Lay My Hat

Add VAT to the 3% - I think it works out at about 3.6% for us. Then they also add a booking fee on top which the guests are supposed to pay. When we used to be on a subscription listing (i.e. flat fee annually and no commission or booking fees) we worked out the optimum peak rate for our house. The...

One extra thought, your own insurer may also be able to advise you what type of insurance cover the chef should have to work in your premises. I hope it all works out - having a personal chef on holiday sounds like heaven to me! Thanks for that, I'm sure that will come up in the conversation I'll h...

You provide a holiday home that has everything needed for your guests. If the chef needs specific equipment then he/she should bring it along. This is probably their normal practice. As for insurance and your own liability, why not check with your insurer? My view is that the chef (or their employe...

Thanks Andrew, I see your point, my T&Cs allow for this sort of thing with my permission. However, I do have reservations especially as the Chef will be using my supplied utensils etc. to prepare & cook the meal and what I supply my guests by way of kitchen equipment & utensils can be co...

Hiya, A guest has expressed a desire to hire a Private Chef via a company called La Belle Assiette, to provide an evening meal during their stay. It would seem that the company is merely an agent between customer & chef, not the actual supplier of the service. Because I've never come across this...

Yes the TA guest booking fee is extortionate (commission listing). The owner fee is effectively a card processing fee of 3% + vat, which is also high for a card fee. I hardly ever get TA bookings, I believe for this reason. I disagree with you I'm afraid, much as it pains me to defend the bar stewa...

Yes the TA guest booking fee is extortionate (commission listing). The owner fee is effectively a card processing fee of 3% + vat, which is also high for a card fee. I hardly ever get TA bookings, I believe for this reason. I disagree with you I'm afraid, much as it pains me to defend the bar stewa...

I posted a topic on this extortionate subscription rise earlier this year, my subscription went up an incredible 27%! Some responders reckoned that TA want every listing to be a free listing so that they can impose booking fees on our customers. I decided to absorb the hike & put up my prices by...

As an interesting aside, within a week of completing on my house, I got a letter from the council asking me to consider renting it out to council tenants! Bizarre. I wonder if your current predicament has something to do with previous ownership of the house. Was it let out to tenants? If so, it may...

Even if you don't go down the business rate route, you can surely challenge the extra premium as a second home owner? You live there after all and it's your main residence. If you choose to go and live on a boat and rent it out for part of the time that's not enough to make it a second home. Imagin...

Thanks for the responses, a couple of tips worth exploring methinks. If I sound a bit unsure about business rates, its because when I worked from home before retiring, I had to pay business rates for the portion of my home that was used solely for business as I was making & selling stuff. This I...

You must be in Wales then? I would have thought that your house doesn't fit the second home definition anyway so you could probably make a case to have this overturned. Having said this you could consider business rates instead if your house is available to let 140 days and actually let 70 (that's ...

Hiya, Just been sent a letter from my council to inform me that from April 2018, I will be subjected to their Council Tax Second Home Premium at the rate of 150% of the usual Council Tax for my property because it isn't "registered as my main rsidence". Seeing as its the only house I own, ...

Thanks for that, I'll give it a try & post how I get on.

I might even try fiddling about with the URL to see if I can bring up the TripAdvisor or Holiday Lettings version of the form. Again, I'll post any results I get along with the relevant URLs if they work.

Cheers.

Hiya, Anyone know about this? You used to have an option on a Help Centre FAQ answer where you could fill in a contact form if you needed further assistance, but this seems to have disappeared. I've tried using the email address I've received from previous contacts but all I get is an auto response ...