Agreements

Thanks to Jess Ashworth of Lodgify.com for this guest post.

House rules are a professional way of stating your expectations for your short-term rental guests.

Whether you rent your primary home for a few weekends a year or rent your second home for weeks or months at a time, house rules for your short-term rental tell guests clearly what they can and cannot do. Rules can not only save you time by eliminating the need to have to repeat things over and over, they help to reduce damage and avoid other kinds of problems.

Send the rules to guests before they arrive so they can ask questions if necessary, and leave a printed copy for them in your home. You can decide how to write your house rules – whether that’s a friendly, talkative tone or a formal, more serious one. Whatever way you choose to write, there are certain things all hosts should consider including. This step-by-step guide will certainly help you to get started! [Read more…] about How to Set House Rules for Your Short-Term Rental

Letting someone rent your home – or a room in your home, as discussed in the article – on a handshake is asking for trouble. A 2015 San Francisco Chronicle article, “Setting Up an Informal Rental,” is a good reminder that it’s good practice to formalize short-term rental agreements of all kind in writing.

One reason is that it’s all too easy for both you and the guests to remember the same conversation or interpret vague notes in an email message differently. You need a written short-term rental agreement that spells out the key terms, including the dates of the rental, when rent payments are due, how many people can stay in your home, whether you allow smoking or pets, and more.