Damages/Extra Cleaning Costs Recovery

[Jules]

We are fortunate that it's rare to find damage or mess after our guests have left, although we have had more problems with stained carpets over the last year than in the previous 12, for some reason. Each time we have had a problem, I have had little success in getting the guests responsible to pay for the cost of reinstatement/cleaning, etc. We take photos as evidence, but if they refuse to pay, it's an onerous task to try to take them to court - especially when the amount being sought may be less than £100.

I'm extremely reluctant to ask for returnable damage/cleaning deposits up front, as they certainly do put people off (would put me off as I would be worried the owner might keep it to cover something I wasn't responsible for) and it would be an extra admin. task on every booking (when 99% of them wouldn't necessitate it), that I could do without.

I've therefore been thinking lately of whether we could deduct the amount from the credit/debit card used to pay for the holiday?

I'm aware that some owners do that, but I'm not sure how to go about it properly. Obviously the guest will be notified of the policy in the booking conditions, but can you just process a payment after they've left and then notify them of it in writing immediately afterwards? If you had to notify them first, then they could cancel the card to stop the payment being successful if they objected to paying it, surely?

Any guidance on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[Raincliffe1]

I always notify the guest usually by telephone that an amount will be deducted from their card details to cover the cost of damages. The last time I did this a lady (despite prominent signage everywhere) had ground waterproof mascara and some pink substance for afro hair into a towel; vanish oxy action/stain devil did not do the trick. I explained to her that I was unable to remove the stain despite several attempts and she was most rude using the F word repeatedly. I never made any allowance for my time in attempting to wash it though.

Prior to this, a doctor eating an Indian take away in the room (despite signage at eye level on the front door not to do this) - obviously dropped pieces of food/sauce on the duvet. The saffron/tumeric food colouring staining it. I told him that he would be charged for this, his reply,'I had a very high opinion of your establishment...' to which my husband replied,'we had a very high opinion of you!' The doctor then went onto to say that agitating the stain with stain removers would remove it as that is what he did at home, that did not work either, therefore he was charged.

I notify the guests of the fact that I will deduct replacement costs from their account after trying to attempt to remedy the situation because ultimately you do not want to have to do this. Once done, I immediately take payment in that way they cannot notify their bank. If circumstances change money can always be refunded. If I am in the wrong I will hold my hands up and admit it.

We now have signage that instructs guests to tell us of any stains which are either permanent or potentially permanent plus notify us of any damages to fixtures/fittings so that replacement costs can be arranged.

Mind you I gave a young couple a fright once. The lady had spilt foundation on the duvet cover which I noticed on servicing the room. I spoke with her and said that if I was unable to remove it she would be charged for the duvet cover which was a £100.00 Sanderson KS one. Luckily the stain came out after a few attempts.

A word to the wise though. If you happen to have wool carpets or carpets with a percentage of wool in them watch out for Lucozade. Basically this drink dyes the wool in the carpet and it is irreversible as we found out in our second month of running our hotel. If I see anyone with Lucozade in their hand going up to the room or if it is in their luggage I make a point of reminding them of this fact.

I think however, if you offer a decent product, decent people (if they have an accident and something happens) will willingly compensate you as the proprietor as they wish to come back.

Katherine

[greenbarncottages]

We've only been running our self-catering cottages for six months, so our approach may change with further experience. We ask for a bond of £125 against damage or excessive cleaning, which is normally fully refunded within a maximum of two weeks after the stay. We suggest that the bond be paid on a separate cheque post dated for seven days before the letting period starts. Ostensibly the reason is that it doesn't seem remotely justified to hold such an amount (as opposed to a booking deposit) for any length of time; the reality is that we almost never bank the cheque. (We don't have credit card facilities.)

We make it clear that the bond is not intended to cover very minor events such as the odd broken glass - we're happy to absorb the trivial cost of that to further goodwill - although we do ask guests to let us know if something does get broken so that we can be sure it's replaced at changeover; this seems to work well so far.

As part of our follow-up after the guests' visit, we tell them that we didn't get around to banking their bond cheque, and would they like it returned or shredded (invariably shredded). Admin work and costs - nil.

On a couple of occasions we've found it necessary to charge for stain cleaning, notified the guests accordingly and made a deduction from the bond.

Of course, we run the risk of a guest cancelling the cheque before we've banked it (when necessary), but so far our experience suggests that it's worth that risk to avoid all the admin.
The returnable bond notion seems fairly commonplace, and accepted, for self-catering; hotels and guesthouses are a different market, and I think I'd be surprised if, as a potential guest, I was asked for such a guarantee - there again, I also realise that if I choose to wander off with the hotel's bath robe I'm likely to find it charged to my credit card.

[Hornbyvilla]

Our guests upon arrival sign their guest registration form agreeing to our terms & conditions,which includes the deduction from the card used to make the booking for any damage.
I have only had to do this once,when on clearing out a room i noticed the rug had been moved ..to cover up a iron mark on the carpet.
despite the information in our guest folders instructing guests to ask for an ironing board to use ..this person hadn't bothered
The dilema i had was do i charge her for a new carpet for the room & risk that person never comming back when we tend to rely on good repeat business..in the end i decided i don't want people like that back if that's what they do to a room & leave without even a mention of it & to hide it!!
So i duly charged her credit card & notified her with a copy of the registration she had signed.

[Jules]

Thanks for everyone's replies, that's really helpful.

I need to add a clause into our t's and c's to notify guests that their card will be charged, etc. I'm still not comfortable about asking for a cheque as a bond, but to be honest, I am seeing less and less cheques as each month goes on, I do think it's only a matter of time before cheques are totally redundant and card payments are the only/usual form of payment (not often we get offered cash in our business). Lots of big stores and supermarkets no longer accept cheques at all and I can see more and more businesses going that way very soon. This makes it easier to have a policy of charging the guest's card.

Hornbyvilla, I was interested to hear you'd charged the cost of the full carpet to a guest - and got it! The last time I had a carpet ruined, I didn't know whether I could demand the full cost of replacement or just the excess on my insurance policy and make a claim. I only charged the excess and of course I knew my insurance premium would rise, but wish now I'd charged the full £900+. I just couldn't get my head around the fact that this was more than the cost of the whole holiday (but that's immaterial really!).

Like has already been said, most of the time, you wouldn't want the guests who'd caused the damage to return anyway when they haven't reported the problem and you've found it after they've gone, so if they aren't happy to be charged then who cares? The nice, considerate people, who have simply had an accident, are the ones who ring you and are mortified at what's happened and offer to compensate/replace - they WANT to return and I'm happy for them to do so, as it's unlikely the same thing would happen again for them! I've had a few guests like that and they HAVE returned - with no further mishaps - which is nice.

Jules

Coquet Cottages (http://www.coquetcottages.co.uk/)

[Starchip]

Wow!

This is an "eye-opener".

Must say that I hadn't thought of the implications of severe damage to a room.

I will add a clause to my T&C.

I did have a young couple stay and they bought candles and took them to their room.

"Ahhhh.." Yes, very romantic. However, after they left, I noticed burns on a pillow case.
I think that the pillow must have strayed over the top of one of the candles during their calisthenics. Not enough to catch fire - but enough to trash the pillowcase.

I showed the pillowcase to the guests when they booked in again and told them that I wasn't looking for recompense. I wanted repeat guests not fried guests.

No more candles.

[HGL]

Hi Raincliffe good post get in touch I will give you some further information that might be useful to you. at ask@happyguestslodge.co.uk I always notify the guest usually by telephone that an amount will be deducted from their card details to cover the cost of damages. The last time I did this a lady (despite prominent signage everywhere) had ground waterproof mascara and some pink substance for afro hair into a towel; vanish oxy action/stain devil did not do the trick. I explained to her that I was unable to remove the stain despite several attempts and she was most rude using the F word repeatedly. I never made any allowance for my time in attempting to wash it though.

Prior to this, a doctor eating an Indian take away in the room (despite signage at eye level on the front door not to do this) - obviously dropped pieces of food/sauce on the duvet. The saffron/tumeric food colouring staining it. I told him that he would be charged for this, his reply,'I had a very high opinion of your establishment...' to which my husband replied,'we had a very high opinion of you!' The doctor then went onto to say that agitating the stain with stain removers would remove it as that is what he did at home, that did not work either, therefore he was charged.

I notify the guests of the fact that I will deduct replacement costs from their account after trying to attempt to remedy the situation because ultimately you do not want to have to do this. Once done, I immediately take payment in that way they cannot notify their bank. If circumstances change money can always be refunded. If I am in the wrong I will hold my hands up and admit it.

We now have signage that instructs guests to tell us of any stains which are either permanent or potentially permanent plus notify us of any damages to fixtures/fittings so that replacement costs can be arranged.

Mind you I gave a young couple a fright once. The lady had spilt foundation on the duvet cover which I noticed on servicing the room. I spoke with her and said that if I was unable to remove it she would be charged for the duvet cover which was a £100.00 Sanderson KS one. Luckily the stain came out after a few attempts.

A word to the wise though. If you happen to have wool carpets or carpets with a percentage of wool in them watch out for Lucozade. Basically this drink dyes the wool in the carpet and it is irreversible as we found out in our second month of running our hotel. If I see anyone with Lucozade in their hand going up to the room or if it is in their luggage I make a point of reminding them of this fact.

I think however, if you offer a decent product, decent people (if they have an accident and something happens) will willingly compensate you as the proprietor as they wish to come back.

Katherine

[Puddingchops]

Hi Guys

we run a four star g/a and generally have lovely guests however there are the occasional ones!

We have charged guests for damages several times now.

On our registration forms we state (above the signature) that all rooms are non smoking and if the guest chooses to ignore this and the room is not lettable to the next day then we shall charge for an extra night stay.

Obviously new guests do not want a stinky room. Generally this puts people off smoking in the rooms, but on the occassions where they have then we have charged the extra night with no problem.

We do ask guest not to take takeaway food into their rooms and state that we are more than happy to provide plates and cutlery and a table in the conservaotory or bar if quiet.

The worst case of 'animal' type guests we had was actually a couple in one room with a grown up son in another. They were staying as they were working locally.
The mum and dad smoked in their room and we caught them by accident leaning out of the window, dopping ash outside our kitchen door.

When we got into the sons room, he had been smoking in bed. He had burn through the sheet, the matress protector and matress. He had stubbed out some of his cigarettes in our mug on the floor at the side of the bed, the others he had stubbed out on our carpet. He had also been to the local supermarket and bought a whole cooked chicken, mayonnaise and a loaf of bread. The chicken carcass was just sat there half picked at on our dressing table surrounded by empty cans of beer, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of wine.

We could not believe our eyes. We got the camera before we touched anything and photographed the whole scene.

Luckily, we had a debit card number and so charged for a new matress, sheet, matress protector, carpet and loss of use for the room.
Very suprisingly, we never heard a word from the guests again and they never queried the charges at all.

On another occasion we were woken by the police at 3.30am. They said they were in our reception. We switched on our tv to see the cctv and sure enough our reception was swarming with police!
We grabbed our dressing gowns and raced downstairs.
Apparantly one of our guests was having a major domestic with his girlfriend and they were screeming/shouting and fighting.
Other guests fearing for their safety rang the police.
The guy in question had gone along the corridor smashing our cut glass chandeliers then into his room.
To cut a long story short - the girl decided to get a taxi all the way home at 4.30am. The guy decided to stay.
In the morning when he had sobered up and calmed down he started trying to mend the chandeliers. He agreed to pay for damanged and left.
Upon departure we noticed that a picture had changed position in his room. On moving this we found a great big hole in our wall!
We had to have the hole fixed and redecorate the whole room as the previous owners had not left us the spare wall paper!

The other occasion that springs to mind in some corporate guests. We had an english chap who was looking a fter three Japs (or suppost to be)
He went out and got drunk. In the morning he missed breakfast, so the Japs were on their own. He checked out and went to meet the Jap at their room.

Very luckily, our housekeeper alerted us just in time to go and look at his room.

We chased after the guest and asked for a quiet word away from his Jap colleagues.
In the end we charged him for a new bed and carpet cleaning which we took from his debit card with him present.

Later we had a letter from him saying that it was unfair and he would be taking legal advice.
Nothing more happened about that though.

The bed was wet through, the base was wet through, the carpet was squelshy. It was like an elephant had been in there!

Apart from these we have had the usual pizza sauce on white bedding, curry sauce on bedding and carpet, coffee on carpet, red wine on duvet etc etc.

Its just a shame that other people do not respect property. At first, we used to get very upset by the damage and lack of respect, but now we just try and accept that it is just part and parcel of the business and we try and make a sepatation in our minds between business equipment and our personal stuff (which we try and keep well out of guests way).