Hi all - I’n new so apologies if this is an old question - I still don’t really understand how this works! What happens if you get a sitter but you have to cut short your holiday and come home?
What if a sitter decides to ’ not leave’ - has this ever happened? Where do the owners stand legally?
The simple answer is that you would notify the sitter and make a new arrangement that suits you both as best as possible. Generally though, if you agree dates then hosts and sitters should both abide by them. Are your dates not set or do you think you may need to return home because of work or a family situation? If so, discuss this with your sitter up front for transparency. We’ve never known someone not leave a house post sit but I guess if it happened you’d need to involve police as well as THS. #allabouttrust
I fly into almost all my sits, so if you cut the sit short on me, you would be leaving me in a bad spot… Id either have to pay for an alternative place to stay or fly home if possible.. and if I didnt have a flight I could change, then I’d be looking at spending more money on a flight, etc. …alot of sitters re-arrange their lives for our sits…I have to get approval from my work to work remotely, arrange flights, take time off if needed, look at possibly renting a car, etc…some things to consider on your end about what a pickle it might leave the sitter in.
I have read on the forum that if a host has to return a few days earlier they will let the sitter stay on if they have a non refundable flight or hotels in the area are hundreds a night. Some hosts will stay with friends those extra days or tell the sitter they can stay on in the guest room with hosts sharing the house. Not ideal accommodations for either party so best that both sides try to keep their commitment.
The way it is supposed to work: Once a sit is confirmed for the dates there shouldn’t be any changes from either party. Of course life happens and sometimes sitters have emergencies and need to leave a sit. Sometimes homeowners have emergencies and need to come home early.
There is no “legal” obligation to pay for a sitter’s lodging. A sitter could demand to stay in your home, but they don’t have a legal right to. I’ve read things in the forum where sitters were rightly irate when homeowners came home early for frivolous reasons or even good ones without telling them. Generally, you should make absolutely sure your dates are correct before publishing your listing and again make sure everything will work and is right before hitting confirm.
If you realize you’ll need to cut your sit short before the sit starts, the best way to handle it is to contact the sitter and let them know about the change in plans and discuss it. The sitter might be able to accomodate the change but it might mean their spending money to change a plane ticket or finding lodging before another sit in your area, so if you could work something out, eg allowing the sitter to stay in your guestroom or paying their change fee or for a hotel room that’s great. That’s completely your decision, though
You would also need to cancel the existing sit and offer the new dates to the sitter. The sitter would be free to refuse those dates and simply look for something else, so it does behoove you to try to come to an agreement if you don’t want to start from scratch and find someone else.
If the sit already started, it’s trickier. You would need to contact THS to end the sit early. Again, the sitter has no legal right to stay in your home and you have no obligation to pay for their lodging, but unless they have a premium plan froom THS, the sitter will be paying their own way and even with the plan there is a deductible. So how you choose to deal with this is on you. If the sit ends early there are still reviews, so ending things in a way that isn’t acrimonious is a good idea as well as the right thing to do.
If you are nervous about this, it’s probably worth discussing in the chat and asking about the sitter’s previous experiences with this or how it was handled. If there is something lurking that you are concerned about – an ailing relative for instance, you might think of a plan in that event. For instance, you could end your vacation and come “home” but not stay in your house, stay elsewhere with relatives or friends until the sit ends.
Hi @Cris1
A good way to look at it might be to consider the impact that it would have on you and your holiday/trip if your sitter decided they had to leave the sit a few days before the agreed date, for whatever reason.
Legally, you couldn’t force them to stay any more than they could insist on staying in your house if you returned earlier than planned, but each party takes on a moral obligation to the other when agreeing to a sit, so best advice is to make sure that you’re able to follow through on what’s been agreed.
The OP said was talking about ‘having to’ cut their holiday short, not just deciding to cut their holiday short.
Good question @Cris1 - as unexpected circumstances can happen to anyone at anytime it’s recommended that both hosts and sitters make their own back up plans just incase a sit is cancelled or curtailed at short notice .
When you arrange a sit on THS, both sitter and host are making mutually beneficial commitments that both parties are expected to take seriously. Generally, if you make the commitment, you keep the commitment even if keeping it means being inconvenienced.
Under extenuating emergency circumstances, it might be unreasonable or impossible for a sitter or host to keep their commitment. Life happens and the parties sort it out when it does. Open and honest communications from the very start are critically important.
Once a sit is in progress, life happening does NOT include matters of convenience for one party at the expense of the other. The stress, expense and inconvenience of a disrupted sit should be a shared burden strictly born of necessity.
If a host knows that the circumstances of their travel include ambiguous dates, disclose the ambiguity to any sitters responding to your published sit dates. Sitters and hosts can be incredibly accommodating when forewarned.
As to your question whether a sitter could refuse to leave, that will depend on local tenancy laws and the brass of the sitter. Almost certainly not is going to be the safe answer 99.999% of the time. This forum is where members often turn up when sits go bad. I can’t recall any accounts of sitters refusing to vacate.
Treat others as you would like to be treated seems to be going out of fashion. It is good to consider all possible scenarios. I have read extensively on the forum and have not seen one incidence of sitters refusing to leave. Have seen plenty of hosts coming back early or cancelling then sitters scrambling. Also sitters cancelling and hosts scrambling. Back up plans are necessary but often overlooked.
@Cris1, we’d agree with @SeniorSitter1.
We’d encourage same mindset as sit cancellations - emergency only. Emergencies happen in life. Hope that you’re ok. If pet parent faces an emergency and needs to return home early then that’s unfortunate but understandable.
As others have noted, housesitter has no legal right to continue to stay in your property.
Beyond that, it’s a question of your personal values and extent of likely impact (financial, logistics, …) that you arriving home early would cause to the housesitter? This may be impacted on housesitter situation - do they live locally? housesit full-time? travel a long distance?
Perhaps options impacted by your own situation - do you have local friends/family to stay with until end of scheduled housesit?
And perhaps the extent to which you care about the housesitter relationship; any potentially challenging THS review; and any impact on ability to attract housesitters in the future.
Note: Once a sit starts, both parties can review each other. (As opposed to a sit being canceled before it begins.) So if you cut short a trip, you can expect that the sitter will probably mention it. If so, other sitters might avoid your sit in the future unless the sitter says it was a legit emergency. (They can say what they want, even if you disagree with them.)