Legal Agreement and Time Sharing Models for Serial Houseshares?

April 8, 2022 3:38 PM

I would like to rent a flat in Italy for at least one year, probably more. This flat would be shared among 6 people, each of whom would be entitled to 8/9 weeks of flat time over the course of the year. This used to be quite a common arrangement but I can't find relevant sample agreements or relevant advice or even narratives.

So when I was wee, it would be common to take a quarter-share in a summer beach house, entitling you to one of four bedrooms. It was also common for the share taker to split that share, so it was a shared quarter share. The two parties would alternate weeks, and one would get Labour Day Weekend and the other would get Memorial Day Weekend. Simple.

I want to re-create this arrangement with a rented flat in Italy, shared between six people, each of whom would get 8 or 9 weeks of use of the flat. Can anyone point me to:

1/ Any type of sample agreement that could be tailored to this
2/ Any kind of examples of how weeks would be equitably distributed

I mean, this must still be common with family lake houses or whatever, I don't want to re-invent the wheel.

(And yes, I'm aware we will probably need to form a company or something and I'm aware terrible things could happen and that the sky could fall and dingos will probably eat everyone's babies, but that's not the part I want to focus on in this pondering stage.)

posted by DarlingBri to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

Response by poster: PS: This is a one-bedroom flat, hence the "serial" ie successive sharing; parties would not be concurrently occupying the apartment.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:39 PM on April 8, 2022

Are you willing to have one person be responsible for the whole thing, subleasing to everyone else, or do you need a series of equal leases adding up to a whole season?
posted by clew at 3:47 PM on April 8, 2022

I follow some expats-in-Italy groups on Facebook and from what I can tell, real estate rentals are very different there from what I'm used to elsewhere... unless we have enough folks here who can share recent Italian experience, you might want to take the question to one of those groups.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:11 PM on April 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Realistically, I think this kind of agreement is usually not highly formal because it is usually arranged between people with a reasonable baseline of mutual trust. In that case, a written agreement is a good idea, but it might not make sense to worry too much about the finer legal details. You can find sample documents online for cabin sharing agreements, which are similar in nature and might be a good starting point. The obvious difference here is the rental aspect. Unless you can convince a landlord to rent to six people together, someone might have to be the renter on paper.

To distribute equally: Decide what a reasonable maximum booking period is (maybe two weeks). Randomize the order of sharers. Whoever is on top of the list gets to pick their two weeks (or less), then the next person picks, etc. Once you get to the bottom of the list, return to the first person and start another round until there is no more space on the schedule or no one wants to pick any more. You can also limit people to a certain number of total bookings or total days if some people want to maintain flexibility for bookings later in the year.

You may need to set rules about bookings (like they all must start and end on a specific day of the week) to avoid a mess, but that depends on how busy the schedule is and how flexible people are. You can also do bookings quarterly if people aren't ready to plan a year ahead. You should also clarify when last minute bookings are allowed, who gets first dibs on cancellations and similar details.
posted by ssg at 4:24 PM on April 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Are you willing to have one person be responsible for the whole thing, subleasing to everyone else, or do you need a series of equal leases adding up to a whole season?

I will probably form a company and the company will rent the flat, pay rent and bills and collect monthly payments from the other 5 parties.

I follow some expats-in-Italy groups on Facebook and from what I can tell, real estate rentals are very different there from what I'm used to elsewhere

I think lease duration and furnished vs unfurnished is different but in the whole, it doesn't seem sharply different than rentals in other European cities. I will browse some Facebook groups, thank you!
posted by DarlingBri at 5:39 AM on April 9, 2022

I see how a company would protect you, but I don’t see why anyone in Italy would rent to a foreign company, especially a new one. Wouldn’t they specifically want the personal responsibility that you’re trying to avoid? I’ve found Italy to be surprisingly conservative in many ways compared to other European countries and can’t see this being especially workable.
posted by asimplemouse at 11:44 AM on April 9, 2022