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- 4Ruling
Case 15 of 19 · Level 3
A short-stay letting · a host's damage claim
The door, the floor and the cleaning
Docketory's own files · about 15 minutes
The complaint
After a guest's stay at a property he lets through a short-stay platform, the host found a broken glass door, a damaged floor and a place that needed extra cleaning for pet stains and odour. The same day he asked the guest, through the platform, for about £1,300: about £500 for the door, £150 for the floor and £650 for the cleaning, the last an estimate. The guest denied breaking the door and said a damage deposit had already been paid. The booking had no deposit, so the host asked the platform to pay under its damage protection for hosts.
The platform's answer
The platform's first, automated review flagged all three items: no receipts or invoices for any of them, amounts that looked high against its own benchmarks, and a cleaning photo that was a screenshot of a message rather than a photo of the room. It asked for more information the same day, and the host answered. The claim then went to a person. The platform says it pays for what is documented, at its own valuation.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The claim
Three items filed the day the stay ended: the door, about £500; the floor, £150; the cleaning, £650, an estimate.
Exhibit B · The guest's reply
Denies breaking the door; says a damage deposit was already paid. The booking had no deposit.
Exhibit C · The photos and prices
Photos of the broken door and the damaged floor, with market prices for replacing the door and repairing the floor. The work had not been done.
Exhibit D · The automated flags
No receipts or invoices; amounts high against the platform's benchmarks; the cleaning photo is a screenshot of a message, not of the room.
Exhibit E · The platform's questions
A request for more information on the day the host escalated the claim, answered the same day; then a reply to the claims handler, and the claim went to a person for review.
Exhibit F · The timeline
Claim filed the day the stay ended; escalated to the platform about three weeks later; the platform's questions and the host's answers the same day; the handler's review the following week.
The invoices
None for the door or the floor: the work had not been done, so there were only photos and market prices. For the cleaning, the cleaner's invoice exists, dated the day after the stay ended, for about £300, less than half the £650 claimed. It did not go to the platform with the claim.
The booking's deposit
The booking carried no damage deposit. The guest's claim that one had been paid was wrong.
The platform's own valuation
The platform's market research valued the door at about £500 and the floor at about £150, close to the host's figures for those two items.
A repair receipt for the door
Not in the file: the door had not been replaced, so there is no receipt.
How a host damage protection decides
Background, not from this file: a platform's protection for hosts pays for damage that is documented, at the platform's own valuation of it, after the guest has had a chance to answer. A cost with nothing behind it is treated as no cost.
When the cleaner's invoice was dated
The day after the stay ended, before the claim was escalated and well before the platform decided. It was sent only after the platform's decision.
Which way do you decide?
The ruling
Given by the platform
Paid in part
Why
The platform found the request qualified under its host damage protection. It approved the door at about £500 and the floor at about £140, "Based on documentation and market research", its own valuation rather than the figures claimed. It left the cleaning out because no invoice had been provided. The host accepted the two figures the same day and sent the cleaner's invoice, restating the cleaning at the invoiced £300 instead of the £650 estimate. The payout came the next day, 18 days after the first request, and covered the two approved items and the invoiced cleaning: about £950 against the £1,300 first claimed. No independent body ruled on it.
What had to be done
Pay the door and the floor at the platform's own valuation, about £640 together; pay the cleaning only once invoiced, at the invoice's £300, not the £650 estimate.
What an adjudicator takes from this. A cost without an invoice was no cost until the invoice arrived. The invoice existed before the platform decided, and it counted only once it was sent. An estimate at twice the invoice did the claim no favours, and the platform paid at its own valuation, not the figure claimed.
Docketory's take
The host claimed £650 for cleaning on an estimate when the cleaner's invoice, for less than half of that, was already dated. Sent with the claim, it would have been paid in the first decision. The platform's automated review flagged every figure before a person ever looked. The lesson from the file: every figure gets checked, so send the invoice, and claim what it says.
Based on a case from Docketory's own files. The details are changed so that the story on this site does not give the answer away; the facts the decision turned on are as they were.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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