Having a guest stay?

[Semper]

We are flying out later in the year. It is complicated but we have rented a villa for 3 weeks. The in-laws are staying for the full 3, we are staying for the first two and my sister-in-law and her brood arrive 3 days after us. So for the 3 days we have a bit of room a good friend of mine is flying down from LA so we can catch up go to Kennedy and so on. Someone in the family has thrown a spanner in the works and said that it is against Floridian law to have someone 'unregistered' staying at a villa for any length of time.

Is this the case or has someone got the wrong end of the stick??

[berni_richards]

your invited guest I would say would have to be named on the booking form better safe than sorry.

Even if they stay for 1 night it is better to be open and honest with the owners, if not you could get evicted

[Semper]

It didn't even enter my mind that there would be a problem. He will be gone by the time the rest of the family arrive so it is not like there will be more people than beds or anything. Are we likely to get charged for adding a guest?

[Maureen]

Of course you won't be charged - well I'm sure I can speak for all of us there????

Everyone who stays either the duration or even one or two nights should (by law they do say) be named on the booking form. It really wont make any difference to the owners.

[floridadreamvilla.co.uk]

I would not charge extra but would insist that the name is on the booking form as I have a legal duty under my Short Term Rental Licence to do so.

[moodyvilla]

It is a requirement that all guests staying in the villa are included in the booking forms. This protects the villa owner who may only have a licence to rent his/her villa to 8 people to find out that in fact 10 have been staying. You may also find that failure to disclose would be in direct breach of the terms and conditions that you have signed.

As far as I am aware all villas are rented per villa and therefore this would cost you nothing extra.

[berni_richards]

I agree but if my paying guests had a guest for a night or 2 I would still like them to be on the booking form too.

Hope this helps

[Semper]

Thanks for the advice. Will get him added to the booking form then. That was lucky.

[steph_goodrum]

The other aspect that has always made me insist on knowing who is in the villa at any time is insurance.

When the terms and conditions are signed it is stated that the person who is acting as the lead on the booking signs and accepts responsibility for all those named in the party. If an unamed person stayed it could present problems.

I had one guest who earlier this year had said the pool wasnt very warm (due to low night time temperatures) once it picked up the pool heat returned to normal and she happened to mention her sister and her 2 children on the last night of their stay said it wasn't fair that the others would have the warmer pool for the rest of their stay. When I mentioned that only her , her husband and their 2 children were supposed to be staying she went quiet pretty quick but I did include a note when returning her security deposit to ask her in future to be honest with the owners where she was staying, if one of them had had an accident for example they would effectively be classed as trespassers in my book so I wouldnt be too sympathetic.

As long as you do not exceed total occupancy at any time then I'm sure your owner won't mind (you might just have to clarfiy dates if it looks as though there may be more than total no on paper.

[blott]

It's Florida law that home owners have to keep a register of everyone who is staying in their home - these records can be inspected at any time by the licensing authorities up to two years later.

It's also pretty important from another point of view and that is that if there were an emergency of some sort, say a fire for instance, then the people in the home would need to be accounted for and assisted as necessary by the home owners' local management company. Someone like a firefighter may risk their life going into a home in the event of a fire and think they had rescued everyone who was registered to stay - there could be a terrible tragedy if it was found afterwards that someone else was inside the home when no-one officially knew of their existance.

Just make sure that you give the names to your home owner of every person who is going to stay at the home.