Security deposits and damage claims: what actually protects a Montreux rental

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The nightly rate is the part owners watch. The part that decides whether one careless guest costs you a weekend or a season is the handover: the state the flat was left in, who saw it first, and which deadline had already started running before anyone opened the door. On a Montreux short-let the money is usually recoverable — but only if the checkout is documented the way the platform and Swiss law both expect, and only if you know which part of the claim was never yours to make.

On Airbnb, the deposit you remember no longer exists

Owners who last rented out a flat before 2024 still plan around a deposit taken at booking and refunded after checkout. On Airbnb that route is closed: “Most hosts are not allowed to charge security deposits, either through our Resolution Center or outside the Airbnb platform.”^[1] It is not a policy about your listing quality or your market — it is the platform’s default position on every home listing.

Two exceptions are worth knowing about, because they explain what you occasionally see from other hosts. Some hosts — specifically select software-connected hosts — may still collect a security deposit off the platform, and where deposits are permitted they must be entered in the right fee field so that it’s properly disclosed to guests.^[1] Hotels listed on the platform are the other exception: they may ask for a credit card at check-in to cover incidentals or a deposit as part of their standard procedure, provided it is disclosed in the listing.^[1] A single apartment rented by a private owner is neither of those things.

What stands behind a Montreux listing instead is the AirCover for hosts programme: guest identity verification, reservation screening, $3M Host damage protection, $1M Host liability insurance, $1M Experiences & Services liability insurance and a 24-hour safety line.^[3] The useful half of that sentence for a damage claim is the damage protection — and it is a reimbursement process, not a deposit sitting in your account.

What Swiss law says about a deposit — and why it is not your short-let tool

Swiss tenancy law is strict about deposits, but it is strict about leases. Article 257e of the Code of Obligations provides that where a tenant of residential or commercial premises gives security in cash or securities, the landlord must deposit it with a bank, in a savings or deposit account in the tenant’s name.^[4] For residential leases the landlord cannot demand security exceeding three months’ rent.^[4] And the bank may only release the money with the agreement of both parties, or on the basis of an enforceable order; if within the year following the end of the lease the landlord has asserted no claim in court, in debt enforcement or in bankruptcy proceedings, the tenant can require the bank to hand the money back.^[4]

Three practical consequences for an owner in Montreux. The money is never yours to hold: it sits in the tenant’s name, and spend it and you are outside the article entirely. A year of silence costs you the guarantee, which is why any damage claim on a lease-shaped booking has to be filed and not merely noticed. And this whole mechanism describes a lease — the long direct booking, the winter let, the furnished flat rented for a semester — rather than a three-night stay, where there is no savings account and no three-month deposit to speak of. If your contract is in that first family, plan for a blocked account as the default arrangement and expect a bank and the tenant’s signature in the loop.

The mechanism that still works on an OTA: the pre-authorization

Card holds are not deposits, and OTA help centres are careful to separate the two. Booking.com describes it plainly to partners: “Pre-authorization places a temporary hold on a guest’s credit card to verify it and cover possible no-show or late-cancellation fees.”^[5] Note what it is for: verifying a card and covering a no-show or a late cancellation. It is a revenue-protection tool, not a damage fund, and it expires on its own schedule.

That leaves direct bookings as the one place where a real deposit clause is yours to write. Which is exactly where discipline matters: for a genuinely short stay you are writing a contractual damage provision, while for a stay long enough to look like a lease you have to respect art. 257e — three months’ rent maximum, in the bank, in the tenant’s name. The trap is a mixed model: an owner who takes a cash deposit for a two-month winter booking and keeps it in a current account has done both halves wrong at once.

The 14-day clock: how a damage claim survives

The Airbnb process is short and unforgiving, and it is documented in the order it runs. Document the issue by taking photos or videos, getting repair or cleaning estimates, and/or receipts. Within 14 days of the responsible guest’s checkout, file a reimbursement request in the Resolution Center. The guest then has 24 hours to respond — if they don’t respond, pay partially, or decline, the request can be escalated under Host damage protection, where Airbnb Support reviews it.^[2] Where you want Airbnb Support involved in an AirCover claim, the supporting documentation of the damage has to be submitted within 14 days of the damage or loss.^[2]

The operational reading for a flat in the Montreux–Riviera market is blunt: the deadline runs from checkout, not from the day you finally visit. A washing machine that leaked quietly, a chair taken to the terrace in October and found in April, a mark on a wall discovered when the flat is repainted — each of those is past the window by the time it is discovered in the normal rhythm of a rarely-managed apartment. A claim needs a date, photographs and a number, and it needs them within two weeks of the last guest leaving.

What AirCover will never pay for

The exclusions matter more than the limit, because they are the ones owners argue about. Host damage protection does not cover damage from normal wear and tear; loss of currency; loss due to acts of nature such as earthquakes; or cleaning associated with normal check-out tasks such as laundry, dishes or trash removal.^[2] The help article adds a sentence worth reading twice: “Host Damage Protection is not insurance or a financial service.”^[2] Your building and landlord insurance remain your own contract — the platform programme sits on top of them, not instead of them.

Swiss law draws the same line for ordinary wear, from the other direction. At the end of the lease the tenant must return the property in the state that results from use in conformity with the contract — which is the legal definition of wear the owner carries rather than the guest.^[4] The article that follows is the one that decides real cases: on return, the landlord must inspect the state of the property and notify the tenant immediately of the defects for which the tenant is responsible. If the landlord neglects to do so, the tenant is released from all liability, unless the defects could not have been discovered through the usual checks.^[4]

Read together, the two systems say the same thing. Wear is a cost of owning the flat. Damage is a claim. And the difference between the two is decided by an inspection that happens immediately, not by how firmly you word the final email.

The checkout routine that keeps the claim alive

None of the above is exotic. Every item is what an operator does between two bookings, in about twenty minutes:

• Photograph the flat, room by room, at checkout — timestamped, plus a short video walkthrough of the kitchen, the bathroom and the floor in front of the balcony door. The evidence has to exist before the next guest arrives, not after the next complaint.
• Compare against the arrival inventory and separate the two lists: what is broken or missing, and what is simply worn. The second list is your cost; mixing it into the claim is how a strong file gets weakened.
• Get a number, not an opinion — a repair estimate, a cleaning quote or an invoice. Airbnb asks for estimates or receipts, and a claim without a figure cannot be reviewed.^[2]
• File inside the 14-day window from checkout, and diarise the guest’s 24-hour response period so an unanswered request is escalated instead of forgotten.^[2]
• Tell the guest what you found, in writing, at once — the same reflex art. 267a imposes on a landlord inspecting at the end of a lease.^[4]
• Keep the log. Two claims in the same apartment, six months apart, with photographs and invoices behind both, is the file that gets reimbursed without argument.

This is where a managed flat differs from a self-managed one, and it is less about legal knowledge than about who is standing in the doorway at 11:00 on a Sunday. Our Montreux apartments are operated at around 87% occupancy — roughly 34% above the same flats under self-management — and we take licensed apartments only. The commercial terms stay simple: a flat 20% commission of the host payout (after platform fees, cleaning and city tax included), no setup fee. Damage handling is part of the service, precisely because a claim that depends on a photograph taken at the right hour cannot be delegated to a visit next month.

The deposit question has a legal answer, an operational answer and an insurance answer, and they are not the same document. If your flat sits in a condominium, the building’s own rules on damage and common areas are the next thing to read, and the insurance side of the same problem is priced in what insurance a Montreux short-term rental actually needs. The rest of the owner material — revenue, pricing, compliance and market data — sits in the owner guides hub.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Airbnb Help Center, Security deposits (article 140) — most hosts are not allowed to charge security deposits, either through the Resolution Center or outside the platform; the exception for select software-connected hosts and the requirement to show a permitted deposit in the appropriate fee field; hotels may ask for a credit card at check-in provided the practice is disclosed in the listing; damage claims without a deposit go through the Resolution Center. Consulted 19 October 2026.
2. Airbnb Help Center, Host damage protection (article 279), part of AirCover for Hosts — reimbursement of up to $3 million where a place or belongings are damaged by a guest during a stay; documentation with photos or videos, estimates or receipts; request to be filed in the Resolution Center within 14 days of the responsible guest’s checkout; guest has 24 hours to respond before escalation; supporting documentation within 14 days of the damage or loss where Airbnb Support is involved; exclusions for normal wear and tear, loss of currency, acts of nature and cleaning linked to normal check-out tasks; statement that the programme is not insurance or a financial service. Consulted 19 October 2026.
3. Airbnb Help Center, AirCover for hosts (article 3733) — programme components: guest identity verification, reservation screening, $3M Host damage protection, $1M Host liability insurance, $1M Experiences & Services liability insurance and a 24-hour safety line. Consulted 19 October 2026.
4. Fedlex, SR 220 Code des obligations, text in force on 1 January 2025 (French original) — art. 257e: security in cash or securities to be deposited with a bank on an account in the tenant’s name; three-month cap on security in residential leases; release only with both parties’ agreement or an enforceable order, and the one-year rule allowing the tenant to demand restitution; art. 267: return of the property in the state that results from contract-conform use; art. 267a: inspection of the state of the property on return and immediate notice of the defects for which the tenant is liable, failing which the tenant is released from liability. Consulted 19 October 2026.
5. Booking.com Partner Hub, Guide on setting reservation policies — cancellation, deposit and prepayment policies; pre-authorization defined as a temporary hold on a guest’s credit card to verify it and cover possible no-show or late-cancellation fees. Consulted 19 October 2026.

Platform terms and Swiss tenancy rules consulted 19 October 2026. General information on deposits and damage claims, not legal or insurance advice — the platform’s current terms, your own contract and, where a lease is involved, art. 257e CO govern your case.