STUDENT PAPER
By Elsa Munsch
SKEMA Business School
Lille, France
Abstract
The past few years, landlord-tenant disputes increased significantly. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to analyze the alternatives that allow landlords and tenants to save time and money. Moreover, most of conflicts don’t require to go to Court so it is relevant to look at the alternatives to avoid such a loose of time and money. We found out several alternatives: prevention, mediation, negotiation, expert determination, arbitration… Then, we compared them using a Multi-Attribute Decision Making and ranked them from best to worst. The findings of this paper are that prevention through appropriate clauses and mediation are the best alternatives to solve landlord-tenant disputes. Indeed, those both alternatives suit both stakeholders’ expectations and prevent most conflicts.
Key words: Controversies, liability insurance, host protection, property damage, sublease agreement, clauses, rentals, hotel industry, safety, injury, process, tenant, amount, legal troubles, dispute
Introduction
Have you ever dreamt to turn your free space into a real investment opportunity? Have you ever dreamt to earn money while you are on holidays with your family?
A lot of people felt this trend coming in 2008 and have rented their extra room or their second house. Basically, the concept is quite simple: the platform connects travelers with local hosts in over 180 countries all around the world. Incredible. People just need to post some pictures of their place, give some details about the location, the availability, the price and even their house rules to be able to rent out their space so people can then book online if the rental fits with what they are looking for. Besides the creation of social links, hosts are pleased to earn extra money only by providing their free space into the platform[1].
The Airbnb company, the leader of the new sharing economy is indisputably one of the greatest hyper-growth start-ups of these past few years. They succeeded in persuading “strangers
to sleep in one another’s homes” and then the company “became a $25 billion company” in less than 10 years[2]. This is such an impressive story.
Besides people who are making real money opportunities with Airbnb, Airbnb is facing some controversies[3]… Indeed, the hotel industry sees Airbnb as “Illegal hotels” that steal their clients because hosts are providing cheap accommodation in the heart of cities[4]. Therefore, they have more difficulty to rent their rooms. Moreover, hotels have to apply for a hotel permit while Airbnb do not comply with the same rules and do not pay as much taxes as the hotel industry do.
If travelers are worrying about the existence of fire safety in the place they are renting, hosts are worried about the real value of the Airbnb liability insurance. It most cases, travelers respect the place and do not break any rules but it can happen that some of them are not really cautions and don’t take care of the space they rent as they do. To avoid those kind of problem, Airbnb provides them a Free Host Protection Insurance for every booking[5].
To have a better understanding of what hosts are struggling with, it is relevant to use the 5 Whys:[6]
More…
To read entire paper, click here
Editor’s note: Student papers are authored by graduate or undergraduate students based on coursework at accredited universities or training programs. This paper was prepared as a deliverable for the course “International Contract Management” facilitated by Dr Paul D. Giammalvo of PT Mitratata Citragraha, Jakarta, Indonesia as an Adjunct Professor under contract to SKEMA Business School for the program Master of Science in Project and Programme Management and Business Development. http://www.skema.edu/programmes/masters-of-science. For more information on this global program (Lille and Paris in France; Belo Horizonte in Brazil), contact Dr Paul Gardiner, Global Programme Director paul.gardiner@skema.edu.
How to cite this paper: Munsch, E.l (2019). How to solve landlord-tenant disputes, PM World Journal, Vol. VIII, Issue IV (May). Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/pmwj81-May2019-Munsch-how-to-solve-landlord-tenant-disputes.pdf
About the Author
Elsa Munsch
Lille, France
Elsa Munsch is a PGE student from SKEMA Business School with extensive international experience. She lived during one year in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Now, she is willing to work in sales and that is why she is doing the Msc “Project and Programme Management & Business Development”. During her education, she had done several internships in companies such as Maison Martin Margiela as sales assistant and Bellota-Bellota as purchaser assistant and she will be starting a 6-months internship as business developer at L’Oréal in January. Passionate about new cultures, she went to Nepal for a humanitarian trip. She is able to speak French, English, Spanish and basic Chinese. Finally, she is currently working on PRINCE2 and AGILE PM certifications.
Elsa can be contacted at elsa.munsch@skema.edu or via her Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elsamunsch/
[1] Airbnb – Destinations locales pour une communauté mondiale; Retrieved from: https://www.airbnb.fr/how-it-works
[2] Biz carson (02/23/16) – Business Insider – How 3 guys turned renting an air mattress in their apartment into a $25 billion company; Retrieved from: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-airbnb-was-founded-a-visual-history-2016-2?IR=T
[3] Thomas Richman (06/22/16) – Legal Vision – Dispute Resolution in the Sharing Economy; Retrieved from: https://legalvision.com.au/dispute-resolution-in-the-sharing-economy/
[4] Will Coldwell (07/08/14) – The Guardian – Airbnb’s legal troubles: what are the issues? Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jul/08/airbnb-legal-troubles-what-are-the-issues
[5] Airbnb – Airbnb Liability Insurance; Retrieved from: https://learnairbnb.com/airbnb-liability-insurance/
[6] Airbnb – What is the resolution Center? Retrieved from: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/767/what-is-the-resolution-center?ibbe=0
