Tenant Left Without Paying Additional Expenses

[Edward Pulido]

I am in a bit of a predicament with a tenant that rented one of my vacation rentals in the Dominican Republic. He was in the house for almost 8 weeks. We set up the transaction on VRBO and he paid me a discounted amount which I agreed to, but in the contract, he agreed to pay the additional electrical expenses. The overall rent was paid through VRBO, and the additional expenses would be paid through paypal when the electric bill was received.

This guy from the beginning was difficult to deal with, and didn't pay the first months payment until several days after begging him. My first mistake was allowing him to use paypal to send me the funds. He is a Canadian resident and I thought it would be easier to just electronically send me the funds for the extra expenses while he was in the house.

I received the second bill from the electric company the day he was leaving, and asked him to pay me the amount that was due. He skipped town, and is denying that he used that much electricity. Knowing this would probably happen, I proactively called VRBO and asked them to hold is deposit until he pays the remaining balance. 

He has now filed a dispute with paypal trying to get his original first months payment back and is claiming that I lied to him about the electrical cost and that he isn't paying. I can already see that I will more than likely lose the money he sent me through paypal, because more often than not, paypal will side with them. 

Right now he owes me around $350, and if he takes the $250 payment that he made for the first month through paypal, i'll be out around $600. 

Does anyone have any idea's on what I can do here. VRBO is siding with me because all emails and the contract is clearly stated, but because the payments were made through paypal, it doesn't seem like there is much they can do. If anything, I want to learn from this experience to avoid this again in the future.

Thanks!

[Nicole A.]

PayPal will likely reach out to you for your side of the story. Simply supply them with a copy of the contract and highlight (for easy finding) the parts that pertain to this issue.