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> Perhaps you are unaware that most of the hotel contracts you've ever agreed to have provisions whereby you have already agreed the hotel has the right to cond

by hansvm 2y ago

> Perhaps you are unaware that most of the hotel contracts you've ever agreed to have provisions whereby you have already agreed the hotel has the right to conduct inspections of the room you're renting upon giving you advance notice. You've been at hotels with that sort of contract in place? Where? The only things I've ever had to sign before taking possession of the room are a pet policy and something affirming they're actually allowed to use the card on file to pay for damages. Those documents are short and to-the-point, and I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think a "no dogs on the bed" clause is likely to grant random detentions and inspections.

orf 2y ago
Let me get this straight: you stay at a hotel, where you blindly agree that they can charge your card “to pay for damages” but you don’t sign anything that specifies what constitutes damage and what the charges may be for that damage? You’d be absolutely insane to do that - one scuff mark on the wall and you’re out $1000. Or, more likely, you actually do enter into a more comprehensive agreement than you realise - perhaps during the booking process, or even implicitly by simply staying in the property.
- hansvm 2y ago
  > but you don’t sign anything that specifies what constitutes damage and what the charges may be for that damage I neither said nor implied any such thing. > you actually do enter into a more comprehensive agreement than you realise Why would the agreement I entered into be something other than the one I read and signed? > perhaps during the booking process Booking is as simple as calling the hotel to reserve a room, then paying when I get there, usually with a couple pages of paperwork to read through. What part of that process sneaks a legally binding contract I've never read into the equation? > implicitly by simply staying in the property And implicitly by replying to my last comment you owe damages of $50.... That's not how contracts work. There might be some non-contractual reason why staff are allowed to enter, or else those hotels might have different paperwork from everywhere I've stayed (hence my question). Implied contracts are a thing, but they arise from ordinary social "contracts," not to grant special, previously unspecified, powers like goons rifling through your things. What's the legal theory that would give a hotel that much power, and if that power is real why would they stop at something as small as sending goons?
op00to 2y ago
Walt Disney World, for one. But, all hotels reserve the right to perform safety inspections.
- hansvm 2y ago
  > WDW Thanks for the answer! I asked because I'm legitimately curious which parts of the country/world use such draconian contracts. It's a new concept for me, and I know that my lived experience isn't a uniform, unbiased sample, so I'm especially interested in examples to the contrary. > all hotels Not in the slightest. The last ~50 hotels I've stayed at in the western half of the US haven't had anything so crude in their terms and conditions. I usually selected them by minimizing cost amongst hotels least likely to be lying about cigarette smoke and lock quality and greedily abandoning those who did lie. That does serve as a form of sampling bias, but it's not particularly selective, and regardless I'd expect that ~50x examples to the contrary suffice to demonstrate that "all" is a gross exaggeration.
  - mrandish 2y ago
    > I asked because I'm legitimately curious which parts of the country/world use such draconian contracts. Since you seem genuinely curious, I'll share some more background on this. The first thing to realize is that not all of your "agreement" with the hotel is necessarily in whatever's presented for you to read or click on at registration. They probably include various "Terms and Conditions" by reference which may not be physically presented to you or even a web click away but they are probably available somewhere on their website or by specific request. The second factor is that much of the law governing your "contractual relationship" with the hotel is codified not in a contract or even in Ts & Cs but rather in state law and various regulations. Hotels (generally known as the 'hospitality industry') is a fairly highly regulated industry and since the idea of "Inns" pre-dates even medieval times, there's a fair bit which can be traced back to Ye Olde Common Law. Interestingly, in much of the law, the relationship between a hotel and guest is largely based on ancient landlord/tenant relationships, with certain necessary adaptations. Within this complexity, various hotels assert slightly differing rights for themselves (whether they are "legal" or not is for a judge to decide (which often never happens)) and varying degrees of disclosure and, of course, state laws have some variance state to state, although the major points are mostly unified simply for practicality since most hotels and many customers operate across states. The bottom line is that, whether or not it's been explicitly presented to you in print, on web click, available somewhere on the company's website or simply by vague reference to "other Ts & Cs" at reservation time or registration, it's probably true that most hotels in most states do have a limited right of inspection of their property which they've rented to you (upon reasonable notice, and within reason, etc) either under explicit or implied agreement or under state law, regulatory permit or simply state case law. Finally, if you want to actively block such an inspection, hotel security is just going to call the cops to deal with you. Those cops aren't going to be lawyers or versed in all these details. They're just going to do what cops do, look at the situation and determine if the hotel is trying to do something that's obviously wildly unreasonable, and if not, since the hotel does actually own the property (and pays a lot of the taxes supporting the Vegas Metro PD), and since hotel security is just workaday joes following 'big company' national policy, and you're just some visitor who wasn't here last week and won't be here next week, they're going to try to get you to be reasonable, and if you don't comply, and the hotel security supervisor is pissed off at you (or his ex-wife that day) and decides to press the issue - they're just going to arrest you on some bullshit "disturbing", "disorderly" or "trespass" charge, (which the junior assistant DA will dismiss without comment after you spend a long night in jail). And it won't matter if you had an explicit agreement with the hotel or if everyone complied with that agreement at every step - because even if you see a judge, the charge won't even be related to that agreement, regulatory remit or state law. Funny fact: you can't even dispute the legality of a law unless you have standing, which usually means being charged under that law. I've actually intentionally tried to get arrested under a specifically unconstitutional city ordinance as part of a plan created by a constitutional lawyer to get in front of a judge and get the bogus ordinance nullified - and the damn cops figured it out and would not arrest me under that law - despite blatantly violating the law directly in front of the central police HQ - for hours - and repeatedly reporting myself. BTW, I'm all for standing up to preserve whatever tattered shreds of our privacy and rights remain but I've also learned it doesn't help anything if you pick the wrong hill to die on. And, from just about every angle, this is not a "user winnable" fight to pick. They probably do have some right of reasonable and limited inspection. Your freedom here is the freedom to not stay there. If you are already there and really want to protest the inspection, just ask to see the security supervisor and manager on duty, tell them you're shocked and dismayed and tell them you'd like 15 minutes to privately pack your things and you'll leave (and expect a refund for the current and future days). For grins, you can even go for a full refund of the whole stay and if you're nice about it and come across as a reasonable person who legitimately feels wronged, you might even get it. Because ultimately you're dealing with workaday droids who just want the problem to go away. Low level employees following big company policy are roughly equivalent to vending machines executing firmware, and I try not to expend much energy arguing morals, ethics, law or politics with vending machines, or worse, performing the equivalent of a principled ritual seppuku just to make a point they'll never even comprehend. To make a difference, we gotta be smart and pick our battles wisely.
thombat 2y ago
FWIW I just reserved a room at the first Vegas hotel that Google served up (MGM Grand Las Vegas) and clicking through to the "Reservation Terms & Conditions" includes: Room Status. MGM Grand reserves the right to check the status of all rooms/suites at any time. which sounds like it covers these sorts of inspections
- hansvm 2y ago
  The vibe I'm picking up is that people are much more likely to book online than I realized.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

by hansvm 2y ago

orf 2y ago

Let me get this straight: you stay at a hotel, where you blindly agree that they can charge your card “to pay for damages” but you don’t sign anything that specifies what constitutes damage and what the charges may be for that damage? You’d be absolutely insane to do that - one scuff mark on the wall and you’re out $1000. Or, more likely, you actually do enter into a more comprehensive agreement than you realise - perhaps during the booking process, or even implicitly by simply staying in the property.

hansvm 2y ago
> but you don’t sign anything that specifies what constitutes damage and what the charges may be for that damage I neither said nor implied any such thing. > you actually do enter into a more comprehensive agreement than you realise Why would the agreement I entered into be something other than the one I read and signed? > perhaps during the booking process Booking is as simple as calling the hotel to reserve a room, then paying when I get there, usually with a couple pages of paperwork to read through. What part of that process sneaks a legally binding contract I've never read into the equation? > implicitly by simply staying in the property And implicitly by replying to my last comment you owe damages of $50.... That's not how contracts work. There might be some non-contractual reason why staff are allowed to enter, or else those hotels might have different paperwork from everywhere I've stayed (hence my question). Implied contracts are a thing, but they arise from ordinary social "contracts," not to grant special, previously unspecified, powers like goons rifling through your things. What's the legal theory that would give a hotel that much power, and if that power is real why would they stop at something as small as sending goons?

op00to 2y ago

Walt Disney World, for one. But, all hotels reserve the right to perform safety inspections.

hansvm 2y ago
> WDW Thanks for the answer! I asked because I'm legitimately curious which parts of the country/world use such draconian contracts. It's a new concept for me, and I know that my lived experience isn't a uniform, unbiased sample, so I'm especially interested in examples to the contrary. > all hotels Not in the slightest. The last ~50 hotels I've stayed at in the western half of the US haven't had anything so crude in their terms and conditions. I usually selected them by minimizing cost amongst hotels least likely to be lying about cigarette smoke and lock quality and greedily abandoning those who did lie. That does serve as a form of sampling bias, but it's not particularly selective, and regardless I'd expect that ~50x examples to the contrary suffice to demonstrate that "all" is a gross exaggeration.
- mrandish 2y ago
  > I asked because I'm legitimately curious which parts of the country/world use such draconian contracts. Since you seem genuinely curious, I'll share some more background on this. The first thing to realize is that not all of your "agreement" with the hotel is necessarily in whatever's presented for you to read or click on at registration. They probably include various "Terms and Conditions" by reference which may not be physically presented to you or even a web click away but they are probably available somewhere on their website or by specific request. The second factor is that much of the law governing your "contractual relationship" with the hotel is codified not in a contract or even in Ts & Cs but rather in state law and various regulations. Hotels (generally known as the 'hospitality industry') is a fairly highly regulated industry and since the idea of "Inns" pre-dates even medieval times, there's a fair bit which can be traced back to Ye Olde Common Law. Interestingly, in much of the law, the relationship between a hotel and guest is largely based on ancient landlord/tenant relationships, with certain necessary adaptations. Within this complexity, various hotels assert slightly differing rights for themselves (whether they are "legal" or not is for a judge to decide (which often never happens)) and varying degrees of disclosure and, of course, state laws have some variance state to state, although the major points are mostly unified simply for practicality since most hotels and many customers operate across states. The bottom line is that, whether or not it's been explicitly presented to you in print, on web click, available somewhere on the company's website or simply by vague reference to "other Ts & Cs" at reservation time or registration, it's probably true that most hotels in most states do have a limited right of inspection of their property which they've rented to you (upon reasonable notice, and within reason, etc) either under explicit or implied agreement or under state law, regulatory permit or simply state case law. Finally, if you want to actively block such an inspection, hotel security is just going to call the cops to deal with you. Those cops aren't going to be lawyers or versed in all these details. They're just going to do what cops do, look at the situation and determine if the hotel is trying to do something that's obviously wildly unreasonable, and if not, since the hotel does actually own the property (and pays a lot of the taxes supporting the Vegas Metro PD), and since hotel security is just workaday joes following 'big company' national policy, and you're just some visitor who wasn't here last week and won't be here next week, they're going to try to get you to be reasonable, and if you don't comply, and the hotel security supervisor is pissed off at you (or his ex-wife that day) and decides to press the issue - they're just going to arrest you on some bullshit "disturbing", "disorderly" or "trespass" charge, (which the junior assistant DA will dismiss without comment after you spend a long night in jail). And it won't matter if you had an explicit agreement with the hotel or if everyone complied with that agreement at every step - because even if you see a judge, the charge won't even be related to that agreement, regulatory remit or state law. Funny fact: you can't even dispute the legality of a law unless you have standing, which usually means being charged under that law. I've actually intentionally tried to get arrested under a specifically unconstitutional city ordinance as part of a plan created by a constitutional lawyer to get in front of a judge and get the bogus ordinance nullified - and the damn cops figured it out and would not arrest me under that law - despite blatantly violating the law directly in front of the central police HQ - for hours - and repeatedly reporting myself. BTW, I'm all for standing up to preserve whatever tattered shreds of our privacy and rights remain but I've also learned it doesn't help anything if you pick the wrong hill to die on. And, from just about every angle, this is not a "user winnable" fight to pick. They probably do have some right of reasonable and limited inspection. Your freedom here is the freedom to not stay there. If you are already there and really want to protest the inspection, just ask to see the security supervisor and manager on duty, tell them you're shocked and dismayed and tell them you'd like 15 minutes to privately pack your things and you'll leave (and expect a refund for the current and future days). For grins, you can even go for a full refund of the whole stay and if you're nice about it and come across as a reasonable person who legitimately feels wronged, you might even get it. Because ultimately you're dealing with workaday droids who just want the problem to go away. Low level employees following big company policy are roughly equivalent to vending machines executing firmware, and I try not to expend much energy arguing morals, ethics, law or politics with vending machines, or worse, performing the equivalent of a principled ritual seppuku just to make a point they'll never even comprehend. To make a difference, we gotta be smart and pick our battles wisely.

thombat 2y ago

FWIW I just reserved a room at the first Vegas hotel that Google served up (MGM Grand Las Vegas) and clicking through to the "Reservation Terms & Conditions" includes: Room Status. MGM Grand reserves the right to check the status of all rooms/suites at any time. which sounds like it covers these sorts of inspections

hansvm 2y ago
The vibe I'm picking up is that people are much more likely to book online than I realized.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]