You've got your booking, you've got your payment, your guests are on their way... But what if they're rockstars and trash your place?
No matter how hard you try, it's impossible to always predict and keep out bad guests. If you are unlucky enough to have really bad guests that burn your place down, your property and business-interruption insurance (you do have those, right?) should cover you. But that's rare.
Much more common are minor damages that no regular insurance will cover - a lost TV remote, a carpet caked with tracked-in mud, a broken window. OwnerRez offers a variety of methods to protect yourself from having to eat these costs. To learn more, watch our November 13, 2024, Webinar: Focus Session - Security Deposit Holds and RDDs - Setting/Releasing/Options.
- Security Deposit Holds
- Refundable Damage Deposits (RDD)
- Security Deposit Guest Reminder Schedule
- Security Deposit Errors
- Damage Protection Insurance
Security Deposit Holds
Security deposit holds allow you to guarantee that you'll be able to charge the guest's credit card for any damages, even if they canceled the card during their stay.
Refundable Damage Deposits (RDD)
Some property owners prefer to receive actual funds from their guests through a Refundable Damage Deposit (RDD), then return those funds after the guest has left if there's no damage.
Security Deposit Guest Reminder Schedule
It's also important that you remind your guests about upcoming Security Deposits. When Security Deposits are configured in OwnerRez, the OwnerRez automated Security Deposit Reminder email schedule is as follows:
- 10 days before the Security Deposit is due.
- 5 days before the Security Deposit is due.
- The day the Security Deposit is due.
- Exception: PayPal-only accounts with no credit card processor
- 1 day before the Security Deposit is due.
- The day the Security Deposit is due.
The OwnerRez system automatically handles scheduled security deposit collection, reauthorization, and release services, which run at midnight in each property's time zone. The service operates around that time, so it may not exactly start at midnight, but any properties within that timezone will be queued up.
Security Deposit Errors
Occasionally, security deposit holds or refundable damage deposits (RDD) can fail due to insufficient credit limits, card authorization issues, bank restrictions, merchant processing errors, account problems, or other technical timing/settlement issues.
When initial security deposits fail, whether holds or RDDs, the system does not attempt to retry the same credit card. Instead, OwnerRez system messages or user notifications are sent.
- Guests receive a system message stating, "Your security deposit just failed," which includes instructions on how to add a new credit card for the security deposit.
- If enabled, users will receive a Scheduled Security Deposit Fails notification.
Damage Protection Insurance
OwnerRez offers Damage Protection Insurance, which covers minor damage to your property. This sounds similar to the guarantees offered by some channels like Vrbo, but isn't - you are the insured paying for the insurance, not the guest, and the guest has nothing to do with whether or not your claim is honored. Neither does the channel - it's just you making your claim to the insurance company, and them paying it.