Q: Do I have to pay this guy if I stayed at his house previously
I live in Florida and i was previously staying at an airbnb but later ended up paying the owner through cashapp to stay there. He ended up going ghost so I stayed there 20 days longer before i ended up getting an apartment. Do i have to pay him for those days even though he went ghost. I thought he was dead he wasn't responding to anything so i stayed there. He's threatening to report me to the police and collections and says he has a picture of my id which i don't even think is legal . Im a college student so I don't really know about this stuff. He was an incredibly terrible host he lied about the airbnb having a private bedroom even though it stated it did but since it was cheap i continued to stay there. The ac was broken and he never fixed it.
A: Consult a landlord-tenant attorney in your area. The issue here is your agreement. If it was to stay until a particular date, then you will owe rent for the holdover days and might legally owe double rent. Also, if you decided you would stay there without a private bedroom, and could have instead obtained a refund, that could be viewed as your acceptance of a modification of your agreement. The a/c issue might be a ground to seek a lower rent rate. Schedule a consultation with an attorney to go over the matter in detail. By the way, sounds like the landlord may be cheating AirBnB if he took a direct payment. After you resolve your issue with the help of an attorney, you might want to report him.
A: To add to my last answer, in which I mentioned the option to report the host, AirBnB might view you paying the host directly as YOU cheating AirBnB, in addition to the host cheating them, so reporting might not be a good option. Read your AirBnB terms and conditions.
Peter J. Weinman agrees with this answer
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