The platform problem
You've completed 30, 50, maybe 100 housesits. Most generated a review. Each review represents trust earned – a homeowner who let you into their home, cared for their pets, and vouched for your reliability.
But here's the catch: all those reviews live on someone else's platform. If you or any of your past hosts who left a review for you leaves, you lose those well-earned reviews and contacts. If the platform changes its rules or pricing, you're stuck choosing between your reputation and your principles.
Sound familiar? In housesitting communities, sitters constantly ask: “How do I transfer my reviews if I leave?” The current workarounds are clunky – copying text into PDFs, posting screenshots on personal blogs, hoping homeowners will vouch for you on a new platform.
You have rights to your data
If you've used a housesitting platform based in the UK or EU – like TrustedHousesitters (UK), HouseSitMatch (UK) or Nomador (France) – you have legal rights under GDPR to request an export of your personal data. This includes your reviews, sit history, and profile information.
What you can request
- All reviews written about you
- Your complete sit history
- Profile information
- Account activity data
This applies to you if
- You use a UK or EU-based platform
- Regardless of where you live
- Even if you're from the US, Australia, anywhere
- GDPR applies to the platform, not the user's location
This isn't a loophole or a hack. It's your legal right. The data is about you, and you're entitled to a copy of it.
How to request your data
How we use this data
Let's be clear about something: Reputable Sitters is also a platform – a directory, specifically. We're not pretending otherwise. The difference is in how we approach your reputation.
We can't republish your reviews
Here's an important legal reality: the text of each review belongs to the person who wrote it. We legally cannot copy and republish those reviews on our site – that would be copyright infringement. The same applies to any platform or directory.
So what do we do instead? When you share your data export with us:
We verify and compile your experience
- We analyse your data export to extract verifiable facts: total sits, review count, countries visited, pet types cared for, longest sits, patterns of experience
- We identify themes from your reviews (what homeowners consistently praise) without quoting the reviews themselves
- We compile this into a verified profile section – statistics and credentials that we've confirmed from source data
- You review everything we've compiled and confirm it's accurate
- You then answer personalised questions based on your unique experience – this becomes your voice on the profile
- We link to your original platform profiles so homeowners can see your ongoing reviews there - if you still hold the account
The result is a profile with three distinct parts:
1. The verified section
Compiled by us from your data export. Facts and statistics we can confirm:
“52 sits since 2019 • 52 verified reviews • Longest sit: 87 days (Dordogne, France) • 14 countries • Zero cancellations”
2. Experience-based questions
Your answers to questions we generate based on your unique experience:
“Q: You completed an 87-day sit in rural France. What did you learn about longer stays?” – then your own words in response.
3. Your custom content
Space for anything else you want homeowners to know – your photos, your approach, what you're looking for, what matters to you:
Your housesitting philosophy, ideal sit types, travel plans, personal touches that help homeowners see who you really are.
Your voice, your way
The experience-based questions are a starting point – not a constraint. And the custom content section is entirely yours: things you want homeowners to know that our questions didn't cover, your approach to housesitting, what matters to you, what you're looking for.
Sections 2 and 3 aren't “verified” in the same way as section 1 – they're not compiled from data. But they're no less valid. It's your profile, and your voice should come through in whatever way feels right to you. We provide the framework; you fill it with what matters.
Why this matters
Housesitting platforms are evolving. Pricing changes, new fees, rule adjustments – it's the nature of any growing service. The recent TrustedHousesitters booking fee introduction is just one example. Some sitters welcome changes; others feel pushed out.
Regardless of how you feel about any particular platform, one thing is clear: the reputation you've built is yours. You earned those reviews through actual work – showing up, caring for pets, maintaining homes, being reliable.
Our approach creates a verified “professional calling card” that exists independently. We don't replace your original platform profile – we complement it. We verify your experience at a point in time, and link back to where homeowners can see your ongoing reviews.
Your reputation should work for you
Not as leverage to keep you locked into a platform, but as proof of your experience that opens new opportunities – like the ability to offer your services directly, with verified credentials that homeowners can trust.
Independent but findable
Our goal is simple: empower experienced housesitters to work independently, while making them discoverable through a directory where your reputation lives independently.
That means tackling the real barriers to going independent – not just reputation, but practical concerns like insurance coverage.
What we're building
- Verified profiles that prove your experience to homeowners
- Direct contact – homeowners reach you without platform gatekeeping
- You set your own rates and terms
- Insurance options designed for housesitters (under investigation) – covering the gaps that platform 'protection' doesn't
- Resources to help you succeed as an independent professional
The insurance gap in housesitting is real – most platform “protection” isn't actually insurance, and leaves both sitters and homeowners exposed. We're exploring options to offer proper coverage as part of being listed – liability, travel, and the other things that give everyone peace of mind.
Help us build this
We don't have all the answers. But we know who does: experienced housesitters who've figured out what works.
If you've solved problems we haven't thought of – insurance arrangements that work, contract templates you've refined, approaches to the tricky bits of independent housesitting – we'd genuinely love to hear from you.
Shaped by the community
This directory isn't meant to be built top-down. The best insights come from people who've lived it – hundreds of sits, years on the road, problems solved through trial and error.
If you've got wisdom to share, solutions that have worked, or ideas for what would actually help experienced sitters thrive independently, get in touch. We're listening, and we want this to be shaped by the people it's meant to serve.
The bottom line
If you've spent years building your housesitting reputation, that track record shouldn't disappear if you decide to try something different. You have legal rights to your data – use them.
We can't republish your reviews (nobody can, legally - not even you!) But we can verify your experience, compile your statistics, and help you tell your story in a way that exists beyond any single platform.
That's what we offer: a verified profile you get to review and shape, the ability to reach homeowners directly, and – increasingly – the practical tools to work independently with confidence. Your reputation. Your terms. Your business.