Vacation Rental Short Term Lease Agreement

Any person looking to rent out their home for the weekend or the summer or any person looking to rent a home for the weekend or the summer should consider a Vacation Lease Agreement.

Here are some possible owners and guests:

Short-term rental agreements can offer flexibility, but they also come with potential downsides. If you’re a landlord thinking about taking on temporary tenants, you can explore the pros and cons before deciding how you want to proceed.

Pros of Short-Term Rental Agreements

Short-term rental agreements lay out clear rules for guests to follow when renting for a couple of days or weeks. Check out some of the other benefits:

• Greater flexibility: Have guests leave once the specified departure date arrives, ensuring you can use your property how you’d like afterward.
• Higher rates: Write higher rental rates for each contract as seasonal demand increases.
• Less risk from bad tenants: If you unknowingly sign with a bad tenant, you can rest assured they’ll be gone in a few days or weeks.
• Property protection: Describe the furnishings so that you have legal recourse if tenants damage or steal your property.

Potential Cons of Short-Term Rental Agreements

Before proceeding with a short-term rental agreement, you should also weigh the potential risks:

• Management work: With a rotating cast of guests, you may have more management work to handle guest communications, check-ins, and upkeep.
• Unpredictable income: It may be challenging to fill vacancies during seasons with low short-term rental demand.
• Potential for property damage: Short-term guests may not treat the property like long-term tenants.

Our short-term rental agreement template helps you overcome these challenges. It outlines guest responsibilities, builds trust with potential guests, and includes damage protection terms.

Creating a short-term lease agreement can help you establish arrangements with guests and increase your rental business’s efficiency. Follow these steps to write a legally sound contract.

1. Identify Yourself as the Host

Your short-term rental agreement should clearly identify you as the property’s host. Local laws may impose certain residency requirements or make short-term rentals through parties other than the owner illegal, so keep that in mind when drafting your contract.

2. Describe the Rental Property

Describe the rental property in your contract to clarify what the tenant will receive. Include the property’s address and describe the type of property, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and similar features.

When you use our template, you can list the amenities that come with the rental by selecting pre-written options or writing your own. We also cover details to limit liability, including a disclaimer about the dangers of hot tub use and a disclosure about lead-based paint (if applicable to your property).

3. Name the Tenants

A short-term tenancy agreement needs to specify who the tenants are. List all children and adults who will be staying at the property by name. Mention occupancy limits as appropriate, ensuring that the limits you set comply with your local laws.

Include a visitor policy regarding additional guests and, if so, whether there are any conditions for guest visits. For example, a six-month short-term lease might allow visitors but set a one-week limit for guests to stay before their presence becomes a lease-violating subtenancy.

4. Define the Rental’s Duration

Your contract should clearly define how long your guests will be staying, preferably with specific calendar dates for check-in and check-out. Check local laws before renting your property to see how long a short-term lease can run without becoming a traditional lease. Include check-in procedures and access codes so that guests can arrive and leave on time.

Our template lets you easily enter check-in and check-out dates with a drop-down calendar. Plus, you can clarify whether there’s a minimum number of nights stay required if you want to reduce vacancies and increase your revenue potential.

5. Outline Rental Rules

You can customize a short-term rental agreement per property or per tenant to meet your needs as a landlord. An appropriate agreement outlines your rules for guests to follow. These can include:

• smoking
• amenities usage
• pets
• quiet hours
• garbage disposal
• bed sheet cleaning
• guest maintenance responsibilities

If your local area has regulations such as noise ordinances or HOA rules, alert your guests about these as well.

6. Detail the Rent Amount & Deposits

Spell out exactly how much money the tenant will owe in the contract. This includes a reservation deposit, the total rent amount, and any security deposit. Security deposits aren’t always necessary for short-term stays, especially on platforms like Airbnb. The total rent amount includes both base rent per night and any cleaning fees.

When you use our template, you can record each cost in a separate field and add them all up to communicate the total payment the guest owes.

7. Clarify the Cancellation Policy

A cancellation policy specifies how long a guest has to cancel a reservation and receive a refund on their deposit. Some hosts allow full refunds until a certain date, while others offer partial refunds. Decide what makes sense for your situation, and use our template to record the cancellation and refund details.

8. List the Furnishings

Short-term vacation rentals are generally fully furnished. Inspect the rental property thoroughly to list all furnishings and their condition in your rental agreement. This section is more detailed than the property description and clearly establishes exact details about your items.

Protect your property by filling out our template, which helps you get the wording just right. We give guidelines for guests to follow if they break any items and help you communicate that they may not remove any furnishings.

9. Explain the Parking Situation

Parking at a rental property can be a mess for tenants and landlords alike. Using our template, you can outline the number of spots available, restrictions on where guests can park, and which local parking laws apply to the property.

10. Address Acts of God

A vacation rental agreement must address what happens if sudden severe weather prevents the guest from staying at the property. Some hosts offer guests a prorated refund for the nights they can’t stay; some hosts don’t allow refunds at all. Consider the impact of the weather on the client when determining fair terms.

A Short-Term Rental Agreement can help you avoid becoming an aggrieved owner or guest. The agreement allows you to anticipate issues and resolve them before they become problems. It can also protect both owners and guests from unexpected behaviors or circumstances.

Here are some issues that Short-Term Rental Agreement could prevent: