Lay My Hat

What does providing a full address make? You cannot prove that they have any connection with the address provided. For one it keeps my insurance company happy that I've made reasonable attempts to avoid guests who have no permanent residential address which causes almighty problems if they refuse t...

If I don't have the physical address then they don't stay.

That goes for OTA bookings too although I only use booking.com and then only occasionally

Try Independent Cottages.

I've never had a booking from Simply Owners.

You can only claim back VAT if you are VAT registered. You need to register if your turnover is £85K. You can register voluntarily but then you'd need to add VAT to your prices and complete regular VAT returns If this is your only business the downsides completely outweigh the tiny VAT savings you'd...

I found Boshers very expensive for me too

It's going to depend on 1001 different factors including your location. I pay less than that for a larger property

Get a number of quotes from different companies and you'll soon know whether that is in line with the market or not.

FWIW - I use Vista Insurance Brokers.

Hi Newtimber, Thanks for taking the time to reply. We are still in need of a few more weeks. As we already list on HL, OD, and Airbnb amongst others, I just wondered if it was worth trying. Thanks anyway. I've never heard of them nor have I seen them come up in searches. Hence I would never book vi...

farley wrote:I find this so very depressing.
What can be done to safeguard owners in the future?

Avoid agency bookings so you have control over your guests and no more flexible booking policies is a good starting point.

Use google to look at the local competition or AirBnB of course. Don't confuse occupancy with profit though - fewer weeks at a higher price can give a much bigger profit than more weeks at a lower price. Fewer costs and much less wear and tear. I could get full occupancy by cutting my winter rates -...

20/21 was dreadful for us - we could only open properly for 3 months and even when "open" we weren't helped by our usual guests being forbidden to travel to us so we were essentially closed by default. Here in Wales Drakeford has made it as difficult as possible for us with pubs being forb...

Each has significant pros and cons and will depend on your actual situation, the legal ownership of the property, the ownership of the rental business ( not necessarily the same thing) and your respective tax positions. And 101 other variables (for example what happens if your parents want out or yo...

I think you've answered your own question - yes a sign in the bathroom reminding them to let the water run hot.

As for the sign - well Etsy is full of craftspeople making signs. Pick one whose style you like and ask for a special commission with the wording you want.

Hi all, Hope everyone is well during these crazy covid times. Anyone else been having problems with Stripe? They are having problems verifying my account and have a large amount of money on hold in their system. I use a free website builder called iowners.net so I don’t have a domain email address ...

Oh it's do-able ( I do it) but you need an excellent reliable cleaner and a little black book of reliable trades.

We have a second keysafe for the use of trades ( or guests who lock themselves out).

It's raising guest expectations crazily high though and they are likely to be disappointed if they are paying £2K for what is £800 accommodation.

That's likely to be reflected in the reviews