Switching your concierge company in Marrakech

How does a non-resident owner change concierge company in Marrakech without losing their bookings, their reviews and their calendar? The question comes up often, and it is almost always framed wrongly: it is not the law that blocks a change, it is the preparation. The law itself sits in a text from 1913 that the Marrakech market never cites, and it is more favourable to the owner than the contracts suggest. What is genuinely lost in an improvised handover is the bookings already taken, the reviews attached to the listing, and the continuity of the calendar.

Can you change concierge company mid-contract in Marrakech?

Yes, and Moroccan law is clearer than anything the market publishes. If your contract is a mandate — in the sense of article 879 of the Dahir forming the Code of Obligations and Contracts, a contract by which you instruct a firm to “perform a lawful act on behalf of the principal” — then article 931 provides that “the principal may, whenever he sees fit, revoke his power of attorney; any clause to the contrary is of no effect between the parties or towards third parties”. The same article adds that “the stipulation of a fee does not prevent the principal from exercising this right”. The text is the 1913 Dahir, in French.

Two reservations frame it: revocation requires the provider’s agreement where the mandate was granted in its own interest or that of a third party, and it does not release you from paying what is owed. The characterisation itself turns on the real subject of the contract — a firm that collects money on your behalf acts as an agent. Have yours read properly.

What notice period applies to a concierge contract in Morocco?

No single statutory period applies: it is your contract that sets the notice, subject to article 931 above. This is precisely the question on which the market stays silent, and with reason: the law fixes no general duration, so it is the contract that settles the notice period.

The market publishes next to nothing. Of the seven Marrakech firms whose public pages we recorded, only three state a commitment term, and they contradict one another: from no commitment at all to three months’ notice. Article 932 further specifies that a revocation served by letter “takes effect only from the moment the agent has received the communication”. The date that counts is the date of receipt, not the date of posting.

What Marrakech concierge companies actually publish about commitment

Four firms out of seven say nothing about the commitment term, and the three that do agree on nothing. Morokeys states “no fixed term”, Marrakea a one-year contract with tacit renewal and two months’ notice, Citybnb no minimum term but three months’ notice. The spread runs from zero to three months on the same market, for the same service.

The commission is published more readily than the exit: five firms out of seven display a rate, only three say anything about their exit clause. That imbalance is the main finding of this survey — on this market you are told what you will pay, rarely how you will leave.

Ask for that clause in writing before you sign: it appears on only two of these seven sites. Allo Maison, which does not publish its own, describes “three months’ notice with no commitment to results in return” as an imbalance. What those rates actually cover is set out in our survey of what Marrakech concierge companies charge.

What happens to bookings already taken when you change provider?

They stand. Article 934 of the Code of Obligations and Contracts states that “revocation of the mandate, in whole or in part, cannot be invoked against third parties in good faith who contracted with the agent before learning of the revocation”. In other words, the guest who booked before your change keeps their stay, and it falls to you to honour it — the text reserves only your recourse against the former agent.

Airbnb says the same thing on the platform side: its help page on removing a co-host specifies that “you will still be responsible for current or upcoming requests”. The practical consequence is a calendar rule, not a legal one — set the effective date after the last departure already booked, or agree in writing who welcomes the guests falling in the gap. It is the one point where a badly sequenced change becomes visible, and it becomes visible to guests.

Can you lose your Airbnb reviews by changing concierge company?

Only one configuration costs you them: the one where the listing is not published from your own account. The Airbnb help centre is explicit — “guest reviews appear only on the profile of the listing holder”, and “guest ratings and reviews do not appear on co-hosts’ profiles and do not affect their Superhost status”.

If your concierge company acts as a co-host on your listing, its departure touches neither the history, nor the rating, nor the ranking. If instead the listing was created from that firm’s own account, the history stays attached to that account — recreating a listing means starting from zero. This question is settled at signature, not on departure.

In what order does the Airbnb handover happen?

In four steps, without ever recreating the listing. First, check that you are the listing holder. Second, add the new firm as a co-host: Airbnb lets you entrust it with updating the listing, accepting or declining requests, viewing the calendar, managing dates and messaging guests.

Then let the two teams overlap long enough to pass on arrival instructions, emergency procedures and contractor contacts. Only then remove the outgoing co-host — Airbnb notes that “you can remove a co-host at any time”, and that after removal they can no longer edit the listing, accept a booking, view the calendar or message guests. That is the moment the break becomes real.

And on Booking and the other channels?

The principle is identical, the verification less so. On Booking, what matters is who holds the extranet account: if your concierge company opened it in its own name, it holds the property page, the reviews and the performance history.

We were unable to verify Booking’s official procedure from a primary source — the partner help pages returned an access refusal to automated requests — and so we do not assert it. The approach to take is to ask the question in writing before signing: who opens the account, in whose name, and who holds the credentials. At least one Marrakech firm states it in its offer, Citybnb writing that it takes over “management of its owner clients’ listings by becoming a co-host”, on Airbnb and on Booking alike. That is the wording to obtain from your future provider, whoever it turns out to be.

What should you recover before cutting the contract?

Eight things, and they are claimed while the contract is still running — afterwards, you have no leverage. Article 908 of the Code of Obligations and Contracts sets the base: “every agent must account to the principal for their management, present a detailed account of their expenditure and receipts, with all supporting evidence”. Article 911 adds the return of the instrument conferring the powers. The rest is a matter of physical inventory and access.

The method rule fits on one line: nothing is handed over verbally, everything is signed. A dated handover schedule, countersigned by both parties, settles in one page what a dispute would take months to unpick — and it protects the outgoing provider too, who has every interest in proving what was returned. Claim these eight items in the same letter as the termination, with a deadline, rather than piecemeal.

What a well-prepared handover changes

Nothing spectacular, and that is the point: the calendar does not move, the reviews stay, the guests notice nothing. A handover is prepared over three weeks — one for the inventory and the access, one of overlap between the two teams, one for the start-up — and closes with two documents, the final management account and the countersigned handover schedule.

That is the protocol we follow, with seventeen years of footing in Marrakech behind it, for any property management taken over mid-year. Our terms of remuneration are published on our pricing page, and the exact scope of our experience curation is set out there service by service. Before signing anywhere, read first the points to get in writing in a mandate.

Are you considering a change of provider this year? Set out your situation on this page: we carry out a free, no-commitment assessment within 48 hours, and tell you in what order to proceed.