Airbnb’s to do this.

The guest who booked turned out not to be the actual guests (all 7 of them) staying. The whole thing was terrifying.

I wouldn’t usually expect Airbnb to have to have anything to do with the left behind belongings of guests. As you rightly say, why should they. But because of the safety issues around this “guest” I believe Airbnb should have done a lot more than they did. Airbnb’s actions (closing down only communication channel) and lack of action (refusing to then communicate with the guest themselves) only served to exacerbate the danger to me which was fully demonstrated earlier this year, when one of them kept returning to harrass me and guests.

27

You wouldn’t know if they communicated with the guest- they won’t share that information with you. And Airbnb can’t physically do anything to prevent a guest from coming back to your property, that’s a police matter.

I’m not at all unsympathic to what you’ve gone through, it sounds horrendous, but you have some unrealistic ideas about what Airbnb, or any online booking platform will do for you.

Personally,I would have packed up the guests’ belongings and dropped them off at the police station. Then you can’t be held responsible for disposing of their stuff.

2 Likes
28

I don’t see anywhere that you held your own insurance….?
How was the claim with them?

1 Like
29

Thanks, useful to know as a ballpark if I decide to go insurance shopping next year. So far I’m happy with Intelligent, but as I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to make a claim, my relationship with them has only gone as far as them taking my premium from my account and one or two phone calls.

The definition of an annexe in insurance terms is potentially a bit of a grey area., Some companies will include any building on the address (within reason), whilst others use the term ‘behind the same front door’ which is somewhat vague but at least in some instances would include an annexe

30

Ours seems to work on the fact that the annexe is semi-detached - it does have its own front door, though the whole can be separated by a lockable joining door. I pressed them closely on this, and they confirmed it was acceptable. The proof only comes with a claim, though…

Another concern is that an insurance broker is YOUR agent, rather than the insurance company’s, so if they misinterpret the rules, it’s not the insurance company which is at fault. Comforting thought!

However, when I was talking to LV=, I was dealing with company employees, who had no excuse for not knowing the rules.

31

Gosh that’s quite a judgemental response from you given Im not sure you have a good understanding of UK police policy or UK law but I will try to explain for what its worth.

From what you have said you would do in the same situation , I can only assume police in the US are happy to take left behind property from Airbnb’s. But in the UK they are definitely not, as I thought I’d explained in my last post. It was of course something we asked them to do when they attended to remove the drugs and again afterwards. It is also something Airbnb told us to do. (Are you sure you don’t work for Airbnb? ) But police do not do this in the UK as I also explained clearly to Airbnb. Police took the drugs and photographed the simcards and phones and evidence bags but would not take the binbag of clothes, gaming consoles and other stuff. They advised me that as awful as it seemed, if the guests wanted these back, legally I needed to facilitate this. They advised that I could call them if I thought I was in danger and they would be passing all info onto the drug crimes department incase they wanted to advise differently.

I took legal advice at the time to check what police had told me. I was frantic with worry about it all and sensing (correctly as it turned out) that this may well escalate given the nature of the guests last communication.

Perhaps again the law is different in the US. In the UK, if someone leaves something behind and wants it back you must facilitate this or risk being accused of theft. There is no specified legal time you have to hold onto things but it has to be “reasonable”. I used the British Transport policy on lost property which states 3 months as a guide. I then had a letter drafted to the guest for Airbnb to send to the guest (as I couldn’t) clearly stating that after 3 months their property would be disposed of, if not collected before hand at an agreed location and time. Airbnb did not reply my request to have this sent to the guest and later refused to confirm whether or not it had been sent. I am fully aware of the issues surrounding data protection which made this request so difficult which is precisely why, although unusual, it would have been more practical and safer all round for Airbnb to handle directly given they were the only people who could communicate with the guest at that point.

The police have since taken some action against the gang member I understand. I was able to give them the car license plate number on the last occasion because we had the last altercation on video but it took 3 instances of awful harassment before police were able to act. These instances, where the gang member was seen watching our own house, approaching guests and finally myself at night were unbelievably traumatic.

I do believe that it is unlikely that would have happened had Airbnb stepped up to help in this difficult situation back in August when I asked for help from their safety team. I nor anyone on my behalf had any way of communicating with the person who made the booking once Airbnb banned the guest. Airbnb were the only ones with the means to communicate with the guest. They also have a London address at least according to google. Therefore they could have, if they chose to, liaised directly with the guest which remember, only they could do at that point. The guest could have collected their possessions either from Airbnb’s office meaning no need for me to communicate at all with the guest (my preference) or the guest could have collected from another pre-agreed location and I could have requested police to attend if I felt any danger. Both options were suggested to Airbnb. Instead Airbnb ignored most of my phone-calls and emails on the subject as is clear from the coms log I kept . The very clear impression I got was that no one at Airbnb was even engaging with the issue at all despite them having a safety team and this being clearly a safety issue given the nature of the guests.

Worse still, even when I asked for the correct contact for Police to communicate directly with Airbnb (I’d been asked for guest contact details by police) I was given a link to forward to the police which turned out to be useable only by US police! It took some time before the correct Airbnb police contact was passed to the police.

Airbnb have also ignored Data Access Requests which they are only able to do because they are not a UK company.

Personally, I’d like to see Airbnb have their licence to operate in the UK removed unless they set up a UK subsidiary so they have to comply with (and perhaps have a better understanding of) UK law. That might prevent the kind of reckless and cowboy like behaviour that I’ve been experiencing in dealing with claims and safety issues.

If they don’t sort out my claim then thats probably exactly what I will be lobbying my local MP to demand at the next monthly surgery as I’m just so shocked, appalled and exhausted by the whole Airbnb experience.

In the meantime, I’ve removed my properties from Airbnb and placed with an agent who lists them on all other platforms. They assure me they are scrupulous about validating guests and they have a comprehensive insurance package.

But do let me know if you have any other helpful suggestions.

2 Likes
32

The claim was with their Host policy which they initially assured me was appropriate in my situation. I’ll dig out the exact name / links /email etc when back on laptop as Im currently on phone. Everything I claimed for was supposedly covered by the Airbnb policy.

33

I’m curious, what did you expect Airbnb to actually do, bearing in mind that they are essentially only a booking and payment processing platform.

Also, what did your STR insurers say, or did you not make a claim?

JF

34

Ah thank you for your sympathy. Yup it has been and still is a horror story. Im not sure where you are but I’ll check to see whether the agency we use take “part time” properties. They have certainly said they’ll take our own home if we decide to go away on holiday etc. Whether thats because they’ve got two others of ours I don’t know but I’ll check. It might be worth you asking a couple in your area. You never know. Some of these agencies use Airbnb and you can determine whether you’re happy to taje instant bookings or not.

So far, I’m so glad we made the switch. We feel far more protected, its less hassle and the properties are marketed on lots of platforms. Despite the agency handling it and therefore taking a fee for insurance, cleaning, checkin/out, bedlinen and even maintenance if we want, we’re earning more than we did through airbnb because its always solidly booked due to their marketing.

35

Regarding my expectation of Airbnb - I think options given to them were outlined in my recent reply. Please see this for detail. Bear in mind Airbnb chose to ban the guest from the platform because of the guest’s behaviour. Entirely understandable. But the byproduct of this action meant no communication was possible between the guest and myself or someone on my behalf. Phone number didnt work and they quoted data peotection when other commincation means such as email was requested. So at the very least, I hoped Airbnb could forward communication from me clearly communicating options and deadlines for the guest retrieving their property so as not to leave me at risk of being accused of theft. Bizarrely that’s exactly what happened in the end when police spoke to the gang member 5 months later. He accused me of having his playstation! You seriously couldn’t make it up! Ive no idea what then happened to him but we’ve had no further visits from him since March so crossing fingers he’s been dealt with by police. But its befn extremely stressful. Airbnb cut off coms, refused to forward alternative means of communicating with the guest, initially even to police but refused to forward coms in my behalf. By doing so, they left me completely exposed.

I have to confess I wasnt aware of STR insurance. We of course have our house insurance but this wouldnt have been covered by that. I wonder whether STR is relatively new here? But the one I just looked up only covers what Airbnb doesnt. Airbnb initially told me that the claims I needed to make - additional guests, additional nights, cancelled bookings, lock changes and property damage were covered under their policy. I was told not to worry because the cover went up to 1 million dollars. When yoh read the terms and conditions, this appears to be true. It’s certainly something they publicise. It rather lulls one - or me at least - into a false sense of security.

I will now look at STR ( a quick google just found 'Pixi’here) incase there are any gaps in the policy we now have through our agency. So thank you so much got alerting me to this.