Short Term Rental - Insurance Company Placement - Question Regarding Lease Formalities

[Zach Schwarzmiller]

Greetings - 

I have recently started remodeling and furnishing one of my longer-term rentals to convert to a short-term vacation rental through websites like VRBO and Air BNB. I was also interested in advertising it via Craigslist and was thinking I would probably make the prospective tenants sign up via Air BNB or VRBO so I am covered under their liability protection by using their services; however, I've had a situation arise today making me wonder how to safely and correctly (protecting myself) do this without those services, specifically to a Insurance Housing Placement company. Insurance Housing Solutions contacted me today wanting to pay my asking daily rate to rent the unit to someone who needs placement for an insurance claim while their home is fixed. The lady needing placement came to see the property today and would like to move in for a month. I am thinking to sign a lease with the lady/husband/mom who will be occupying the property for the 30 days (just like I would with any other tenant) for a 1 month occupancy and then right away giving them a 30 days notice to vacate the premise. The odd part is that the insurance company makes all the payments, rent, deposit, etc; however, they are not on the lease and I can't realistically collect the money at time of signing as insurance pays once I send them the lease. Has anyone ran into a situation like this? I don't even really know what to do about screening them either, but I imagine the insurance company might pay a screening fee, but on the flip side of that I wouldn't screen anyone else traditionally that signed up via Air BNB or VRBO. I'd really like to figure out a good way to do this, because I am making 250% more than my monthly lease rate, and that's sweet.

Has anyone else had this arise, what did you do? Thank You!

[Zach Schwarzmiller]

@Account Closed I ended up rolling with it. Best decision I made all summer. They ended up wanting to extend for another 3 months, unfortunately I had someone else coming for 1 month after 2 of the months. As they were staying for the fourth of July I said my price was going to increase exponentially. I used to rent this unit for $1,300 (just rented another one same remodel for $1,800 - tenant now paying all utilities as I sub-metered the building, and that is very much so top of the market rent for my area). In July I collected $7,000 on the unit - freaking awesome. They left, next guy came, all good.