It’s an easy thing to believe until something goes wrong: the dog gets out, a camera nobody mentioned turns out to be on, or a vet bill arrives and neither of you knows who’s paying.
The housesitting industry runs on trust — which works beautifully right up until it doesn’t. Finding someone is one job. Agreeing what happens once you’re both committed is another.
The result: a lot of sits run on a handshake. And handshake deals fall apart the moment both parties remember things differently.
What actually causes disputes
The eight questions cover the things that most need agreeing: updates, cameras, visitors, meeting first, food, getting there, the vet, and the last morning. Often, disputes aren’t caused by bad behaviour. They’re caused by gaps — things both parties assumed the other understood.
Five areas worth settling first:
Veterinary authority & spending limits
The dog needs an emergency vet visit. The sitter doesn’t know the spending limit, the homeowner is on a flight, and the vet will give first aid but wants the owner’s say for anything more. Three hours pass. The dog is in pain. Without a written protocol — who can authorise, up to what amount, after how long without a response — this becomes a crisis with no good options.
Indoor cameras & surveillance consent
Finding a camera nobody mentioned can feel like being tested. It’s one of the easiest things to settle before anyone agrees.
Cleaning expectations
An easy place for resentment to start after a sit. “Clean” means different things to different people — and it’s often not discussed.
Cancellation terms
Sitter cancels 48 hours before. Was there a good reason? Who covers last-minute kennels? Nobody agreed.
Undisclosed pets and tasks
The agreement covered one dog. The sitter arrived to one dog, two cats, and a fish tank nobody mentioned. No vet authority or care instructions for the undisclosed animals.
Every one of these disputes has the same root cause: assumptions that were never made explicit. Not malice. Not incompetence. Just two reasonable people who each thought the other understood.
Why PDF templates don’t solve this
Search for “housesitting agreement template” and you’ll find PDF downloads, cheap downloadable templates, and legal template sites that target pet sitting contracts (different thing).
The trouble with many templates: they’re written from one side. The homeowner fills it in, the sitter signs it. That’s not an agreement — it’s a set of instructions with a signature at the bottom.
A template also can’t adapt. A three-month sit in a rural French farmhouse with four dogs and a pool has nothing in common with a weekend in a London flat with a cat. The vet spending authority for a geriatric Labrador is a different conversation from a goldfish. Static documents treat every arrangement the same.
And a template isn’t negotiated. A good agreement sets out where you both stand, shows where you differ, and settles those differences before anyone commits.
How the agreement takes shape
On Reputable Sitters you don’t start from a template. You start with eight questions that tend to cause trouble: keeping in touch, cameras indoors, someone dropping by, meeting first, food for the stay, getting there, the urgent vet decision and the last morning.
Answer them from your side, homeowner or sitter, and the agreement writes itself from your answers. Then you send it to the other person, who answers from theirs.
Each line either meets or shows the gap between you, so you find a difference on screen rather than mid-sit. Either of you can move, and nothing binds until you both sign.
What can come as a surprise is that the biggest value isn’t protection — it’s education. The process of answering the questions makes you articulate things you’ve never consciously thought about: how you really feel about cameras, what “clean” means to you, how much authority you’d want over someone else’s pet in an emergency.
How you actually negotiate
You each answer the same questions from your own side. Where your answers meet, the line is agreed. Where they don’t, you both see the gap, and either of you can change your answer. You sign once every line meets.
Full guide to the negotiation process →
While you’re both answering, each line shows whether you meet. Before signing, you both read the whole agreement in plain words. Once it’s signed, either of you can download it, and your own record of changes with the signatures.
What happens when something goes wrong
A signed agreement isn’t just a document. It’s the foundation for everything that follows if there’s a dispute.
It starts with the signed agreement itself. It’s fingerprinted and timestamped when you both sign, so neither of you can later claim it said something different. If something does go wrong, this is the order things go in:
Read what you agreed
Open the signed agreement and find what it says about this. When you disagree, the words you both signed are the place to start.
Talk it through
Talk to each other, using the agreement as the shared record of what you both expected.
If you still can’t agree
We don’t decide who’s right, and we don’t hold or split money. Either of you can take it further, including to court, and the agreement you both signed is the record of what you agreed.
Your copy of the record
You each get a copy of the signed agreement, and the record of how it was made stays with it: each answer, each change, each signature, with the time.
Photos at arrival are a good instinct. An agreement takes it further: you agree the standard for leaving before the sit, and the photos show it was met. Then there’s much less to argue about.