Cohosting — operating short-term rentals on behalf of owners for a share of revenue — is the only corner of the sharing economy you can enter with no capital and no property. The barrier is not money; it is contract literacy. Most cohost relationships fail not over performance but over ambiguity: who pays for the broken dishwasher, who owns the listing, and who eats the chargeback.
Clause 1: Scope With a Price on Everything
"Full management" is not a scope. Enumerate the services — guest communication, pricing, cleaner coordination, restocking, maintenance dispatch — and attach either an inclusion or an hourly rate to each. The single most common cohost dispute is uncompensated labor that one party believed was included.
Clause 2: The Expense Threshold
Set a dollar threshold — commonly €150–250 — under which you may authorize repairs without owner approval, invoiced monthly. Above it, written approval required. This one clause eliminates both the 11 p.m. permission texts and the surprise-invoice fights.
Clause 3: Listing Ownership and the Exit
The listing, its reviews, and its ranking are an asset. Specify who owns the platform account and what happens at termination: a professional agreement grants the owner the listing but grants you a negotiated notice period — 60 to 90 days — so a season's bookings cannot be pulled out from under you.
Clause 4: Percentage of What, Exactly
"20% of revenue" is dangerously vague. Gross booking value, net of platform fees, or net of all operating costs produce wildly different numbers. Professional cohosts charge on net platform payout — the figure that actually lands in the account — and reconcile against the platform's transaction export monthly.
Get these four clauses in writing and cohosting scales cleanly to a dozen properties. Skip them and you have a hobby with legal exposure.
