Guest Screening Kit
Screen a booking request before you accept it: the questions to ask, 14 warning signs scored, and decline wording that keeps you inside platform rules and anti-discrimination law.
The platforms dropped real security deposits, so reading the booking request is your damage protection now
The big platforms removed real security deposits, so your protection moved upstream: the sixty seconds you spend reading a booking request is now your best damage-prevention tool. Most hosts screen by gut feel, which works until it does not.
This kit makes it a process: the pre-booking questions that are friendly to good guests and uncomfortable for bad ones, a red-flag checklist scored from real host experience (local + one-night + no reviews + vague purpose is a different booking than any one alone), and the decline/redirect scripts that stay polite, inside platform policy, and on the right side of fair-housing rules.
Written by Eric, who founded a vacation rental company in 2004 and spent close to a decade deep cleaning rentals somebody else had already called clean.
What is inside: all 6 parts
This is the complete contents list, not a highlights reel. Every line below is a part of the file that is already written and already laid out. The wording and the layout are done. You open it in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, or Pages and overwrite the bracketed fields with your own details.
- Pre-booking question scripts for inquiries and Instant Book follow-ups
- The red-flag checklist: 14 signals, scored: and which combinations matter
- What you may NOT screen on: the fair-housing guardrails, plainly stated
- Decline and redirect scripts that don't invite retaliation or policy trouble
- Party-risk dates calendar (prom, NYE, local events) + tightened rules for them
- ID/verification settings worth turning on, per platform
What it replaces
the work it removes- A blank document and every decision inside it. Somebody has to work out what belongs in each of those 6 parts, write the wording, and lay it out, 6 times over. That is the part already done.
- A generic small-business template with the word "property" pasted over it. It was written against one problem: The platforms dropped real security deposits, so reading the booking request is your damage protection now.
- Version chasing. If the file gets revised, the new one is a free re-download, not a second purchase.
- A subscription. It is a DOCX file you keep. Nothing logs in, nothing syncs, and nothing stops working when a card expires.
When not to buy this
said plainly- If what you want is software that runs itself, this isn't it and never claimed to be. It's a DOCX file you open, edit, and own. No app, nothing to log into.
- Already have a version of this written down, with a team that follows it? Keep it. Swapping a working system for a stranger's is a downgrade.
- The writing is done. Filling in your codes, your local numbers and your house rules is still on you.
- You have not read one of these yet. 9 of the 35 files download with no account and no email address. Take one of those first and judge the writing before you spend $49 USD.
There is no buy button for this one file. I would rather say so than print a price you cannot pay.
The 26 Pro toolkits are sold as one thing. One payment of $49 USD opens all of them. This file does not sell on its own, so there is no separate price to quote for it. What I will stand behind is a count: 26 files, 168 written parts between them. Every toolkit is named on the pricing page before you decide. Anything added to the library later is included, and nothing renews.
Three more that sit next to this one
Same category first, meaning Operations & Setup, then the library's featured picks if the shelf runs short. Free ones download without an account; Pro ones come with the $49 USD All-Access Pass.
PDFFreeVacation Rental Startup Checklist
Takes you from "thinking about it" to your first guest in five ordered phases: zoning and permits, insurance and money, property setup, listing launch, then day-to-day operations.
WORD ProOperations Manual Template (SOP Binder)
Write the whole operation down once: vendor numbers, access codes, the turnover steps, and what to do about a lockout or no hot water. Then someone else can run the place for a week.
PDFFreeThe Host Tool-Stack Decision Guide
Sorts out what software a one-to-five property operation actually needs and in what order: calendar sync, messaging, pricing, cleaning, direct booking. It also names which subscriptions you can skip.