Maintenance
What counts as a maintenance emergency at a short-term rental?
Not every late-night call is an emergency. Here's how to define one for your properties, and why deciding it before the call comes in matters.
A guest calls at 2AM. Something is wrong at the property. The first question isn't who do we send, it's how urgent is this.
The answer depends on the property and on your own procedures. That's the point: an emergency is something you define ahead of time, so whoever takes the call doesn't have to guess.
Common examples of maintenance emergencies
Most short-term rental operators treat these as emergencies:
- Major water leaks
- No heat or AC during extreme weather
- Electrical hazards
- Guests being locked out
- Flooding
- Serious plumbing problems
- Safety or security concerns
Your list may be longer or shorter. A property in a hot climate might treat a failed AC unit in July as urgent, while the same failure in October can wait until morning.
Why the definition matters
When "emergency" isn't written down, every call becomes a judgment call. That usually means one of two things: vendors get dispatched at after-hours rates for issues that could have waited, or real emergencies sit while someone decides whether to wake you up.
A clear definition fixes both. It tells your team, or your support partner, exactly which situations trigger an immediate response and which ones get logged and scheduled.
Emergencies and your approval limits
Emergencies often need different spending rules. You might allow repairs under a set amount without contacting you, but want different rules when a guest is locked out at midnight or water is coming through a ceiling.
It's worth deciding separately:
- What counts as an emergency
- Who gets notified, and how fast
- How much can be approved without you
How OnPass handles it
During onboarding, you define what your team considers an emergency and how you want those situations escalated. From then on, our team follows your process: we receive the request, gather the details, determine how urgent it is, and either dispatch a vendor or escalate to you, based on the rules you set.
Found this useful? Share it with your team.