Is your tenant renting out your home on Airbnb?
Subletting without your permission can stay invisible for months while the listing sits in public view. Cuckoo searches the listings around your address and records what appears.
Recognize it first
Neighbours mention suitcases, changing faces, or parties in a home that should be quietly rented.
A review or listing photo describes your street, facade, or interior.
Your tenant has been dodging an inspection visit for months.
A key box appeared that you never installed.
What the rules say
Subletting requires the landlord’s permission everywhere in Belgium. In Flanders a tenant may sublet at most part of the home, with permission, and must keep living there. In Brussels, a tenant who rents a main residence can never sublet the whole dwelling, and Wallonia likewise requires the landlord’s agreement. Tourist rental through a booking platform falls under separate accommodation rules on top of the lease. This is context, not legal advice: review the next steps with a professional.
Why you will not find the listing yourself
Airbnb deliberately shows no exact address: the map pin is offset and searching by address does not exist. Booking.com sometimes prints an address, but private homes sit between thousands of hotels and neither platform lets you start from your own address. Listings also disappear and return under a new id with new photos and a new title. Airbnb’s location verification says something about the place itself, nothing about the owner’s permission. Searching by hand means gambling on the right moment.
What Cuckoo establishes
The free scan searches the public listings around your address pin on both platforms and lists the nearby listings it finds, nearest first. Protect’s daily monitoring then tracks each listing by its platform identity, not its title or photos: on detection Cuckoo takes a Capture, a full screenshot that survives takedown, and keeps a day-by-day observation log.
Airbnb
Listings show a vague circle instead of an address and location verification is not required everywhere. Rooms and homes change titles and photos, but keep their room id. That is what Cuckoo follows.
Booking.com
Private homes sit between the hotels, often more professionally presented, each with its own property id. Watching only Airbnb misses them. Every Cuckoo scan covers both platforms.
In July 2026, owners in Antwerp discovered that two tenants had been renting their homes out through Airbnb and Booking.com. The homes were left trashed; the damage ran to 40,000 euros. The listings were public the whole time.
What to keep when you suspect it
Record the listing with a date: screenshots of the title, photos, calendar, and reviews. Note the periods and what neighbours saw. Cuckoo bundles identity, the observation log, and Captures into a dated evidence pack, an organized observation record. Whether it suffices for a legal step depends on your case: have a professional look at that.
Frequently asked
- Is subletting through Airbnb without permission illegal?
- As a rule it breaches your lease and the regional tenancy rules, and tourist rental requires its own permit or registration on top. Decide your next step with legal advice.
- Can I not just search Airbnb myself?
- You can browse, not search from your address. Airbnb pins are deliberately vague, Booking.com buries private homes between hotels, and listings come and go. One look is a snapshot.
- What if the listing is taken down?
- With Cuckoo Protect the Capture and the observation log survive takedown. Disappearing is itself recorded.
- Does Cuckoo check Booking.com too?
- Yes. Every scan covers Airbnb and Booking.com.
In doubt? Look.
Then daily monitoring that alerts you when a new listing is confirmed: how Cuckoo Protect works