Property developer sues Airbnb for £723,000 after ‘family of four’ who rented his Chelsea mansion threw party for FIVE HUNDRED people that left the place wrecked
- Developer spent more than two months repairing his home in West London
- Michael Harold says Airbnb took it off their site after party, costing him earnings
- The 67-year-old has filed papers at London’s High Court to sue the company
- Comes after 200 people descended on 18th birthday at Airbnb and wrecked flat
A property developer is suing Airbnb for £723,000 after 500 revellers wrecked his Chelsea mansion despite the booking claiming to be for a family of four.
Michael Harold spent two-and-a-half months repairing the luxury home in west London which suffered almost £445,000 worth of damage.
The 67-year-old has filed papers at London’s High Court in which his lawyers accuse the website of offering to pay him just £102,586, The Sun Online reports.
Michael Harold is suing Airbnb after he returned to his mansion (pictured) in Chelsea to find that hundreds of revellers had trashed the pad
Pictured, the study at the west London mansion where revellers took it upon themselves to wreck the home
The mansion (pictured) was supposed to have been rented by a family of four – but hundreds wrecked it during a party
And the writ claims that Airbnb also cancelled bookings and took his property off the site without notice in August 2018, following the party that wrecked it in April 2017.
Mr Harold currently rents out the mansion at £5,500 a night. Airbnb also allegedly delisted another of his properties, costing him and business partner Patricia Artega, 37, about £9,490 a night.
The company has not yet filed a defence against the allegations put forward by Mr Harold.
It comes after 200 revellers descended on an Airbnb in Manchester and trashed the property.
Pictured: The plush pad in Chelsea, which hundreds of revellers descended on and wrecked despite it being booked for a family of four
Mr Harold is suing Airbnb after hundreds of people wrecked his mansion in Chelsea, west London
They had gatecrashed an 18th birthday party when they took it upon themselves to wreck the venue.
And in January Elizabeth Stirling came back to her £2.5million apartment in London trashed.
She thought she’d rented it out for a ‘baby’ shower, but found that drug-fuelled party-goers had ruined it. Airbnb told her that it was only prepared to cover damages up to £780,000.