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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:05] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting

[00:00:06] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:07] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:08] Sarah: Today we have a question from Poor Megan.

[00:00:11] Question: hey, Sarah and Annette. I have a question about how to handle an incident that occurred in one of my units. So this particular unit is an apartment building and unfortunately some event or incident occurred that caused significant damage to the unit. This included wall repairs, couch cleaning, rug cleaning, replacing some of the unit’s supplies, decor.

[00:00:32] I’m wondering what are the steps that we can take through Airbnb to get support from them along the way? How do we charge this to the guest when we’re going to pay for this? How do we do that? And then where do you go from there? Thanks so much.

[00:00:47] Sarah: Sounds like some stuff went down.

[00:00:49] Annette: Let’s get into it. First thing is that speed matters. And when I say speed matters, it’s two different things. One is speed matters in getting into your property, your home, your apartment, your cabin, your yurt, whatever you might be hosting, getting in as soon as possible after your guest checks out to make sure that it’s exactly the way that you left it, is what you want to do.

[00:01:17] And then number two, the speed matters in gathering all the information and reporting that to said guest and platform. Whether it be Airbnb, your direct booking site, speed matters too on both of those things. And after you’re quickly in there reviewing your property, I’m going to ask you to refrain.

[00:01:42] A lot of reactions will be to start to fix things or organize, or if you see things are disheveled or broken, I know it’s just our nature, or if something’s stained, you want to get after it and start cleaning it up and picking it up immediately. And so whether it’s you or your team, you want to pause for the cause because if you find this damage, here are the next steps that you want to take immediately.

[00:02:07] Sarah: Whether it’s you or your team, Annette is going to laugh at me, but I do think you need to develop some sort of SOP, so a checklist. It’s essentially a decision tree. If you don’t find damage, okay, continue on with the clean. If you do find damage, here’s what you do. And you want to build this before you need it, which is why if you’ve not yet encountered damage, don’t freak out.

[00:02:29] It will probably happen, and you’re going to be fine. Documenting it, like Annette said, immediately is key. So if you have someone else who gets in the unit before you do, like a cleaning team or your inspector, give them the checklist of what they should do should they find damage. They don’t have to ask you.

[00:02:46] They are already equipped with that checklist. That’ll include photos of the damage, both up close, but also far away. I actually had to work on this with our cleaning team because they’re so sweet. They don’t want to be accused of the damage and they would take these photos that are so close to what the issue is that I didn’t even know what I was looking at.

[00:03:05] Annette: You’re like, what is that?

[00:03:06] Sarah: Yeah. So I was like, that is great. Also step back a few feet so I can understand where in the home, especially if you are managing a large vacation rental or a large home. You want to know what room it’s a part of. I also recommend, even though you may not be able to submit this via the platform communication like Airbnb, take video of it too.

[00:03:25] It’s just good to get as much as you can before it gets fixed. You want to record it in the exact state in which you found it. And so photos are great, but so is video. And then I would store all of this somewhere. For us, it would be in a Google Drive in a certain area where I can easily find it.

[00:03:42] So we just have it in one place. We can reference back to it should we need to. But document the damage and make sure your team knows that you want up close and far away and video, and then where to put those things and also to notify you.

[00:03:55] Annette: And as you’re documenting with all of the context, you should start writing down. Go ahead and write down the damages also. If it’s a rug, you can go and see what it would be to replace that. If it’s– they said decor, what is the exact decor? This picture from wherever market, how much is it going to be to replace?

[00:04:17] If it’s drywall, how much is it going to be for someone to come out and not only drywall it, but then paint it? So you’re going to want to start to write down all of the damages that correspond with those photos of the damaged areas that you are taking.

[00:04:31] Sarah: And we mean this right away.

[00:04:33] Annette: This sit around and– we know that you’ll probably want to call somebody or anything. It’s like speed really does matter because a lot of times it’s going to take you longer than you think to–

[00:04:45] Sarah: Look up these things.

[00:04:45] Annette: To document it. And don’t be discouraged either like, why? I shouldn’t even have to be doing this. And it’s like, we know that. We understand, but you’ve got to do the work if you want to get reimbursed for it.

[00:04:53] Sarah: It’s the part of doing business, and sometimes, if you are to have drywall repair, now’s not the perfect time. Actually, it’s great build relationships with to contractors ahead of needing them, but now you can call a couple companies and say, hey, I’ve got, whatever it is, 24 inch by 24 inch wall damage, approximately, what would it be to fix that? You can just call them and get– and of course, they’re going to say to you, well, it depends. Say, I understand that. I just need this for documentation. I need somewhere to start, somewhere to go off of.

[00:05:22] So document it, write it all down. And then if you’re lucky enough to have a team member, a partner, just make sure you’re not missing anything as you’re– because you want to write it all down and get all the research of what it’s going to cost to replace that, write that all down.

[00:05:35] Annette: And next, we want you to review the communication with the guest. Did they maybe allude to something being damaged that maybe you just didn’t see it in the communication? Maybe your team was communicating. This is where you want to zoom out a little bit.

[00:05:52] Do a review of the entire property. Do a review of the entire communication from booking. Were there some things– like, wait a second. Just trying to read through all the communication with that guest because it’ll also help you with your tone and what your conversations had been previously of how you’re going to chat with this guest about the damages that were incurred.

[00:06:16] And I’m going to follow up after this last tip really quick and tell you why looking at that communication is so important. But last but not least, this is going to tee you up, especially if you’re working with– before you reach out to the guest or Airbnb, going ahead and already creating an invoice. What is the total amount that it would take to remedy this?

[00:06:35] I know I was just talking to a host via text that was a friend of a friend last week, and she had something like this happen. And she was like, well, she hadn’t reached out to anybody because she was like, every time I go back, there’s more damage.

[00:06:52] I think she was like a part time host, and I was like, well, you can’t wait forever and then say, oh, yeah, well, this was broken. It’s like, you really have to assess all the damage, and you really do want to get this invoice prepared. I’m going to have Sarah give you some hot tips on the actual creating an invoice to supply to the guest and to Airbnb.

[00:07:11] Sarah: If you’ve never created an invoice, I recommend going to– Google’s a great place to start. Google has the Google Docs, has free templates, free invoices galore, or you can have a free Canva account. They also have free invoice templates. If you don’t have a logo, now is not the time to pause and pick one and make one.

[00:07:29] Just put your business name in there. If you don’t have an LLC name or a business name, you can put your name down on there, but you just want to have an official professional looking invoice that is clearly line by line item of all the damages and make sure that your assessment of the damages and the pricing is based on facts, not on your emotions.

[00:07:49] You can put your time into there. So you could put a line item of labor. So let’s say that you are the one that’s going to rehang the picture, you can charge for labor. So I’m not saying don’t value your time, but just make sure it’s based on facts and going rate for labor in your area, etc.

[00:08:07] But you want to make sure you have a professional invoice. And then store that invoice in the same folder that you have the photos and videos, and then also save it. Make sure you save it as a PDF or a jpeg, and I’ll share why with the next step.

[00:08:20] Annette: And then it’s time to communicate. It’s time to connect with this guest in writing. And when I say in writing, I know all of this is done virtually, but we want you to reach out to the guest, whether it was email, if it was a direct booking, if it was Airbnb via the app, because we want you to start having documentation of exactly you communicating with them that the damages were found, what exactly you found.

[00:08:46] We understand sometimes– like I’ve had damages before where a guest has called me and told me about it, but then I went back in and because they wanted to pay for it, made sure that we had that in the app and written out that they were going to per our conversation, but really make sure that you’re connecting with them writing.

[00:09:03] Here’s where this gets really– there’s power in the pause here too. You still need to be a completely hospitable host here when you’re reaching back out because you don’t want to be accusatory or defensive. I want to tell you exactly– I have some scenarios of why. That’s why looking back at that guest communication too is really important. I’ve had incidences where, I’ll share one and then Sarah will share, I had a guest, and they were lovely. I went back. I was like, oh yeah, I remember them. I’d been talking to them throughout the entire stay, and I was in shock when went in after they left and there were some things that were damaged.

[00:09:46] There was a ton of beer bottles. I was like, this seems very odd. And I took some pictures of the damages and reached back out to the woman that had booked it, and she was beside herself because she had actually left one night early and let her young adult children, but I say young adults, so they weren’t children, but they were her children, stay.

[00:10:13] And I think they had a little too much fun, and she was mortified, and she immediately paid for the damages. But what was so great here is that, a, I had the photos ready for her. And she knew. I had the proof. And the tone that I had let her know about these damages or inquired about the damages was coming from a place of like, oh my gosh, this seems really weird.

[00:10:41] I thought you guys were having a great time. I don’t know my exact messaging, but it was very like, hey, this seems off. Just making sure everything is okay. And she was really taken aback. So I want to let you know that sometimes those damages might not have been done by the host. And Sarah has another scenario also where you want to tread lightly.

[00:11:01] Sarah: I was managing a really large vacation rental home, several bedrooms. And I reached out with some significant damage to the bed to the gentleman who booked the property, and he just, like Annette said, was also beside himself, apologetic and was like, I had no idea. And he said that our children stayed in that room and they did not tell us that that happened. It goes back to being hospitable because in your brain, you’re like, well, you should inspect all our rooms before you leave, whatever.

[00:11:32] Annette: No. Yeah, no.

[00:11:33] Sarah: Yeah. You know what I mean?

[00:11:35] Annette: Or let’s say it wasn’t kids. I’ve found this before. Let’s say there are damages or miscellaneous things. It could be other adult couples in a room. Maybe they damaged something and didn’t want to tell the host that was hosting them.

[00:11:50] Sarah: They were embarrassed

[00:11:51] Annette: They were embarrassed. So that’s where we’re just telling you that that communication is key and making sure you’re still coming from that, even though they have checked out, they are still the guests because they might not be aware of what happened there.

[00:12:05] Most of the time, hopefully the guest, if you can provide this proof and show them, hopefully they will pay for the damages. But if not, you have the documentation and you can go through the resolution center and start there. But that’s why we really want you to make sure you’re keeping everything on the app and you have all the documentation.

[00:12:24] Sarah: Yeah. Megan asked in the recording, she mentioned specifically Airbnb, so I think she wants to understand what it takes to do AirCover. But the reason why we took you through all these steps, because the first thing to do is make sure that you are documenting correctly. And that tip of the invoice is what it’s really going to help you win more claims, yes, with your guest, and then ultimately, yes, with AirCover.

[00:12:44] So make sure that you have all those photos, those line items, the actual pricing, all of it dialed in. You send it to the guests. Let’s say they refuse. They disagree. They don’t want to pay. They don’t respond. That is when you then take it to AirCover, and AirCover is going to ask you for all the things that you’ve already sent the guest. So you are ready to go. You can upload it. It’s an easy process to do that.

[00:13:07] If the guest doesn’t respond to you within the first six, eight hours, I would let them know when you follow up with them, hey, I do need to let Airbnb know about this unless you can respond to me. Let them know what your intentions are, and then send it to AirCover. If this booking didn’t come through AirCover, I am going to link to a podcast episode we actually just did. It’s Episode 374. It’ll be linked in the show notes, but it’s Short-Term Rental Damage Waiver Programs 101.

[00:13:34] You can engage in a program with a third party and get a damage waiver program so that if there is accidental damage, these damage waiver programs will pay you for small claims. This way you won’t have to obviously claim it with your insurance company. You can also have a damage waiver in house.

[00:13:51] You don’t have to have a company run it for you. If you don’t want that extra work or what have you, there are companies that do it. But listen to the episode if you want to learn more about damage waivers, but that’s essentially what AirCover is. It is a damage waiver. Airbnb will have the power to approve it or not.

[00:14:06] And that’s when maybe something like your security deposit then would kick in or something of that nature. But to answer Megan’s question, just document, document, document, have a professional invoice. Everyone, save your receipts because sometimes it depends on where you’re trying to get the refund back for the damages.

[00:14:23] It might be not what it costs now. It might be what it costs when you bought it. Or you don’t even know where you got it from. So if you can go to your receipts and if your receipts are clearly labeled, you can figure out all of that quickly because, like Annette said, speed matters in these cases. Megan, we wish you all luck with that. Hope you get it resolved. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:14:44] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:14:46] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:14:47] Sarah: Talk to you next time.