Damage and incident report

When to use

Fill this report when something at {property_name} is broken, stained, missing, or unsafe and you may need to remember the facts later. {stay_label} identifies the reservation without a document number or a date of birth: “checkout on 12 May, the booking that ended that morning” is enough if the platform record sits next to this page. {found_when} is the clock time you found it, not the hour you guess it happened. {what_found} is a description you could hand to someone who has not seen the room: “a cracked pane in the bedroom window, lower sash, glass on the sill.” {told_whom} is who you notified and when: “cleaner at 11:10, guest in the booking thread at 11:40.”

The sheet says it is not legal advice and not a claim. Keep both limits. A platform resolution, an insurance notice, or a police report is a separate process with its own form. This page helps you start those only if you later decide to, with times and photos that still match. It does not tell you whether you should start them, and it does not calculate what anyone owes.

Use it for a safety problem even when you do not plan to charge anyone. A loose railing is a record you want before the next guest leans on it. Use the maintenance acknowledgment in the thread for the guest-facing words, and keep this page as the private log of {found_when} and {what_found}.

Timing tip

Write {found_when} the same hour. Details fade by the next morning, and a cleaner may already have wiped a spill you needed to see. Photos come before the cleanup, which is why one checkbox says not to start a repair that destroys evidence you still need. If the scene is unsafe, make it safe first. A photo is not worth a cut hand. Then write {what_found} from what you remember and what the photo shows, and say which is which if they differ.

{told_whom} should be filled as you tell people, not reconstructed a week later from a sent folder. If you told the guest, quote the thread time. If you have not told them because you are still unsure the damage is from their stay, write “guest not told yet” and the reason, so the blank is not a hole.

Do this before the next check-in if the next guest would inherit the damage. The pre-arrival inspection has a box for that handoff. This report is the longer note behind that box.

Common mistakes

A theory in {what_found} is the first one. “They threw a bottle at the window” is a story. “Glass on the sill, bottle in the bin, window cracked” is a record. The next reader can form a theory. Your page should survive if the theory is wrong. {stay_label} ties the scene to a stay without accusing a named person of a motive.

The second is photographing a passport, a card, or a guest’s body. The checkbox excludes identity documents. A wide shot of a broken lamp is useful. A close-up of a wallet is not. Store photos with the page in whatever private place you already keep booking records, not in a shared camera roll with no date.

The third is treating the sheet as the charge. “They owe the cost of a window” written as {what_found} skips the question of proof, of ordinary wear, and of the platform’s process. The next-step line can say “ask the glazier for a price” or “open the platform’s resolution form tomorrow.” It should not say “guest will pay” until a process you trust has ended that way. This template will not tell you how that process ends.

After the page is full

Put the date and your name on the signature line so a co-host can see who saw the room. Keep the page even if you decide to do nothing. A decision to absorb the cost is easier to explain later if {what_found} is still available.

If the item is property they left, not damage, the left-behind message is the guest-facing note and this report only needs a line if the item was mixed into a damaged scene. Do not send this whole sheet to the guest. It is your record. The thread gets a shorter truth, in the maintenance note or the left-item note, without the speculation you kept off {what_found}.