Lay My Hat

Are they French by any chance as they’re notorious for it. I always call it ‘intex season’ as they buy the inflatable beds to stay with others. I thought I had it cracked when I added a 100€ per night per person clause into my T&C. Our Gite sleeps four, so there’s four chairs, four sunloungers 2...

Sorry, owner has the right to set their cancellation policies. Guests should have taken out travel insurance when they booked their holiday. Then if FO say no travel unless essential the travel insurance kicks in. We are not responsible if airlines ground flights or FO degrees only essential travel.

Our Gite is next door to our house. Thanks to Engie Home Services incompetency we’ve had to rely on the Gite for hot water and showers. After 13 weeks we’ve got to know it quite well. The downside is we haven’t been able to rent the Gite despite requests. Compensation claim going into Engie next wee...

Hi, I’ve just received the following info request from HA: We are contacting you to inform you that in accordance with Law no. 2018-898 of 23rd October 2018, starting in 2020, HomeAway must provide the French Tax Administration with the following data regarding the holiday rental property that you a...

Yes it definitely is. That’s why HA can get away with now holding booking payments!

If you do not have separate meters I wouldn’t drop the rate too much as I’ve found out, the hard and expensive way, that if heatings included they’ll max out the heating with it running 24 hours a day! We included some small dyson heaters to supplement the electric rads. When I checked the clients h...

God what terrible experiences you have both had, so much unnecessary stress. I’ve already learnt that, in the unfortunate instance, we would need to claim from an insurance policy that the first thing we would need to do is employ an expert who would so,eu represent us. I’ve already had a minor nigh...

Not necessarily. When I checked it with them I wasn’t eligible, even paying an additional 3%, as I didn’t take enough bookings through them. Basically, through a few conversations with HA, it sounds like HA were having to make refund payments to guests, who had cancelled and were due a refund, as th...

We keep walls, bedding, towels etc all white, using a good quality white paint as well. Colour is provided by rugs, curtains and light furnishing touches. I’m glad we did. Walls often get marked so it’s either a careful rub off or a paintbrush job. Towels and bedding are ‘nuked’ in the washing machi...

We run our system, including the heat pump which cuts off at 28c, for 22 hours each day. We regularly change those daisies. When we think we’re going to have more people who are going to be heavy pool users we change from Bayrol 5 to Bayrol 7 which is good for dealing with suntan cream in the sand f...

I certainly agree SPJ about holding onto the money and earning more interest. However, a few also do spoil it for the rest of us and I think there is an element of truth as well. HA has a big PR problem if it can’t process refunds. It then has a cash-flow problem if it has to finance the refunds whi...

I spoke to HA twice on this. The first person at HA let the cat out of the bag. The real problem that has led to this has been due to cancellations. When someone cancels, if it’s under their terms, then the money is debited from the owners bank account and repaid to the holidaymakers. Unfortunately,...

Does anyone here know where owners are going to on Facebook to discuss this issue further?

We have a double ceramic sink. I put in two sink mats over the sink. They’re rarely used but I think they’re a good ‘nudge’ to clients to think about being careful with the sink!

Well, we thought we had cracked it. French guests were treating the Gite like it was a hotel. The Gite adjoins our house and we live here full time. We added a clause that any other guests, other than those who were booked for will be charged 100€ per person per night. Yes, it has stopped some. But ...