We are planning on downsizing and moving into a leased apartment in a year or so. We will be moving with our cat and will need a long term sitter for the winter. The property owners will insist on putting the THS sitter on the lease agreement and subject them to a back ground check.
This seems wild to me but the property manager said that the sitter would only be responsible for rent if we failed to pay it. There is no question that we would pay it as well as all utilities, parking costs, cleaning and all else connected to the apartment.
Of course it would be possible for us to have a private agreement with the sitter in order to assure them of a fully paid for sit.
My question is, what do sitters think? Would you agree? Would you need a private agreement also?
Honestly in this scenario, it may be better to find a friend or family who would be willing to watch the cat in their home, even if meant a long drive there. Or, find a sitter who can drop in twice a day but the cat remains alone overnight.
If a sitter is a co-lessee with you, you take on all risks together. So if a sitter starts a fire in the apartment, for example, they and you are on the hook together. You may have insurance but the insurance covers you, not a co-lessee. At a minimum I would check your renters insurance to see if you can add an unrelated third party. And sitter would be responsible for any unpaid rent and expenses. I understand you mean to pay all, but suppose your plane crashes on route to your destination. Then what?
Also a co-lessee is then legally allowed and entitled to use of the premises for the term of the lease. You would both mutually have to agree to remove them. If the sit went sidewaysâŚwell thatâs quite a bit of leverage they hold as you couldnât legally evict them.
Does your lease prohibit you from having friends to stay? Does it specify that if you do have friends to stay, you also need to be present? I doubt it. Presumably the âproperty managerâ is only even aware of your idea because youâve mentioned it to them. This isnât a sub-letting situation, unless you turn it into one by charging sitters money to stay in your home. Read your lease carefully and check whether you would be in breach of it by allowing a friend to stay unaccompanied in the apartment. If not, I would just leave it at that, and do your due diligence with regards to choosing a suitable sitter.
As a sitter who already has their own outgoings to cover, there is no way that I would be interested in a sit that required me to sign a lease agreement in case the home owners didnât pay their rent. There are plenty of sits to choose from, but even if pickings were slim, itâs just not an idea that I would entertain.
Hmmm this sounds really weird. Curious about what country/state this apartment is in? And is it some large complex? Or a small privately owned boutique building? Something doesnt seem quite right with the ârequirementâ. You will definitely have trouble finding a THS sitter to agree to this.
In the US most lease agreements prohibit any adults to occupy for the premises for more than 2 weeks without being named on the lease. This means even visiting friends, family. The OP mentions being gone all winter, so that length of time would certainly require being added to the lease.
If the property manager is on site, itâs not always easy to ignore this rule.
Speaking purely as a sitter, I personally wouldnât agree to being added to a lease agreement for a THS sit.
Not because Iâd assume anything bad about the homeowner - your post sounds thoughtful and responsible - but because once someoneâs name goes onto a lease, the arrangement stops feeling like a normal housesit and starts drifting into legal/tenant territory. Even if the property manager says the sitter would âonlyâ be liable if rent wasnât paid, most sitters are unlikely to want their name connected to a lease, rental liability, or background screening for what is essentially a temporary pet sit.
A few thoughts from different angles:
From a sitter perspective: many people use THS specifically to avoid formal tenancy arrangements, liability exposure, credit implications, or legal ambiguity across jurisdictions.
From a homeowner perspective: I completely understand why a landlord or building management company may want every adult occupant documented, especially in apartments/condos with insurance or security rules.
From a practical/legal perspective: the wording of leases matters enormously. âYou wonât be responsibleâ can sound reassuring verbally, but the actual signed document is what matters if anything ever went wrong.
From a THS/platform perspective: this feels outside the usual spirit of a standard sit and could narrow your applicant pool significantly.
I suspect some sitters might consider:
a simple building registration/security check,
proof of ID,
or perhaps a temporary occupant form that explicitly states they are not tenants and have no financial liability.
But a full lease addition plus background check would probably be a hard no for many experienced sitters.
A private written agreement from you would help somewhat, but it still may not override the lease terms themselves, so I think many sitters would still hesitate.
You may ultimately find that:
local sitters,
repeat sitters,
or people youâve built a relationship with previously
would be more open to it than first-time applicants.
Property managers donât care about your intent or the sitterâs. Itâs all about protecting the property owners. Requiring a sitter on a lease agreement is maximum protection for the owners and maximum risk for you.
Depending on jurisdiction, adding a sitter to your lease will entitle the sitter to tenant rights. In California, that can and has resulted in some nasty nightmares. As a host, Iâd never give it consideration in any form. Unfortunately, I suspect most professionally run apartment complexes will have similar requirements.
And then there are insurance questions around longer term sitters that likely apply as much whether renting, buying or owning.
THS is all about fair trades. Suspect extent of housesitter community appetite may be driven by relative appeal of your property.
A modest subset of housesitters seem to actively seek multi-month duration listings. A subset of them may have appetite for an atypical legal/risk scenario. So your likely candidate pool is likely small. But where thereâs a will then thereâs perhaps a way.
Were we to consider such a scenario then weâd seek to credibly mitigate credit & legal risk, say through host prepay relevant rent to landlord. Or use of funded escrow account for rent and agreed costs. Weâd not rely on a simple private agreement - as if host defaulted on rent payment then theyâd also probably default on any private agreement. Vetting would be two-way.
Should you progress then weâd imagine that traditional applications are frankly more like expressions of interest. And that due diligence effort would require rather more than one video call.
Iâm going to give you an honest answer, as you have yet to make this move. I believe finding someone on THS who is willing to do all of this and is available for your time frame is very highly unlikely. Please do not base a major life decision on unrealistic expectations. Perhaps you can take cat with you, can find someone who will home cat during winter, etc⌠I wish you well in finding your path forward.
In a lot of ways this system operates in a legal gray zone. In the city where I live, Airbnb is for the most part illegal and many apartments â rentals, condos, and coops have rules about âunsupervised guestsâ and define âsublettorâ as anyone occupying the apartment who isnât a close relative or already on the lease.
What sitters will or wonât do is up to them I would imagine if it is a desirable sit, then there will be sitters willing to ID and consent to the check. Probably they would not foot the bill for it. As THS is mostly just a matching site, there is no reason you canât ask a sitter to do this. If sitters donât want to, that is their is choice and you donât have to give them the sit.
Itâs possible the landlord would be satisfied with something other than having them âsign a leaseâ â maybe a sublease that gives you the right to end this early and clearly specifies that you are coming back and are covering the rent?
It takes all kinds, and you might find a willing sitter. Personally Iâd be in the ânopeâ category for the reasons others have stated.
I think the best thing for the cat would be finding friends/family who could take him/her in while youâre away.
If it was a paid sitter, would they expect the same? We would never agree to that sort of agreement, and also you should consider that if you managed to find a sitter who agreed to be put on the lease wth you, then potentially they may not be the sensible and logical type of sitter you want taking care of things responsibly while you are away, they could be quite naive.
If you regularly plan on going away for longer periods, then Iâd check out how the lease is actually worded? If it says the premises must not be empty over a certain number of days, then you donât have that intention anyway, but if it says you yourselves must not leave the place empty over a certain number of days, then maybe look at moving somewhere else that have their contracts worded slightly differently, or stick with the one you have in mind and donât stay away as long.
I would think so but after seeing so many stories where sitters agreed to anything and praised anything, Iâm not sure, maybe someone will be willing to do it , you never know these days.
Iâm an HO, not a sitter, but this is such a bad idea on every level. You havenât moved to this new apartment yet - are you contracted, or can you find another living option that would better suit your needs?
I canât imagine a sitter agreeing to this unless it was someone you actually know in your real life and there was a benefit to them beyond just the housing during the sit.
Welcome to the forum @estellett
It good that you found this information out before going ahead .
This arrangement isnât a THS sit. By signing the lease, the sitter effectively becomes a host rather than a sitter, which means THS would not provide support to either party if anything went wrong.
There are far too many risks for the sitter. For example, if unexpected circumstances prevented you from returning home, the sitter could end up being liable for the rent.
Maybe putting your furniture in storage and paying for your cat to be boarded at someoneâs home would be a more suitable option ?
A strong second to this. I knew someone who had to pay $80,000 to get a tenant out of her house (downstairs unit) so she could sell it. That was in the SF Bay Area which has eye-watering tenantsâ rights â and they kick in at 30 days tenancy in any living space.
I now live in a much more laissez-faire area but had a neighbor down the street have to go to court to evict housesitters because when she returned after a short vacation, they refused to leave. They told the sheriff that they were legal tenants so he couldnât evict them just on the HOâs word. She had to go to court and prove they werenât. It took over a month.
There was also a horror story in the news about a year or two ago about homeowners in California who were gone for months, and when they returned, the housesitters claimed they had a legal lease, which turned out to be a document theyâd forged themselves. It took months and a lot of money and time in court to finally evict them. Meanwhile the HOs had to pay to rent a place to live in and couldnât even get in the house to get their own stuff.
