Julian Sage:                       00:00                    In this video, we’re going to be talking about when damages occur at your property, when should you be charging a guest and when should you just eat the cost. So stay tuned.

Julian Sage:                       00:09                    Vacation rental machine helps hosts just like you learn how to start, grow and scale your short term rental business. The show’s all about creating systems that help you automate your business, give any more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living the vacation rental life, then subscribe to this podcast today, come and join us on our Facebook group, the host nation, where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.

Julian Sage:                       00:36                    Hey, welcome back, host nation to another episode of vacation rental machine. I’m Julian Sage and I’m with Bell. And we had an ask VRM question come in to the Facebook group. So Sharnell asks, “Hosts, how do you decide which damages to ask for guests to reimburse for and which ones to just eat the cost for?” So basically when should you be charging your guests for damages to a property and when should you just be saying this is the cost of doing business. So Jon, you have over 40 properties now. Lots of people probably breaking things causing issues. When do you just say, okay, this is a part of the business, you know, if someone stains the towel or if someone, you know, breaks chair, when is that going to be a charge to the guest and when do you just say, well this is just part of doing business?

Jon Bell:                              01:21                    You know, because this business is such high in turnover, sometimes we don’t really know the root cause or their actual person that caused the damage. We just know that the last person that checked out this thing might have been broken and we assume that it’s from them when it comes to a chair broken or something like that. If we’re physically, it was just something structurally with the chair that just might be defective or wrong because of extreme use. Not that the chair is like broken into maybe the back or something of the chair just kind of fell off or something like that. I wouldn’t charge my guests for that. That’s when I would go back to the manufacturer or the purchase place of wherever I got that chair and I’d bring that up to them and what I find is more than likely they’ll replace that part.

Jon Bell:                              02:11                    It comes in chips and then then I have my maintenance guy go and put it on and the chair is repaired. If the chair is broken into like somebody kicked the leg from underneath the chair, that is something where I would charge my guests for. When it comes down to linens, and of course this is one that I see all the time, people want to charge people for staying towels. We all want to stop makeup from happening to our white towels. It’s one of those things we can provide an array of different products, but people still do it. Is it something that I charge for? I don’t because it’s so hard to even make that a viable claim. Hey, you put makeup on my towel now I have to throw it away. Okay, well how much does that one towel cost you out of the entire pack that you just spent?

Jon Bell:                              02:59                    So you’re telling me you’re going to build them for something less than $5, I don’t think so. That seems very pointless and technically a nuisance to just message somebody to just say, Hey, you owe me $5 because you put your makeup on my towel or you destroyed a some do they or you messed up some other bedding items. For me, my items are not that expensive for me to really want to charge them that much. Again, my kid is out there. You see, I use Duvets that are like $15. I’m not crying if somebody messes them up, I either try` to wash them, get it right or I throw it away and I have another one that’s already there. In your cleaning fees, there should be a little bit of room that you have that is for the replenishment of those items. So you should have a little fund at the end of the year to replace damaged towels, damaged pillow cases, damaged sheets, all of these things and what you really should do with those damaged items.

Jon Bell:                              04:12                    We really could take those items and deliver them to a shelter after they’re cleaned and washed. Even though they’re stained, somebody else still has a use for them. We don’t have to just throw them away, but no, I do not charge for linens. If it’s almost under $30 I’m not really going to charge you for anything. You could break a coffee mug. It’s just the cost of doing business. If you throw a party and you break a bunch of stuff, that’s a different story.

Julian Sage:                       04:40                    So Jon, some people might be thinking, well Jon, I don’t spend $15 on my towels. I spend $30 because I want luxury premium towels, and if a guest is ruining my $30 or $50 towels, I should be charging them for that. Right.

Jon Bell:                              04:54                    To me, you already are, because at that point, if you have $40 to $50 towels, your price per night should be elevated well above mine. So that person that you are really looking for is paying you for that cost in a nightly rate. Again, your cleaning fee or whatever you’re charging all of this stuff that you have in your place, you’re charging for that premium of replacement. At the same time, I’ve had somebody come into my place and break a bed frame. Do I really know who really broke the bed frame? I don’t. I just know that it broke on this guest. For me, It’s a minimal cost, $40 to go get a new bed frame. Go put it on, swap it out and apologize. I had broken the first place. Kind of laugh it off, but it happens. This is the type of business that we’re in. Things happen. They break extra usage of items is to be expected, but we cannot, cannot, cannot just try to ping our guests for every little thing that they do, especially when we’re charging a premium for them to come book with us.

Jon Bell:                              06:05                    No, I do not think it’s fair to charge for a damaged towel. Even if it’s $40 and your nightly rate just shows that, yeah, Hey, I’m a premium booking. You need to assume that cost because you are a premium booking. It’s better to have a great review from a guest than to have your guests review and say, Hey, they nickeled and dimed me because of some makeup on a towel. Or they’ll probably say, because there was a black Mark on the towel. Now in a review, that hurts because somebody’s gonna think a mark just a little mark and they want to charge me. No, that place is a little too much, whatever going on.

Julian Sage:                       06:48                    I think for lots of hosts when they are just starting off, when people are coming into your space and they’re ruining your sheets, ruining your towels, or let’s say something breaks, a lot of times when you’re just starting off, you feel almost like personal about it. Like I need to charge the guests because they’re coming into my space and the ruining my stuff. But you have to think of this as a business. You really have to disassociate yourself from your business and from the items in your space. If you have personal things in your space and they get ruined, maybe you shouldn’t have put your personal items in that space in the beginning, but all these things that are in your units, they are just things and that’s just the cost of doing business sometimes.

Julian Sage:                       07:27                    So question of the day, what are you charging your guests for? Leave it in the comment section down below. If you’d like Jon and I to answer your guys’ questions, then be sure to go to the host nation Facebook group and use #askVRM.

Julian Sage:                       07:38                    And until next time, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you hosts found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review because that would greatly support the show. If you’d like to connect with Jon, the community, and I, then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to you hosts in the next step episode. Keep on hosting.