Dealing with errant B&B guests who fail to comply with your house rules?

It is important to know that the common law on boarding and lodging is evolving. Hotel owners or innkeepers (as they were traditionally called) enter into unique or special contracts with their customers / guests. The relationship is thus contractual in nature.

It therefore follows that where a B&B has house rules, a guest has an obligation to follow those house rules / regulations. It would be unfair for a host to turn a B&B guest to the street for any other reason. There has to be a good reason i.e., a lawful cause.

To be able to successfully to turn out an errant B&B guest who has failed to comply with house rules, it is important to have the rules / regulations in written form and / or in the form of a contract (hard copy or electronic) so as to minimize disagreements. Furthermore, the host must be able to demonstrate that the guest has breached the agreement i.e., violated a house rule.

This means that a host must have a valid and / or legal reason before he / she decides to take action against an errant B&B guest. For example, a host cannot eject a guest from his / her B&B in Zimbabwe on the reasoning that the guest lives an immoral life. It has to be shown that the guest has caused a disturbance to others, has become a nuisance or has caused the host patrimonial loss. Simply put, there has to be a lawful cause.

In the famous case of Bennet v Shaw (1902) 19 SC 248 at 249 – 250, it was held that:

“The case is, therefore, one of the traveller coming to a hotel, engaging a room, and being shown into a room. In my opinion, whatever the civil law may be in regard to the liability of the hotel – keeper who refuses to give any room at law, that law is not applicable to the present case, because the plaintiff had engaged a room, and, in my opinion, he was entitled to remain in that hotel so long as he behaved himself, and so long as there were no reasons of necessity why he should be turned out of the premises. The plaintiff alleges that the defendant is a hotel – keeper, and this allegation is not denied by the defendant. We may take it, therefore, that he is an inn- keeper or a hotel – keeper, and I am of the opinion that by our law once a traveller engages a room the hotel – keeper is not justified in turning him out of the premises without lawful cause.

In the growing market on short term rentals and the rise of B&Bs in Zimbabwe, it does often happen, as it does in other jurisdictions, that hosts encounter challenges with guests who overstay and refuse to vacate their premises. The rights and duties of a host to accommodate a guest in a B&B in Zimbabwe are not for an indefinite period. Resultantly, a guest has no right to remain for an indefinite period of time or to overstay (absent a special arrangement). It is thus a contravention of most B&B house rules for a guest to overstay (absent special agreements) and refuse to vacate. see Jockie v Meyer 1945 AD 354.