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Comment by benastan | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb has sought to bake in accountability both at a large and small scale.

1) Airbnb has a crazy insurance policy [1]

2) Both the host & guest get reviewed. A single bad review can impede your ability to rent on either side.

This is purely based on my experience, but it seems like guests really don't misbehave.

Maybe there is the occasional party or guest who trashes the place. Good hosts tend to hire cleaning services to deal with messes. Generally, guest are tired from traveling and doing activities and are low impact.

[1] https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee

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But the landlord is not a party to the contract between Airbnb and the host. If any damage were to occur to the building, the landlord would need to sue the host and collect from him, and Airbnb says nothing about paying for legal expenses. (And once the landlord got involved, it would probably ultimately result in eviction proceedings against the host for violating the terms of his lease.)

Note that the Airbnb guarantee doesn't insure the host's personal property: "The Host Guarantee is not insurance and should not be considered as a replacement or stand-in for homeowners or renters insurance." However, using your apartment as a rental property probably violates the terms of a standard renters insurance policy, so the insurance company would probably not pay for losses that were due to an Airbnb guest.

You're talking about a situation in which significant damage is done to the building AND the host doesn't report this to Airbnb with photos and evidence. There are bound to be horror stories with any service (hotels certainly included), but I'd expect this particular combination of all-around irresponsibility to be rare.

The guarantee terms and conditions exclude damage to common areas and units not owned or controlled by the host. Water damage or a truly abusive guest still leave the host exposed to claims and the landlord exposed to damages for which no solvent party has liability.

I have no problem with the landlord restricting renters from re-renting on AirBnB or the like, but how is that different from the host (first-instance renter) doing water damage himself?

It's possible in both cases. The difference is two-fold: The landlord can control the probability of damage through the application process, assuming some people are predictably more risky, and the renter can be required to purchase insurance to ensure that damages are paid. I doubt (but haven't confirmed) that a standard renter's policy covers damages arising from short-term rentals.

Oh please. What is with the echo chamber's fixation on user reviews? You have mostly self-selected bimodal distributions that are made worse by the review system being gamed in unintended ways. The other day there was an article on an AirBnB seller not giving bad reviews out of fear of retaliation.

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