Latest / STR Unpacked / It Is Not Whether, It Is When
Transcript
- Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short-term rental bulletin on the 22nd of October. Today I'm obviously going to talk about what Airbnb is up to. You may have seen this spoken about a lot, but I want to dive into it in more detail here and how it affects the European markets. So for those that have not seen it, Airbnb is taking the host rental agreement off its own platform and it is providing one that applies everywhere. So from reservations booked on or after the Friday, the 20th of November. On an Airbnb booking, you generally cannot ask a guest to sign your own rental agreement, which is allowed only where a law or a community association rule allows it, where it covers an optional amenity on a monthly stay of 28 nights or more, or on a luxury listing. And even then, in Airbnb's own words, It does not require guests to sign host contracts and it does not help enforce them. You also cannot solicit contact details, ID documents, financial data, or background checks at any point during the booking or the stay. You can check an ID in person at check-in if your listing requires section says so. You cannot keep a copy of it. I've gone and I've checked the policies in the UK and Spain and other places in Europe as well, and it's all the same wording. So the question is really when your duty bites, because Airbnb permits a check at the door and it bars it before arrival. So of the 21 European regimes I've gone and checked, 20 land on the permitted side. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Ukraine, and Turkey want the document at a rival. Italy, Austria, Montenegro, and Bosnia want it reported after. Spain alone reaches back to the booking. So the other half of this you may actually like, at least for those of us that use Airbnbs quite a lot. A second policy bans requests that take significant effort or, in its own words, would typically be performed by a cleaner. Including stripping to bears, taking rubbish off site, or washing and putting dishes away. Punitive guest fines go with it, though damage recovery is untouched and no rule counts unless it was in the listing when they book. And it's not whether you can take a guess ID, it is when in general. So classify your markets by limb before the 20th of November and get the rules that matter into your listing. Thank you for watching and I'll see you tomorrow.