Illustrative resort photograph, not a property involved in the cases discussed. Photo: Mikhail Nilov / Pexels, used under the Pexels License.
A hotel can be full and still face a serious business interruption caused by a legal dispute. An owner challenges the operator’s expenditure. A critical supplier threatens to stop work. A senior manager leaves with the only administrator access to the reservations system. Meanwhile, arriving guests expect their rooms to be ready.
For hotel owners and managers, good legal preparation should make these situations easier to manage without turning every disagreement into litigation. The immediate objective is usually to protect guests, keep essential services running and preserve the business’s options while the underlying problem is resolved.
That requires a clear understanding of who controls the operation, what the contracts actually permit and which records will matter if the disagreement reaches a court. The practical lessons below draw on Dutch Caribbean court decisions. Their outcomes are jurisdiction-specific, not rules for every Caribbean hotel.
Establish who can make decisions before decisions become disputed
Imagine an independently owned hotel operated by a management company under an international brand. The owner funds a major equipment replacement, but the operator signs the supplier’s contract. When the equipment fails, the supplier demands payment from the operator, the owner blames the supplier and the brand insists that service standards be restored immediately.
This is a hypothetical situation, but it illustrates why the hotel’s trading name is rarely enough to identify its legal position. The landowner, employer, operating company, management company and contracting customer may be different entities.
The owner and general manager should be able to identify which entity holds each important contract, who is authorized to give instructions and which decisions require approval. Spending authority should address emergency repairs as well as routine purchases. Otherwise, a manager trying to restore air conditioning may inadvertently create a second dispute about an unauthorized commitment.
The same clarity is needed for bank mandates, payment processing and technology accounts. Document who may administer reservations, obtain records and instruct providers. A dispute does not justify simply taking over another party’s account or changing permissions without checking the legal position.
Do not use termination as the first operational response
A strongly worded termination notice may feel decisive. It can also expose the hotel to a dispute about wrongful termination while leaving essential services uncovered.
Before withholding payment, replacing a contractor or ending a management agreement, examine the exact obligations said to have been breached. Identify the evidence, any required notice and opportunity to remedy, and the consequences of termination. An agreement may distinguish a failure to meet a performance target from misconduct, an unpaid invoice or an immediate safety issue. Those distinctions matter.
An interim arrangement might keep undisputed services running and allow essential expenditure while disputed charges are investigated. The wording should address whether cooperation affects the parties’ underlying claims.
If urgent court relief is being considered, the commercial objective should be precise: access to records, continuation of a particular obligation or preservation of a disputed asset. The availability and requirements of any remedy depend on the local law and the facts. A threatened lawsuit, by itself, does not keep a hotel operational.
A 2023 Sint Maarten appeal illustrates the importance of the whole contractual relationship. A landlord had obtained interim orders for rent arrears and eviction of premises used as a hotel, restaurant and bar. The tenant had funded hurricane repairs, while the landlord had retained insurance proceeds intended for repairs. The Joint Court reversed the orders, finding a realistic prospect that the merits court would consider the insurance and repair circumstances sufficient to defeat eviction; the landlord’s urgency case for payment was also inadequate.[1]
This was an interim decision, not a final ruling that the tenant owed no rent or that hurricane damage automatically excused payment. For both sides, the lesson is to examine repair obligations, insurance proceeds and the consequences of termination together, rather than assess the rent ledger in isolation.
Treat the permit file as part of the business
A hotel’s permissions should match its current activities and operating entity, including any added beach bar, outsourced restaurant or entertainment.
Sint Maarten’s Department of Economic Licenses lists business licenses separately from operating licenses for hotels, restaurants and bars.[2] Incorporation or one permission should not be treated as completion of the regulatory work; the property’s requirements need local review.
Before an acquisition or operator change, establish who holds the permissions and whether approvals or amendments are required. Do not assume every permission follows the building or brand automatically.
There is no single Caribbean legal system. Even within the Dutch Caribbean, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are separate countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are public bodies of the Netherlands.[3] A contract or compliance procedure used successfully on one island should therefore be reviewed before it is used on another. Suriname is a separate jurisdiction, not part of the Dutch Caribbean.
Check the legal position of premises connected to hotels
A restaurant or shop serving a resort may have a different lease position from an ordinary commercial tenant. In an Aruba decision of 18 July 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the application of the hotel-linked exception to the requirement for rent-committee permission to terminate certain commercial leases. The premises were in a development opposite a hotel cluster; physical inclusion inside a hotel was not essential on those facts.[4]
The judgment does not mean that every tourism business can be evicted immediately or that every shop near a hotel falls within the exception. It shows why an owner or concession operator should verify the premises’ legal classification before investing, agreeing a lease term or planning an exit. Contractual notice and other applicable requirements still need assessment.
Manage staff problems with a reliable factual record
Hotels depend on managers making quick decisions. Employment problems are an area where speed without a reliable factual record can be expensive.
If a supervisor reports serious misconduct, separate the immediate operational concern from the eventual employment decision. Establish what occurred, preserve relevant records and obtain the employee’s account through an appropriate process. Check who is authorized to act for the employer and obtain local advice before issuing a dismissal notice or imposing a measure whose legal consequences are unclear.
For the Caribbean Netherlands, official Labour Affairs guidance describes a dismissal-permit process and expressly distinguishes dismissal for urgent reasons.[5] That guidance should not be generalized to every Caribbean island or read as establishing that every termination follows the same route.
Keep the employment contract, workplace rules, attendance records and incident evidence accessible. A claim that someone has been “a problem for months” is much less useful than a reliable record of what happened and how management responded.
Employment responsibilities also need attention when a hotel changes operator. Do not assume that the management agreement alone resolves the position of the people working at the property.
Respond to an accident without losing the evidence
When a guest or worker is injured, address safety and immediate assistance, and preserve an accurate record while events are fresh.
An Aruba hotel case decided by the Supreme Court in 2007 concerned an agency cleaner who slipped on rain-wet tiles. The court upheld the dismissal of her claim on the particular circumstances, including the nature of the work and the known risk. It stressed a fact-sensitive assessment, including any applicable government safety requirements. The court also accepted that the employer’s duty of care is demanding and must take account of employee inattention; it is not an absolute guarantee against accidents.[6]
That employment case is not a rule that wet floors need no precautions, and its result should not be transplanted to a guest injury. Its practical value is the importance of the actual working conditions and measures. Hotel managers should assess hazards rather than rely on the assumption that everyone knows rain can make tiles slippery.
Relevant material may include photographs of the location, inspection and maintenance records, the applicable procedure, witness details and available camera footage. Record when the issue was reported, who attended and what corrective action was taken. Preserve original material rather than rewriting an earlier record to make it read more favourably.
Access to guest, medical and employee information should be limited to people who need it for the response. A concern about liability does not justify circulating sensitive information through an unrestricted staff messaging group.
The insurance policy should be checked promptly for notification and claims-handling requirements. A hotel can express concern and assist a guest without asking an untrained employee to negotiate a legal settlement. Any proposed payment, release or admission should be considered with the appropriate claims handler and legal adviser.
Keep a record of the financial effect
When a defective installation closes rooms or a supplier interruption cancels an event, the hotel will often know immediately that it is losing money. Proving the amount later is a different exercise.
Preserve the affected reservations, refunds, relocation costs, room-status records and additional expenditure. Keep the assumptions behind any loss calculation. Distinguish revenue that was genuinely lost from bookings moved to another date, and record costs saved as well as costs incurred.
For storm interruptions, contractual relief and insurance cover depend on the wording, law and facts. Retain the reasons for emergency expenditure and the available alternatives, so a later reader can understand the loss and the efforts made to limit it.
Prepare the handover while relationships are still working
An owner should not discover the practical consequences of ending a relationship only after notice has been served.
Management, franchise and key service agreements should be reviewed for what happens to future reservations, guest deposits, accounts, operational records, supplier commitments and access to essential systems. Identify the information that must be handed over, the timing and any restrictions on continued use. Confirm how the hotel will communicate a change to guests without making promises it cannot fulfil.
A handover plan should identify responsible people and services that cannot stop. It must support a lawful transition, not an unauthorized lockout of an outgoing operator.
Hotels have little room for legal uncertainty at the point of delivery: a guest either has a room, the kitchen can operate or the event can proceed. Owners and managers who clarify authority, preserve dependable records and address notice and transition requirements early are better placed to protect the business when relationships deteriorate.
This article provides general information. Legal requirements and available remedies differ by jurisdiction and circumstances.
About ZL Attorneys
ZL Attorneys advises on commercial matters in the Dutch Caribbean: Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius, and separately in Suriname. For matters on most other Caribbean islands, the firm works with and can refer clients to local lawyers. Further information is available at www.zlattorneys.com.
Sources
- Joint Court of Justice, 13 September 2023, ECLI:NL:OGHACMB:2023:164, particularly paragraphs 3.5–3.11.
- Sint Maarten Department of Economic Licenses — license categories.
- Government of the Netherlands — countries and public bodies within the Kingdom.
- Supreme Court, 18 July 2025, ECLI:NL:HR:2025:1170, particularly paragraphs 2.1.2–2.1.3 and 4.2.3.
- Rijksdienst Caribisch Nederland — dismissal guidance for employers.
- Supreme Court, 2 March 2007, ECLI:NL:HR:2007:AZ5834, particularly paragraphs 3.1–3.6.
