New Airbnb owners should be aware of the hosting risks of Airbnb and do something to limit it.

NOTE: In general, you may never even encounter any of these issues. Reading about these risks may scare many owners. If that is the case then you make take this as an absolute. It’s not. The risks are very low.  

Let’s consider a list of risks of hosting Airbnb guests and solutions here:

 There Are Other Ways To Reduce Risk: Discrimination Is Absolute Useless As A Measure!

The age of people, their sexual orientation, the colour of their skin, their physical inabilities, etc. do not define if they will trample your home, or expose you to risk. 

You can set an age limit for kids. But that’s about it. You can share liability risks. But only the guest can decide on your honest rules and warnings that will lower expectations.

Today, with Airbnb-homeowner and guest reviews you  get a legal way to discriminate between good and bad . 

Consider Transparency As Your Risk Reducing Measure!

Bad Airbnb guests have previous public reviews. And if they are not good you don’t have to accept their booking. If they have no reviews you can try and qualify them. But  there is no obligation to accommodate zero-reviewed-guest. .

We have found the change in guests behaviour pre and post the arrival of Airbnb significant. In the past guests would have very little respect. Today they care. Even owners have jacked up their offering.  Because no one gets away with bad stuff today.  

Transparency: Guests do care about their public profile.

The solution today is not discrimination; the real issue is rather: from which marketing site does the guest originate from? If the guest is an Airbnb referral the risk is less than when compared to any other website where there are no social profile risks | no real transparency.

NOTE: There is no foolproof way. Things can go wrong. And the way this world operates it will go wrong. But we should always try to minimise risk. 

 Underestimate The Ingenuity of Complete Fools.    

List of possible issues to recover during your foolproof audit.

Load-shedding affects us all negatively. And Airbnb guests are frustrated. Obviously we can see load-shedding as a curse or we can do better than our Airbnb host next door in making guests happier than they ever expected.

Unfortunately, the load-shedding curse has consequences; if you are not interested in fixing the issues it will negatively affect your income.  It may even cause your house to burn down.  And we had such a close encounter yesterday. Luck was on our side.

I regularly get questions like, “Are you taking a big enough breakage deposit?” 

Injuries, accidents and your liability seem to be on the back burner. 

But let me answer your breakage deposit concern first. 

As an owner, you want to protect your belongings against breakages. You can throw money at the problem or you make it as foolproof as possible. 

After a thorough foolproof audit and making changes, the next defense is a breakage deposit. 

How high should the breakage be to cover your home? Can you consider any figure you believe is high enough? 

Okay. You decide to hit them hard with a high breakage deposit. But the consequence is; no more bookings. Nothing. 

Obviously, we need to consider the risk. How many breakages occur and how severe are they? 

• How often do we claim for breakages from guests? Probably less than 1%.
• Has our conservative breakage deposit covered these breakages? 99% of the time. 

Instead of limiting or stopping bookings it’s our view to get a breakage deposit about equal to one day’s rates during high season. 

But you may be risk-averse and want more. Your only choice (not really a choice) is to get your short term insurer involved. You must tell him you do short term accommodation and want insurance for breakages, accidents and liability claims. 

Let’s get back to breakages:

• If breakage is more than the deposit, then insurance must kick in. It’s easier than taking legal action against the guest. 
• If another non-guest with access to the home breaks something or has an accident the insurance must cover the loss. 
• Obviously, if it is malicious damage the owner can take legal action. 

Action:

1. Get insurance and third-party liability insurance. 
2. Set a reasonable breakage deposit. 
3. Do a foolproof audit. And act on it.

In general, short term rental accommodation business is easy if you do the common sense issues well. They are simple. But relentlessly risky if skimped.

P.S. If it can break it will break. This does not mean we must change to plastic plates and glasses. Everyday use items must be easily replaceable in the blink of an eye. To claim from a guest for such accidental breakages is not ideal.

A few owners only want occasional bookings and not interested in maximising income.

Yes. We can assist you.

Some Cape Town Accommodation owners only want to get one, two or three bookings during the year. And nothing more. 

We just need to agree to a different T&Cs (see it here) for your specific needs. 

These owners either;

• tend to live in their homes during the year. 
• owners who only want a few guests through their home. 

These owners keep the home for their own use or no use during the year and make certain dates exclusively available to CapeHolidays. Agency.CapeHolidays.info are 100% responsible for bookings during this time and the owner will honour all bookings during the agreed availability period. See the consequences and responsibilities for Instant Bookings.

Owners who don’t live in their homes during the year may want the management of their accommodation while they are not here; our T&Cs do not provide for this function. And these owners will need to discuss their needs with us clearly to understand their needs and agree on the management fee to oversee the home during the empty time.

Can You Assist if I only want occasional bookings? Read this FAQ.

Typical Airbnb House Rules.

The list below may be typical but only the minimum. Each homeowner must take this list and complete it specifically to their own home.

When owners have additional house rules the newly  updated listed must be emailed to Agency.CapeHolidays.Info where the agent  will add it to online listings of the property.

This answer is specific to owners who only rent out during school holidays. 

Here are some of the responsibilities of the domestic. For any deviation, the appointed manager must be notified immediately.  Below are 15 minimum functions for the domestic.   Available to Agency.CapeHolidays homeowners and management staff. 

Be friendly, be accommodating, be FIRM!

We want a 5 Star review but our integrity is not for sale.

 Underestimate The Ingenuity of Complete Fools.    

List of possible issues to recover during your foolproof audit.

I regularly get questions like, “Are you taking a big enough breakage deposit?” 

Injuries, accidents and your liability seem to be on the back burner. 

But let me answer your breakage deposit concern first. 

As an owner, you want to protect your belongings against breakages. You can throw money at the problem or you make it as foolproof as possible. 

After a thorough foolproof audit and making changes, the next defense is a breakage deposit. 

How high should the breakage be to cover your home? Can you consider any figure you believe is high enough? 

Okay. You decide to hit them hard with a high breakage deposit. But the consequence is; no more bookings. Nothing. 

Obviously, we need to consider the risk. How many breakages occur and how severe are they? 

• How often do we claim for breakages from guests? Probably less than 1%.
• Has our conservative breakage deposit covered these breakages? 99% of the time. 

Instead of limiting or stopping bookings it’s our view to get a breakage deposit about equal to one day’s rates during high season. 

But you may be risk-averse and want more. Your only choice (not really a choice) is to get your short term insurer involved. You must tell him you do short term accommodation and want insurance for breakages, accidents and liability claims. 

Let’s get back to breakages:

• If breakage is more than the deposit, then insurance must kick in. It’s easier than taking legal action against the guest. 
• If another non-guest with access to the home breaks something or has an accident the insurance must cover the loss. 
• Obviously, if it is malicious damage the owner can take legal action. 

Action:

1. Get insurance and third-party liability insurance. 
2. Set a reasonable breakage deposit. 
3. Do a foolproof audit. And act on it.

In general, short term rental accommodation business is easy if you do the common sense issues well. They are simple. But relentlessly risky if skimped.

P.S. If it can break it will break. This does not mean we must change to plastic plates and glasses. Everyday use items must be easily replaceable in the blink of an eye. To claim from a guest for such accidental breakages is not ideal.

New Airbnb owners should be aware of the hosting risks of Airbnb and do something to limit it.

NOTE: In general, you may never even encounter any of these issues. Reading about these risks may scare many owners. If that is the case then you make take this as an absolute. It’s not. The risks are very low.  

Let’s consider a list of risks of hosting Airbnb guests and solutions here:

A few owners only want occasional bookings and not interested in maximising income.

Yes. We can assist you.

Some Cape Town Accommodation owners only want to get one, two or three bookings during the year. And nothing more. 

We just need to agree to a different T&Cs (see it here) for your specific needs. 

These owners either;

• tend to live in their homes during the year. 
• owners who only want a few guests through their home. 

These owners keep the home for their own use or no use during the year and make certain dates exclusively available to CapeHolidays. Agency.CapeHolidays.info are 100% responsible for bookings during this time and the owner will honour all bookings during the agreed availability period. See the consequences and responsibilities for Instant Bookings.

Owners who don’t live in their homes during the year may want the management of their accommodation while they are not here; our T&Cs do not provide for this function. And these owners will need to discuss their needs with us clearly to understand their needs and agree on the management fee to oversee the home during the empty time.

Can You Assist if I only want occasional bookings? Read this FAQ.

An Owner Pieter recommended Sandra and husband John. Around the dining table, they heard about the slug of money Pieter got renting his home over peak. 

The one couple got easy money over Christmas and the others wanted to be part of the rainbow. 

Sandra showed us their upmarket apartment close to the beach. It was not guest ready yet. But we assisted in staging the accommodation and the photos were really great. This is going to be a winner. 

We sent them the T&Cs to read, discuss, agree, sign and send back. 

Nothing. Eventually, we got an email;

We know Peter who has a property that you have rented over the high season period. We are comfortable with a similar arrangement with our property. 

Long story short; the: similar arrangement was based on a handshake. Although low incidence, renting out accommodation has various risks. And things had to change. Easy verbal arrangements are great and easy but…. 

Various parties with different expectations make it difficult to just shake hands on hope for the best:

1. The owner has risks, fears, and needs. 
2. Guests have high expectations. 
3. The management agent must address the issues of the owner and guests. 
4. The provider Airbnb, Booking.com or other third-party agents has its own set of rules. 
5. And where there is money the one holding it is controlling the roost. 

The rare incidents can be severe. Let me explain:

Since starting out Cape Town Management Agency during 2009 we only had three cancellations due to extenuating circumstances. All during 2019. An insignificant issue as measured in incidence and 4% in value. 

The three owners feeling the burn and are now out of pocket. These cancellations occur last minute. And in most cases, guests book at least two months in advance. Meaning; we will not get another booking. 

Two of the affected owners, we paid a substantial amount, said they were not aware we market their home on Airbnb and did not realise the risk.

One owner asked us to share the risks in more detail. Obviously, this is one example of many. 

An agreement has various purposes:

• It draws the lines within which the guest, owner, and agent plays the game. 
• It sets out and explains expectations for parties. It shares timelines, responsibilities, and duties. 
• It explains the risks in no uncertain terms. And owners have the right to know. 
• It keeps all involved as honest as is possible. 
• It indicates to us that we have the right to represent the owner and the owner is committed. 
• In exchange for generating an income, for the committed owner, we brand the owner’s home with the trustworthiness we established over many years. These include being SuperHosts and having nearly a thousand 4.9 out of 5 Star reviews. And we cannot risk losing these with owners who say, “Sorry, we shook hands and you did not tell me about that!” 
• Money complicates things. Example: we get paid by Airbnb, we paid the owner; what happens when there’s a refund or cancellation? Airbnb immediately takes the money from us. Now we need to recover the money from the owner. This can become a mess when based on a cordial handshake. 

Our Terms and conditions are general. It may not cover all your specific needs. Certain clauses are negotiable others not. We can add, and adapt some. 

Yes. It happens. How do we manage future bookings for owners who want to sell or who are very sick? 

Obviously, if you pass away it’s an extenuating circumstance and we are allowed to cancel. With terminal illness or selling of your accommodation, you have a transition period where you may want the bookings to continue. And it is possible.

Let me remind you of the T&C clause in question:

This clause does not change at all, other than for extenuating circumstances.

 But there is a way to limit the exposure and it is very simple: 

You close the future booking window from 12 to 18 months to only three months in advance.

This means at any time when the owner sells their property, only the next three months’ worth of bookings must be honoured. As you know; estate transfers take about three months. 

 If this interests the owner, they must just ask us in writing to only open a rolling three-month booking window. 

 There Are Other Ways To Reduce Risk: Discrimination Is Absolute Useless As A Measure!

The age of people, their sexual orientation, the colour of their skin, their physical inabilities, etc. do not define if they will trample your home, or expose you to risk. 

You can set an age limit for kids. But that’s about it. You can share liability risks. But only the guest can decide on your honest rules and warnings that will lower expectations.

Today, with Airbnb-homeowner and guest reviews you  get a legal way to discriminate between good and bad . 

Consider Transparency As Your Risk Reducing Measure!

Bad Airbnb guests have previous public reviews. And if they are not good you don’t have to accept their booking. If they have no reviews you can try and qualify them. But  there is no obligation to accommodate zero-reviewed-guest. .

We have found the change in guests behaviour pre and post the arrival of Airbnb significant. In the past guests would have very little respect. Today they care. Even owners have jacked up their offering.  Because no one gets away with bad stuff today.  

Transparency: Guests do care about their public profile.

The solution today is not discrimination; the real issue is rather: from which marketing site does the guest originate from? If the guest is an Airbnb referral the risk is less than when compared to any other website where there are no social profile risks | no real transparency.

NOTE: There is no foolproof way. Things can go wrong. And the way this world operates it will go wrong. But we should always try to minimise risk. 

This answer is specific to owners who only rent out during school holidays. 

Here are some of the responsibilities of the domestic. For any deviation, the appointed manager must be notified immediately.  Below are 15 minimum functions for the domestic.   Available to Agency.CapeHolidays homeowners and management staff. 

Be friendly, be accommodating, be FIRM!

We want a 5 Star review but our integrity is not for sale.

 Underestimate The Ingenuity of Complete Fools.    

List of possible issues to recover during your foolproof audit.

It’s obvious, after COVID 19, that the bad brings out the worst in some and the best in others. It’s for this reason that we decided to revisit short term rental insurance to best protect our Cape Town accommodation owners and the rental agency (Agency.CapeHolidays.info) they appointed to manage their accommodation.

BTW: You know we had a 60 day zero refund cancellation policy with Airbnb but they temporarily negated that, at the start of the pandemic. And can still apply it under extenuating circumstances. Therefore we cannot continue being at risk at their will. There must be a better way to protect income.

The main concerns to address:

1. Better protect income when disasters strike for all involved.
2. Evade the excuse by random insurers “I’ll not pay because of non-disclosure of material facts!”
3. To protect all parties the agent must be included as a co-insured. As the agent is not the asset holder, the agent is exposed because the agency cannot independently insure.
4. Although we recommend Incompass (see letter below), we have no affiliation. We hope all our owners will benefit as a group using Incompass. An owner can choose their provider as long as 1, 2, and 3 are adhered too. 
5. The monthly fees should be less or similar to what the owner is currently paying – just correctly structured.

Actions To Take: 

We will require owners to ensure their policies protect them correctly and that the protection is extended to their agent. The following form needs to be sent to your insurer and sent back to us after your insurance provider completes it (find it here).  

We believe we have identified such a company. 

Incompass commenced in 2004 with a specialised team. Today they are South Africa’s largest Guest House Insurance brokerage. Focusing on both personal and commercial for the tourism industry. Even during the pandemic Jan Wink, Managing Director at Incompass, explains how they paid out 1000s of claims (see news article here).

The following is a letter from Jan to our owners on what the critical aspects are we need to consider. 

I regularly get questions like, “Are you taking a big enough breakage deposit?” 

Injuries, accidents and your liability seem to be on the back burner. 

But let me answer your breakage deposit concern first. 

As an owner, you want to protect your belongings against breakages. You can throw money at the problem or you make it as foolproof as possible. 

After a thorough foolproof audit and making changes, the next defense is a breakage deposit. 

How high should the breakage be to cover your home? Can you consider any figure you believe is high enough? 

Okay. You decide to hit them hard with a high breakage deposit. But the consequence is; no more bookings. Nothing. 

Obviously, we need to consider the risk. How many breakages occur and how severe are they? 

• How often do we claim for breakages from guests? Probably less than 1%.
• Has our conservative breakage deposit covered these breakages? 99% of the time. 

Instead of limiting or stopping bookings it’s our view to get a breakage deposit about equal to one day’s rates during high season. 

But you may be risk-averse and want more. Your only choice (not really a choice) is to get your short term insurer involved. You must tell him you do short term accommodation and want insurance for breakages, accidents and liability claims. 

Let’s get back to breakages:

• If breakage is more than the deposit, then insurance must kick in. It’s easier than taking legal action against the guest. 
• If another non-guest with access to the home breaks something or has an accident the insurance must cover the loss. 
• Obviously, if it is malicious damage the owner can take legal action. 

Action:

1. Get insurance and third-party liability insurance. 
2. Set a reasonable breakage deposit. 
3. Do a foolproof audit. And act on it.

In general, short term rental accommodation business is easy if you do the common sense issues well. They are simple. But relentlessly risky if skimped.

P.S. If it can break it will break. This does not mean we must change to plastic plates and glasses. Everyday use items must be easily replaceable in the blink of an eye. To claim from a guest for such accidental breakages is not ideal.

New Airbnb owners should be aware of the hosting risks of Airbnb and do something to limit it.

NOTE: In general, you may never even encounter any of these issues. Reading about these risks may scare many owners. If that is the case then you make take this as an absolute. It’s not. The risks are very low.  

Let’s consider a list of risks of hosting Airbnb guests and solutions here:

An Owner Pieter recommended Sandra and husband John. Around the dining table, they heard about the slug of money Pieter got renting his home over peak. 

The one couple got easy money over Christmas and the others wanted to be part of the rainbow. 

Sandra showed us their upmarket apartment close to the beach. It was not guest ready yet. But we assisted in staging the accommodation and the photos were really great. This is going to be a winner. 

We sent them the T&Cs to read, discuss, agree, sign and send back. 

Nothing. Eventually, we got an email;

We know Peter who has a property that you have rented over the high season period. We are comfortable with a similar arrangement with our property. 

Long story short; the: similar arrangement was based on a handshake. Although low incidence, renting out accommodation has various risks. And things had to change. Easy verbal arrangements are great and easy but…. 

Various parties with different expectations make it difficult to just shake hands on hope for the best:

1. The owner has risks, fears, and needs. 
2. Guests have high expectations. 
3. The management agent must address the issues of the owner and guests. 
4. The provider Airbnb, Booking.com or other third-party agents has its own set of rules. 
5. And where there is money the one holding it is controlling the roost. 

The rare incidents can be severe. Let me explain:

Since starting out Cape Town Management Agency during 2009 we only had three cancellations due to extenuating circumstances. All during 2019. An insignificant issue as measured in incidence and 4% in value. 

The three owners feeling the burn and are now out of pocket. These cancellations occur last minute. And in most cases, guests book at least two months in advance. Meaning; we will not get another booking. 

Two of the affected owners, we paid a substantial amount, said they were not aware we market their home on Airbnb and did not realise the risk.

One owner asked us to share the risks in more detail. Obviously, this is one example of many. 

An agreement has various purposes:

• It draws the lines within which the guest, owner, and agent plays the game. 
• It sets out and explains expectations for parties. It shares timelines, responsibilities, and duties. 
• It explains the risks in no uncertain terms. And owners have the right to know. 
• It keeps all involved as honest as is possible. 
• It indicates to us that we have the right to represent the owner and the owner is committed. 
• In exchange for generating an income, for the committed owner, we brand the owner’s home with the trustworthiness we established over many years. These include being SuperHosts and having nearly a thousand 4.9 out of 5 Star reviews. And we cannot risk losing these with owners who say, “Sorry, we shook hands and you did not tell me about that!” 
• Money complicates things. Example: we get paid by Airbnb, we paid the owner; what happens when there’s a refund or cancellation? Airbnb immediately takes the money from us. Now we need to recover the money from the owner. This can become a mess when based on a cordial handshake. 

Our Terms and conditions are general. It may not cover all your specific needs. Certain clauses are negotiable others not. We can add, and adapt some. 

Typical Airbnb House Rules.

The list below may be typical but only the minimum. Each homeowner must take this list and complete it specifically to their own home.

When owners have additional house rules the newly  updated listed must be emailed to Agency.CapeHolidays.Info where the agent  will add it to online listings of the property.

 There Are Other Ways To Reduce Risk: Discrimination Is Absolute Useless As A Measure!

The age of people, their sexual orientation, the colour of their skin, their physical inabilities, etc. do not define if they will trample your home, or expose you to risk. 

You can set an age limit for kids. But that’s about it. You can share liability risks. But only the guest can decide on your honest rules and warnings that will lower expectations.

Today, with Airbnb-homeowner and guest reviews you  get a legal way to discriminate between good and bad . 

Consider Transparency As Your Risk Reducing Measure!

Bad Airbnb guests have previous public reviews. And if they are not good you don’t have to accept their booking. If they have no reviews you can try and qualify them. But  there is no obligation to accommodate zero-reviewed-guest. .

We have found the change in guests behaviour pre and post the arrival of Airbnb significant. In the past guests would have very little respect. Today they care. Even owners have jacked up their offering.  Because no one gets away with bad stuff today.  

Transparency: Guests do care about their public profile.

The solution today is not discrimination; the real issue is rather: from which marketing site does the guest originate from? If the guest is an Airbnb referral the risk is less than when compared to any other website where there are no social profile risks | no real transparency.

NOTE: There is no foolproof way. Things can go wrong. And the way this world operates it will go wrong. But we should always try to minimise risk. 

This answer is specific to owners who only rent out during school holidays. 

Here are some of the responsibilities of the domestic. For any deviation, the appointed manager must be notified immediately.  Below are 15 minimum functions for the domestic.   Available to Agency.CapeHolidays homeowners and management staff. 

Be friendly, be accommodating, be FIRM!

We want a 5 Star review but our integrity is not for sale.

 Underestimate The Ingenuity of Complete Fools.    

List of possible issues to recover during your foolproof audit.

Load-shedding affects us all negatively. And Airbnb guests are frustrated. Obviously we can see load-shedding as a curse or we can do better than our Airbnb host next door in making guests happier than they ever expected.

Unfortunately, the load-shedding curse has consequences; if you are not interested in fixing the issues it will negatively affect your income.  It may even cause your house to burn down.  And we had such a close encounter yesterday. Luck was on our side.

I regularly get questions like, “Are you taking a big enough breakage deposit?” 

Injuries, accidents and your liability seem to be on the back burner. 

But let me answer your breakage deposit concern first. 

As an owner, you want to protect your belongings against breakages. You can throw money at the problem or you make it as foolproof as possible. 

After a thorough foolproof audit and making changes, the next defense is a breakage deposit. 

How high should the breakage be to cover your home? Can you consider any figure you believe is high enough? 

Okay. You decide to hit them hard with a high breakage deposit. But the consequence is; no more bookings. Nothing. 

Obviously, we need to consider the risk. How many breakages occur and how severe are they? 

• How often do we claim for breakages from guests? Probably less than 1%.
• Has our conservative breakage deposit covered these breakages? 99% of the time. 

Instead of limiting or stopping bookings it’s our view to get a breakage deposit about equal to one day’s rates during high season. 

But you may be risk-averse and want more. Your only choice (not really a choice) is to get your short term insurer involved. You must tell him you do short term accommodation and want insurance for breakages, accidents and liability claims. 

Let’s get back to breakages:

• If breakage is more than the deposit, then insurance must kick in. It’s easier than taking legal action against the guest. 
• If another non-guest with access to the home breaks something or has an accident the insurance must cover the loss. 
• Obviously, if it is malicious damage the owner can take legal action. 

Action:

1. Get insurance and third-party liability insurance. 
2. Set a reasonable breakage deposit. 
3. Do a foolproof audit. And act on it.

In general, short term rental accommodation business is easy if you do the common sense issues well. They are simple. But relentlessly risky if skimped.

P.S. If it can break it will break. This does not mean we must change to plastic plates and glasses. Everyday use items must be easily replaceable in the blink of an eye. To claim from a guest for such accidental breakages is not ideal.

New Airbnb owners should be aware of the hosting risks of Airbnb and do something to limit it.

NOTE: In general, you may never even encounter any of these issues. Reading about these risks may scare many owners. If that is the case then you make take this as an absolute. It’s not. The risks are very low.  

Let’s consider a list of risks of hosting Airbnb guests and solutions here:

A few owners only want occasional bookings and not interested in maximising income.

Yes. We can assist you.

Some Cape Town Accommodation owners only want to get one, two or three bookings during the year. And nothing more. 

We just need to agree to a different T&Cs (see it here) for your specific needs. 

These owners either;

• tend to live in their homes during the year. 
• owners who only want a few guests through their home. 

These owners keep the home for their own use or no use during the year and make certain dates exclusively available to CapeHolidays. Agency.CapeHolidays.info are 100% responsible for bookings during this time and the owner will honour all bookings during the agreed availability period. See the consequences and responsibilities for Instant Bookings.

Owners who don’t live in their homes during the year may want the management of their accommodation while they are not here; our T&Cs do not provide for this function. And these owners will need to discuss their needs with us clearly to understand their needs and agree on the management fee to oversee the home during the empty time.

Can You Assist if I only want occasional bookings? Read this FAQ.

An Owner Pieter recommended Sandra and husband John. Around the dining table, they heard about the slug of money Pieter got renting his home over peak. 

The one couple got easy money over Christmas and the others wanted to be part of the rainbow. 

Sandra showed us their upmarket apartment close to the beach. It was not guest ready yet. But we assisted in staging the accommodation and the photos were really great. This is going to be a winner. 

We sent them the T&Cs to read, discuss, agree, sign and send back. 

Nothing. Eventually, we got an email;

We know Peter who has a property that you have rented over the high season period. We are comfortable with a similar arrangement with our property. 

Long story short; the: similar arrangement was based on a handshake. Although low incidence, renting out accommodation has various risks. And things had to change. Easy verbal arrangements are great and easy but…. 

Various parties with different expectations make it difficult to just shake hands on hope for the best:

1. The owner has risks, fears, and needs. 
2. Guests have high expectations. 
3. The management agent must address the issues of the owner and guests. 
4. The provider Airbnb, Booking.com or other third-party agents has its own set of rules. 
5. And where there is money the one holding it is controlling the roost. 

The rare incidents can be severe. Let me explain:

Since starting out Cape Town Management Agency during 2009 we only had three cancellations due to extenuating circumstances. All during 2019. An insignificant issue as measured in incidence and 4% in value. 

The three owners feeling the burn and are now out of pocket. These cancellations occur last minute. And in most cases, guests book at least two months in advance. Meaning; we will not get another booking. 

Two of the affected owners, we paid a substantial amount, said they were not aware we market their home on Airbnb and did not realise the risk.

One owner asked us to share the risks in more detail. Obviously, this is one example of many. 

An agreement has various purposes:

• It draws the lines within which the guest, owner, and agent plays the game. 
• It sets out and explains expectations for parties. It shares timelines, responsibilities, and duties. 
• It explains the risks in no uncertain terms. And owners have the right to know. 
• It keeps all involved as honest as is possible. 
• It indicates to us that we have the right to represent the owner and the owner is committed. 
• In exchange for generating an income, for the committed owner, we brand the owner’s home with the trustworthiness we established over many years. These include being SuperHosts and having nearly a thousand 4.9 out of 5 Star reviews. And we cannot risk losing these with owners who say, “Sorry, we shook hands and you did not tell me about that!” 
• Money complicates things. Example: we get paid by Airbnb, we paid the owner; what happens when there’s a refund or cancellation? Airbnb immediately takes the money from us. Now we need to recover the money from the owner. This can become a mess when based on a cordial handshake. 

Our Terms and conditions are general. It may not cover all your specific needs. Certain clauses are negotiable others not. We can add, and adapt some. 

Typical Airbnb House Rules.

The list below may be typical but only the minimum. Each homeowner must take this list and complete it specifically to their own home.

When owners have additional house rules the newly  updated listed must be emailed to Agency.CapeHolidays.Info where the agent  will add it to online listings of the property.

Yes. It happens. How do we manage future bookings for owners who want to sell or who are very sick? 

Obviously, if you pass away it’s an extenuating circumstance and we are allowed to cancel. With terminal illness or selling of your accommodation, you have a transition period where you may want the bookings to continue. And it is possible.

Let me remind you of the T&C clause in question:

This clause does not change at all, other than for extenuating circumstances.

 But there is a way to limit the exposure and it is very simple: 

You close the future booking window from 12 to 18 months to only three months in advance.

This means at any time when the owner sells their property, only the next three months’ worth of bookings must be honoured. As you know; estate transfers take about three months. 

 If this interests the owner, they must just ask us in writing to only open a rolling three-month booking window. 

 There Are Other Ways To Reduce Risk: Discrimination Is Absolute Useless As A Measure!

The age of people, their sexual orientation, the colour of their skin, their physical inabilities, etc. do not define if they will trample your home, or expose you to risk. 

You can set an age limit for kids. But that’s about it. You can share liability risks. But only the guest can decide on your honest rules and warnings that will lower expectations.

Today, with Airbnb-homeowner and guest reviews you  get a legal way to discriminate between good and bad . 

Consider Transparency As Your Risk Reducing Measure!

Bad Airbnb guests have previous public reviews. And if they are not good you don’t have to accept their booking. If they have no reviews you can try and qualify them. But  there is no obligation to accommodate zero-reviewed-guest. .

We have found the change in guests behaviour pre and post the arrival of Airbnb significant. In the past guests would have very little respect. Today they care. Even owners have jacked up their offering.  Because no one gets away with bad stuff today.  

Transparency: Guests do care about their public profile.

The solution today is not discrimination; the real issue is rather: from which marketing site does the guest originate from? If the guest is an Airbnb referral the risk is less than when compared to any other website where there are no social profile risks | no real transparency.

NOTE: There is no foolproof way. Things can go wrong. And the way this world operates it will go wrong. But we should always try to minimise risk. 

This answer is specific to owners who only rent out during school holidays. 

Here are some of the responsibilities of the domestic. For any deviation, the appointed manager must be notified immediately.  Below are 15 minimum functions for the domestic.   Available to Agency.CapeHolidays homeowners and management staff. 

Be friendly, be accommodating, be FIRM!

We want a 5 Star review but our integrity is not for sale.

 Underestimate The Ingenuity of Complete Fools.    

List of possible issues to recover during your foolproof audit.

It’s obvious, after COVID 19, that the bad brings out the worst in some and the best in others. It’s for this reason that we decided to revisit short term rental insurance to best protect our Cape Town accommodation owners and the rental agency (Agency.CapeHolidays.info) they appointed to manage their accommodation.

BTW: You know we had a 60 day zero refund cancellation policy with Airbnb but they temporarily negated that, at the start of the pandemic. And can still apply it under extenuating circumstances. Therefore we cannot continue being at risk at their will. There must be a better way to protect income.

The main concerns to address:

1. Better protect income when disasters strike for all involved.
2. Evade the excuse by random insurers “I’ll not pay because of non-disclosure of material facts!”
3. To protect all parties the agent must be included as a co-insured. As the agent is not the asset holder, the agent is exposed because the agency cannot independently insure.
4. Although we recommend Incompass (see letter below), we have no affiliation. We hope all our owners will benefit as a group using Incompass. An owner can choose their provider as long as 1, 2, and 3 are adhered too. 
5. The monthly fees should be less or similar to what the owner is currently paying – just correctly structured.

Actions To Take: 

We will require owners to ensure their policies protect them correctly and that the protection is extended to their agent. The following form needs to be sent to your insurer and sent back to us after your insurance provider completes it (find it here).  

We believe we have identified such a company. 

Incompass commenced in 2004 with a specialised team. Today they are South Africa’s largest Guest House Insurance brokerage. Focusing on both personal and commercial for the tourism industry. Even during the pandemic Jan Wink, Managing Director at Incompass, explains how they paid out 1000s of claims (see news article here).

The following is a letter from Jan to our owners on what the critical aspects are we need to consider.