Post by High Priestess on Sept 29, 2015 6:16:15 GMT
Tom shared:
Airbnb renters refuse to leave after South Bay landlord allows them to pay cash
Interesting story about a pair of renters with a long evicton history (Santa Cruz District attorney states they have been evicted 4 previous times) refused to leave a SHARED rental.
bit.ly/1JP9fZa
The renters paid cash after their Airbnb rental expired claiming that they could no longer afford the Airbnb service fees. Since the rental became a “cash transaction” the couple refused to leave.
The landlord/owner received no help from Airbnb which is understandable since they have no legal responsibility to do so. The new rental was done outside of the Airbnb platform.
However, I find something very disturbing here. How were these guests allowed to book in the first place? This is the real story.
Airbnb does not do background checks on guests! I wonder if the owner itially booked these guests from Instant Booking? If so, Instant Booking is allowing criminals and con-artists to come into your home.
I would like to know if these guests were made by IB. As many of you know, I was assaulted in my own home by a guest of a guest that did do a booking through the Airbnb platform.
I was able to get them out by threatening to call the police. Yes, Airbnb did assist me but only after getting Chip Conley’s email address.
I have had two meetings with Airbnb officials regarding the dangers of IB and I have been told that they will look into the matter. In other words, they will do nothing.
Airbnb’s stance is to put out fires when they happen. Airbnb is ignoring host safety by implying IB guests have a positive review; the reality is the guest does not.
Lesson learned here hosts?
1. Do not trust Instant Booking. You are playing “Russian Roulette”. Safety is a big issue.
2. Airbnb does not give you any guest information. The verification is only verfying the identity of guest- nothing more.
3. Spend 10-20 minutes researching each guest. Yes, it takes time but if you want trust and safety - you need to do it. Airbnb will not and does not do this for you. The 10,000 worded legal document states that you are responsible for doing background checks on guests.
Deborah:
I read a story on that situation, here:
bit.ly/1JP9fZa
It's horrible, very bad. Must be extremely traumatic for the landlord -- she has essentially been forced out of her own home, leaving it to these malicious scammers to stay there. THat the law could allow this to happen, makes a mockery of justice. I hope someone's collecting up all these stories, as they should be used to argue for changes in existing law, as clearly landlords need more "rights".
I am not clear though what the length of the initial reservation was. If it was a less than 30 day reservation, then the couple actually didn't have rights to stay after the reservation ended. It sounds like where the landlord went wrong, was in extending the reservation, as well as extending it by direct payment (going outside of Airbnb) after the original reservation ended. At some point then, the couple were in fact there over 30 days,and did in fact then obtain tenant's rights.
One way of avoiding this kind of problem to some extent, is to only rent to ONE guest/renter at a time, not two. If you rent to only one renter, a room in a home where you also live, and they have tenancy due to being there over 30 days, then you don't have to go to court to get them out, though you do still have to give them 30 day's notice.
This law is given in California Civil Code section 1946.5, and CA Penal Code Section 602.3
That law is summarized as follows:
"Single lodger in a private residence
A lodger is a person who lives in a room in a house where the owner lives. The owner can enter all areas occupied by the lodger and has overall control of the house. Most lodgers have the same rights as tenants.
However, in the case of a single lodger in a house where there are no other lodgers, the owner can evict the lodger without using formal eviction proceedings. The owner can give the lodger written notice that the lodger cannot continue to use the room. The amount of notice must be the same as the number of days between rent payments (for example, 30 days). (See "Tenant's notice to end a periodic tenancy".) When the owner has given the lodger proper notice and the time has expired, the lodger has no further right to remain in the owner's house and may be removed as a trespasser."
THis info taken from this website, which also gives info on evicting guests who have stayed less than 30 days:
www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml
I agree Tim, that hosts must be quite careful to whom they rent. Too many hosts, especially new hosts, simply assume that Airbnb is "safe" and that if someone has verified ID they are "safe." So these hosts make a big deal about verified ID and dont' pay attention to the whole picture and the context, and all the details that they need to pay attention to in any given situation.
Tom:
Thanks Deborah. You provided very good and useful information here. I didn’t know about the single lodger.
Deborah:
You're welcome, Tim. I mentioned this before, but it was quite a while back, and I like to bring these things to host's attention from time to time. The Single Lodger Law is not well known at all in California, and it should be, because it represents a very good protection for hosts. However, the very fact that it isn't well known, means that police are wary of enforcing this law (and the associated penal code, which makes it a CRIME, that of trespassing, for a TENANT -- someone who's stayed over 30 days -- to stay beyond the notice you give them to leave). HEnce some police in some areas have refused to remove such trespassers, which means that the property owner must lock them out. You can legally lock them out if you come under this law and you follow the process stated to give notice to the person to leave.
Stan:
I posted below about my elderly neighbors experience with her abusive tenant ( not Airbnb) she was told by the police that the person had obtain residency by receiving official mail at address . We are not in FA but on peninsula
Deborah:
Stan --- police don't necessarily know the ins and outs of civil law -- they specialize in criminal law. So, just because a police officer says something about some civil law matter, doesn't mean it is true. Police are also not allowed to "enforce" civil law, so, for instance, if you had a renter and didnt' give them back their security deposit on time, the renter can't "call the police" and have them come talk to you about that -- which some ignorant renters have threatened to do with some landlords. I don't believe that renters receiving mail at your house establishes tenancy, but it certainly could lead to problems with you receiving mail far into the future for someone who has long departed, so I dont' permit renters to receive mail at my house.
Also -- actually, as the article mentioned indicates, if you have only one tenant (someone you've rented to for more than 30 days) who has paid you on a weekly or daily basis, rather than every month, you could actually evict them in 7 days or 1 day, accordingly, and all without using the court system. You could legally lock them out.
And if you rent to more than one renter (say you have two or three guests in different rooms), then all you need to do, to get the one problem renter out (who has obtained "tenant's rights" due to staying over 30 days) is wait until the other guests' reservations end, and/or cancel their reservations and any future reservations, and wa-la, you now rent to only one person, so the Single Lodger law applies to you and you can get that problem person out.
Of course in order to do this you need to not have a problem COUPLE, which could be a good reason to never rent a room to a couple for more than 30 days.
TOm:
You are awesome Deborah! This is fantastic information to know.
If Airbnb truely cared about trust and safety, they would run background checks on guests. This would solve the issues of evictions, scammers, criminals, etc.
The highly talented programmers at Airbnb could devise something that could be quick. The time consuming task for host to ask for full name and social media sites places an added burden on hosts.
I agree Deborah, new hosts don’t read the legal disclaimer, wrongly believe that Airbnb has checked potential guests, and as a result are running a very high risk of having an incident in their home.
Airbnb is developing software to “match” guests and hosts based on psychological measures but I have my reservations about this program. Some hosts have expressed concerns about privacy issues. I think a better solution is to run background checks that include criminal and evictions on guests.
Ernest:
Airbnb does not perform background checks on any guests, whether they book through Instant Book or otherwise. Instant Book poses absolutely no more risk than does any other kind of booking. Ultimately this is irrelevant due to the fact that hosts are protected in a myriad of other ways; the police are merely a 911 call away; Airbnb provides two layers of protection in the host $1 million guarantee and the $1 million liability guarantee. I feel perfectly safe. If one is concerned with a potential guess, one can do his or her own research. I bet a google search of this guest's name would reveal the four previous unlawful detainers/evictions. Were Airbnb asked or required to perform these services (which would likely only yield information on a very small percentage of guests) I expect the fees would increase significantly to pay for this service.
Let's not forget another obvious protection hosts enjoy in the court system.
Tom:
Yes, this is my exact point. Why does Airbnb make it so difficult to get information on guests? Other sites give you guests full name and phone number.
Airbnb only provides you with guest’s first name.
Deborah:
You actually can ask the guest to provide you their full name, before you accept their reservation. Phone number you can't get thru the system, but you can get afterward...but the full name yes you can get that, and do a court records search for the county they are from in the USA (at least) to see if they have evictions on their record.
Tom:
Yes, I do this. Thanks Deborah.
I would gladly pay an extra fee for evictions and criminal background checks. I suspect others would like to have this level of comfort.
Maybe this is business idea for someone? It takes me 10-20 minutes now to research each guest. It’s very time consuming!
Keith:
Tim,
could you please not use every single incident that happens in life as fuel for your campaign against instant booking.. if you KNOW FOR SURE that these guests were instant booked, then fine..that's valid information but you're making wild assumptions based on no information and it's not reasonable--in my opinion it taints all the valid arguments you made.
In any case.. I think the real lesson here--dont take bookings outside the system. I've had people wanting to 'extend' --I made them extend via airbnb. The service fee not only pays for customer support but it also pays for the host guarantee and the liability insurance.
If the guest can't afford the service fee, then offer a reduced booking rate to retain them.
I rarely give in to the 'i can't afford it' argument... people want a discount, then they are off at nordstroms returning with bags of stuff they bought with their savings.
When you can no longer afford to stay somewhere, it's time to go home.
Ernest:
Any host can choose not to use Instant Book if he or she is uncomfortable with it. Airbnb does not force any host to use it. Sounds to me like Tim has decided it is not for him, although I could have sworn I just saw an email from him the other day suggesting just the opposite.
Tomj:
Yes, Peter, I had a change of mind after talking to a host in England but after sleeping on it and remembering the assault and isolation I felt after contacting CX; I turned it off.
GaiL:
Ernest is correct. Hosts have the choice to instant book or not. In this situation, the host should never have never agreed to a "cash" payment. And the decision to move out of their own home is the worst decision they could have made.
Airbnb renters refuse to leave after South Bay landlord allows them to pay cash
Interesting story about a pair of renters with a long evicton history (Santa Cruz District attorney states they have been evicted 4 previous times) refused to leave a SHARED rental.
bit.ly/1JP9fZa
The renters paid cash after their Airbnb rental expired claiming that they could no longer afford the Airbnb service fees. Since the rental became a “cash transaction” the couple refused to leave.
The landlord/owner received no help from Airbnb which is understandable since they have no legal responsibility to do so. The new rental was done outside of the Airbnb platform.
However, I find something very disturbing here. How were these guests allowed to book in the first place? This is the real story.
Airbnb does not do background checks on guests! I wonder if the owner itially booked these guests from Instant Booking? If so, Instant Booking is allowing criminals and con-artists to come into your home.
I would like to know if these guests were made by IB. As many of you know, I was assaulted in my own home by a guest of a guest that did do a booking through the Airbnb platform.
I was able to get them out by threatening to call the police. Yes, Airbnb did assist me but only after getting Chip Conley’s email address.
I have had two meetings with Airbnb officials regarding the dangers of IB and I have been told that they will look into the matter. In other words, they will do nothing.
Airbnb’s stance is to put out fires when they happen. Airbnb is ignoring host safety by implying IB guests have a positive review; the reality is the guest does not.
Lesson learned here hosts?
1. Do not trust Instant Booking. You are playing “Russian Roulette”. Safety is a big issue.
2. Airbnb does not give you any guest information. The verification is only verfying the identity of guest- nothing more.
3. Spend 10-20 minutes researching each guest. Yes, it takes time but if you want trust and safety - you need to do it. Airbnb will not and does not do this for you. The 10,000 worded legal document states that you are responsible for doing background checks on guests.
Deborah:
I read a story on that situation, here:
bit.ly/1JP9fZa
It's horrible, very bad. Must be extremely traumatic for the landlord -- she has essentially been forced out of her own home, leaving it to these malicious scammers to stay there. THat the law could allow this to happen, makes a mockery of justice. I hope someone's collecting up all these stories, as they should be used to argue for changes in existing law, as clearly landlords need more "rights".
I am not clear though what the length of the initial reservation was. If it was a less than 30 day reservation, then the couple actually didn't have rights to stay after the reservation ended. It sounds like where the landlord went wrong, was in extending the reservation, as well as extending it by direct payment (going outside of Airbnb) after the original reservation ended. At some point then, the couple were in fact there over 30 days,and did in fact then obtain tenant's rights.
One way of avoiding this kind of problem to some extent, is to only rent to ONE guest/renter at a time, not two. If you rent to only one renter, a room in a home where you also live, and they have tenancy due to being there over 30 days, then you don't have to go to court to get them out, though you do still have to give them 30 day's notice.
This law is given in California Civil Code section 1946.5, and CA Penal Code Section 602.3
That law is summarized as follows:
"Single lodger in a private residence
A lodger is a person who lives in a room in a house where the owner lives. The owner can enter all areas occupied by the lodger and has overall control of the house. Most lodgers have the same rights as tenants.
However, in the case of a single lodger in a house where there are no other lodgers, the owner can evict the lodger without using formal eviction proceedings. The owner can give the lodger written notice that the lodger cannot continue to use the room. The amount of notice must be the same as the number of days between rent payments (for example, 30 days). (See "Tenant's notice to end a periodic tenancy".) When the owner has given the lodger proper notice and the time has expired, the lodger has no further right to remain in the owner's house and may be removed as a trespasser."
THis info taken from this website, which also gives info on evicting guests who have stayed less than 30 days:
www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/whois.shtml
I agree Tim, that hosts must be quite careful to whom they rent. Too many hosts, especially new hosts, simply assume that Airbnb is "safe" and that if someone has verified ID they are "safe." So these hosts make a big deal about verified ID and dont' pay attention to the whole picture and the context, and all the details that they need to pay attention to in any given situation.
Tom:
Thanks Deborah. You provided very good and useful information here. I didn’t know about the single lodger.
Deborah:
You're welcome, Tim. I mentioned this before, but it was quite a while back, and I like to bring these things to host's attention from time to time. The Single Lodger Law is not well known at all in California, and it should be, because it represents a very good protection for hosts. However, the very fact that it isn't well known, means that police are wary of enforcing this law (and the associated penal code, which makes it a CRIME, that of trespassing, for a TENANT -- someone who's stayed over 30 days -- to stay beyond the notice you give them to leave). HEnce some police in some areas have refused to remove such trespassers, which means that the property owner must lock them out. You can legally lock them out if you come under this law and you follow the process stated to give notice to the person to leave.
Stan:
I posted below about my elderly neighbors experience with her abusive tenant ( not Airbnb) she was told by the police that the person had obtain residency by receiving official mail at address . We are not in FA but on peninsula
Deborah:
Stan --- police don't necessarily know the ins and outs of civil law -- they specialize in criminal law. So, just because a police officer says something about some civil law matter, doesn't mean it is true. Police are also not allowed to "enforce" civil law, so, for instance, if you had a renter and didnt' give them back their security deposit on time, the renter can't "call the police" and have them come talk to you about that -- which some ignorant renters have threatened to do with some landlords. I don't believe that renters receiving mail at your house establishes tenancy, but it certainly could lead to problems with you receiving mail far into the future for someone who has long departed, so I dont' permit renters to receive mail at my house.
Also -- actually, as the article mentioned indicates, if you have only one tenant (someone you've rented to for more than 30 days) who has paid you on a weekly or daily basis, rather than every month, you could actually evict them in 7 days or 1 day, accordingly, and all without using the court system. You could legally lock them out.
And if you rent to more than one renter (say you have two or three guests in different rooms), then all you need to do, to get the one problem renter out (who has obtained "tenant's rights" due to staying over 30 days) is wait until the other guests' reservations end, and/or cancel their reservations and any future reservations, and wa-la, you now rent to only one person, so the Single Lodger law applies to you and you can get that problem person out.
Of course in order to do this you need to not have a problem COUPLE, which could be a good reason to never rent a room to a couple for more than 30 days.
TOm:
You are awesome Deborah! This is fantastic information to know.
If Airbnb truely cared about trust and safety, they would run background checks on guests. This would solve the issues of evictions, scammers, criminals, etc.
The highly talented programmers at Airbnb could devise something that could be quick. The time consuming task for host to ask for full name and social media sites places an added burden on hosts.
I agree Deborah, new hosts don’t read the legal disclaimer, wrongly believe that Airbnb has checked potential guests, and as a result are running a very high risk of having an incident in their home.
Airbnb is developing software to “match” guests and hosts based on psychological measures but I have my reservations about this program. Some hosts have expressed concerns about privacy issues. I think a better solution is to run background checks that include criminal and evictions on guests.
Ernest:
Airbnb does not perform background checks on any guests, whether they book through Instant Book or otherwise. Instant Book poses absolutely no more risk than does any other kind of booking. Ultimately this is irrelevant due to the fact that hosts are protected in a myriad of other ways; the police are merely a 911 call away; Airbnb provides two layers of protection in the host $1 million guarantee and the $1 million liability guarantee. I feel perfectly safe. If one is concerned with a potential guess, one can do his or her own research. I bet a google search of this guest's name would reveal the four previous unlawful detainers/evictions. Were Airbnb asked or required to perform these services (which would likely only yield information on a very small percentage of guests) I expect the fees would increase significantly to pay for this service.
Let's not forget another obvious protection hosts enjoy in the court system.
Tom:
Yes, this is my exact point. Why does Airbnb make it so difficult to get information on guests? Other sites give you guests full name and phone number.
Airbnb only provides you with guest’s first name.
Deborah:
You actually can ask the guest to provide you their full name, before you accept their reservation. Phone number you can't get thru the system, but you can get afterward...but the full name yes you can get that, and do a court records search for the county they are from in the USA (at least) to see if they have evictions on their record.
Tom:
Yes, I do this. Thanks Deborah.
I would gladly pay an extra fee for evictions and criminal background checks. I suspect others would like to have this level of comfort.
Maybe this is business idea for someone? It takes me 10-20 minutes now to research each guest. It’s very time consuming!
Keith:
Tim,
could you please not use every single incident that happens in life as fuel for your campaign against instant booking.. if you KNOW FOR SURE that these guests were instant booked, then fine..that's valid information but you're making wild assumptions based on no information and it's not reasonable--in my opinion it taints all the valid arguments you made.
In any case.. I think the real lesson here--dont take bookings outside the system. I've had people wanting to 'extend' --I made them extend via airbnb. The service fee not only pays for customer support but it also pays for the host guarantee and the liability insurance.
If the guest can't afford the service fee, then offer a reduced booking rate to retain them.
I rarely give in to the 'i can't afford it' argument... people want a discount, then they are off at nordstroms returning with bags of stuff they bought with their savings.
When you can no longer afford to stay somewhere, it's time to go home.
Ernest:
Any host can choose not to use Instant Book if he or she is uncomfortable with it. Airbnb does not force any host to use it. Sounds to me like Tim has decided it is not for him, although I could have sworn I just saw an email from him the other day suggesting just the opposite.
Tomj:
Yes, Peter, I had a change of mind after talking to a host in England but after sleeping on it and remembering the assault and isolation I felt after contacting CX; I turned it off.
GaiL:
Ernest is correct. Hosts have the choice to instant book or not. In this situation, the host should never have never agreed to a "cash" payment. And the decision to move out of their own home is the worst decision they could have made.