A Six-Month Booking That Stretched Past 500 Days
Sascha Jovanovic, a dentist in the Crestwood Hills area of Brentwood, Los Angeles, booked a guest into the guesthouse on his property through Airbnb starting September 13, 2021. The reservation was set to end on March 19, 2022. By the time it was over, the guest, Elizabeth Hirschhorn, had remained in the unit for more than 520 days beyond her original checkout date, according to CBS News’s reporting on the dispute.
The trouble started, by Jovanovic’s account, with a leak. After water damage turned up in the guesthouse, he arranged for mold inspectors to come through weeks after the original reservation was supposed to end. Hirschhorn refused to let the inspectors in and called police, who told both parties it was a landlord-tenant matter outside their jurisdiction. Jovanovic has said he offered Hirschhorn free time to relocate; she declined.
Two Very Different Accounts of What Was Agreed To
Jovanovic has maintained the booking was always meant to be short-term. His attorney told CBS News they would not negotiate with Hirschhorn, asserting she owed more than $60,000 in unpaid rent. Hirschhorn’s attorney told CBS News his client’s arrangement was never a six-month Airbnb stay at all, but a longer-term lease negotiated separately from the platform, and alleged Jovanovic falsified documents about the arrangement.
Why an Airbnb Booking Turned Into a Tenancy Fight
Once a short-term rental guest stays long enough, disputes like this one tend to migrate out of Airbnb’s own resolution process and into the same eviction courts that handle ordinary landlord-tenant cases. California law generally treats an occupant who has stayed past a certain length of time as a tenant with tenant protections, regardless of what a booking platform’s terms of service say.
A Cautionary Tale for Hosts, Not Just a Neighbor Dispute
Hirschhorn ultimately left the property after roughly 570 days total in the guesthouse. For any homeowner renting out a guesthouse on a short-term platform, the case is a reminder that the moment a stay outlasts a booking window, state landlord-tenant law can take over from a platform’s terms of service.
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