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Rental Agreement and Airbnb rules

Goldfinch Cottag
Sep 24, 2024 11:35 PM
Joined Aug, 2024 1 post

Hello, 

I'm new to short-term rentals and Airbnb/Vrbo. I followed the setup OwnerRez recommends, including a rental agreement contract for the booking guest to sign. However, looking into the Airbnb rules, they say that the contract terms must be stated in the house rules. It seems too much to include the whole contract in the house rules (they look cluttered). Do folks do that? Do you copy and paste the contract into the Airbnb rules? Or are there other workarounds? 

Cheers, and thanks for the help, 

Acacio

Bri
Sep 25, 2024 3:32 PM
OR Team Member Joined Mar, 2022 84 posts

Hey Acacio,

It's not necessary to paste your entire Legal Agreement to the API House Rules for Airbnb. You do, however, want to include specific details and important info that your guests need to be aware of, all of which we assume would also be included in your Rental Agreement. For example, do you charge them extra if they smoke in your home? Do you not allow pets, and charge a penalty fee if someone brings one and violates your House Rules? So on and so forth. The House Rules should also mention that a signed Rental Agreement is a requirement.

We suggest the following information (remove what's not applicable, add to these as you see fit) be included in your API House Rules. This area is the strictest enforcement, the channels will allow you to cancel a reservation before arrival or during a stay for violating these. 

No Smoking, No Parties, No Pets, Minimum renter age is ##
Guest must sign Renter Agreement within [## hours/days], Quiet Time is ENFORCED ## PM through ## AM
Security Deposit required up to $####. Deposit to be processed by Host on guest's credit card.


The Security Deposit amount listed should be the highest value you collect on any of your properties under this API channel.

If you would cancel a channel booking for not completing the Agreement or Security Deposit, you should set a time limit (usually 24-48 hours) in your house rules so that the CS rep can support you if you need to cancel a booking for failure to follow house rules.  

If you do allow pets, be sure to state the pet limit and the fee (as well as if the fee is per pet or one fee for all pets). NOTE: Airbnb charges one pet fee, if the fee is per-pet you may need to collect additional amounts through the Resolution Center.

If you have different House Rules for different properties, you may want to add those rules directly in each Property > Channel Rules page. Rules written within a Property can override House Rules from the API Integration page. To add rules at the property level:

  1. Select the property you wish to work on.
  2. Select Channel Rules
  3. Click the change button at the top of the page and then select the bubble for "Override Channel API Rules."
  4. Make sure to include everything you want in the House Rules for each Property.

There are two Airbnb support articles relating to guests signing contracts. I suggest making yourself familiar with these as well. If you ever receive pushback from a guest about meeting your requirements, you can let them know that you're a software connected host and these requirements are allowed.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/465
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2824

Undercard_Wonder
4 days ago
Joined Nov, 2023 59 posts

Great, thorough answer.  I wish there were a way to pin or save posts.