Terms of service

What YouAndHost is

A place to book a stay directly with the host. Hosts list their properties, set their own prices and rules, and keep the relationship with their guests. We provide the software, take the payment, hold it until check-in, and pay the host. An assistant answers guests using what the host has told it about the property.

Your account

• You must be 18 or over, and the details you give us must be true.
• We email you a link to activate a new account. Until you click it, the account does nothing.
• We ask you to confirm a phone number before your first booking, and before a listing goes live.
• Keep your password to yourself. Tell us if you think someone else has been in your account.
• One person, one account. Do not create an account for someone else without their say-so.

If you host

• You must have the right to rent the property out, and you must follow the local rules about doing so, including any permit, tax or lease conditions.
• A listing goes live only after we have confirmed who you are and that you control the property. We may ask for documents, and we may refuse or pause a listing.
• Your listing must describe the place accurately, and your photos must be of that place.
• Keep your calendar honest. If you cancel a confirmed stay, the guest is refunded from the money we are holding, and repeated cancellations can cost you your listing.
• You decide your prices, fees, house rules and cancellation policy, and you are responsible for the taxes on what you earn.

If you book

• A booking is an agreement between you and the host, on the host’s terms and cancellation policy, which are shown before you pay.
• Pay through the site. Anyone asking you to pay another way is doing something wrong, and you should tell us.
• Treat the place and the neighbours well, follow the house rules, and leave when the booking ends.
• You are responsible for damage you cause beyond ordinary wear.

Money

• Guests pay a service fee on top of the host’s price. It is shown as its own line before you pay. On the listings of a founding host, one who published a listing before December 31, 2027, the fee is the introductory rate until that date, on every booking whatever brought the guest; then the standard rate.
• Hosts pay the cost of processing the payment and a small platform percentage, taken out of the payout.
• We hold the guest’s payment and send the host their share the day after check-in.
• Refunds follow the cancellation policy on the listing, and come out of the money we are holding.

Damage

• A guest is responsible for damage they cause beyond ordinary wear. There is no security deposit; a host who finds damage opens a claim on the stay, from check-in until fourteen days after checkout, with the amount, a description and photos.
• A claim is a request for money between the host and the guest. The guest pays it on the pay page or declines it. YouAndHost shows both sides the same record, the claim, the photos, the checkout walkthrough and the cleaning photos, and takes no side and makes no judgment on it.
• A claim the guest does not pay is for the host and the guest to settle between themselves, in small claims court if it comes to that, and the record here is the host’s to use.
• Thirty days after checkout a claim closes by itself and its photos are removed, unless the host or the guest asked to keep it open, in which case it stays open until both let go. What remains is the amount, the words and the outcome.

Paid plans for hosts

Everything needed to take a booking is free. Premium and Management are optional paid products a host adds listing by listing on the Plan page. These are the rules the host agrees to at checkout, by ticking a box whose exact words are emailed to the host and to us:

• Premium earned by your bookings is judged on the last twelve months. If they fall below the bar, nothing changes on your listings: Premium continues as a paid product at the listed price from a date we give you at least fourteen days ahead, charged to the bank account or card you saved, unless you choose Basic on the Plan page before that date.
• A product YouAndHost puts on a listing free for a time, such as the first hundred hosts’ six free months of Premium on the first listing, is for that listing only and continues at the listing’s price when the free period ends unless you remove it first; we remind you two weeks before, and nothing is charged without a saved bank account or card.
• The price is per listing per month, by how many listings the host already pays for, as shown on the Plan page at checkout. Paying for a year costs ten months.
• The first charge is made at checkout to the card or bank account the host saves, for the month or year ahead. Every host has their own billing cycle, anchored on the day of the first charge. A listing added during a paid period is charged for the rest of that period, pro rata, and then renews with the rest.
• Renewals are charged automatically on the same day of each month, or at the end of a paid year, to the saved payment method, at the per-listing prices current on that day. Prices can change; a change applies from the next renewal and is shown on the Plan page before then.
• We email the host the renewal amount two weeks before each renewal, and point out a card that expires first.
• A paid year never renews as another year by itself. When it ends, billing continues by the month unless the host chooses a year again.
• The host can remove any product from the Plan page at any time. It runs to the end of the paid period and is not renewed. There are no refunds for the rest of a paid period.
• If a renewal cannot be charged, we try again each night and tell the host. If it is not paid within ten days, the paid products end and the host is on the free plan. Nothing is unpublished.

The assistant

The assistant answers guests from what the host has given it, and it can take certain actions when the host has allowed them. It is software, and it can be wrong. The host remains responsible for their listing, their guests and anything the assistant does on their behalf. Hosts can have it draft replies for approval instead of sending them.

What you must not do

• List a property you have no right to rent, or a property that does not exist.
• Move a booking off the site to avoid fees, or ask anyone to pay outside it.
• Use someone else’s identity, payment method or photographs.
• Harass anyone, write a review you did not earn, or scrape the site. A review that insults or threatens someone, publishes private information, is not about the stay, or was traded for something is taken down with the reason recorded; the rules are at youandhost.com/guide/reviews.
• Try to break, overload or get around the security of the service.

YouAndHost SMS customer care

This section is the terms of our text message program. It applies in addition to the rest of these terms. Program name: YouAndHost SMS customer care. Sender: YouAndHost LLC, youandhost.com.

If you separately opt in, YouAndHost sends customer-care text messages about your bookings and stays, including answers to your questions, replies to booking-related requests such as a late check-out, and conversation follow-ups. This program does not send marketing or promotional messages. It does not carry advertising, affiliate marketing or third-party lead generation.

• Who the messages are from: YouAndHost, on behalf of the host whose stay you asked about. Hosts do not run their own text message programs through YouAndHost, and we do not give hosts your number or your agreement to texts.
• Examples: “YouAndHost: Hi Ava, thanks for asking about Fairway Cabin. Check-in is from 4 pm. Reply here with anything else. Reply STOP to opt out.” and “YouAndHost: Hi Ava, the host has answered your request for a late checkout on Sunday: approved until 1 pm. Reply STOP to opt out.”
• How you opt in: on the sign-up form at youandhost.com/signup?method=phone, tick the separate, optional box that agrees to customer-care texts. The box is unticked until you tick it, and it is not part of accepting these terms. You also need to confirm your mobile number with a code.
• Verification codes are separate: tapping “Text me a code” sends one text with a code so we can confirm the number is yours. Asking for or entering that code does not sign you up for customer-care texts. Without the ticked box, the code is the only text you get from us.
• Message frequency varies based on your bookings and conversations.
• Cost: we do not charge for texts. Message and data rates from your mobile carrier may apply.
• To opt out: reply STOP to any text. You will get one text confirming it, and no more customer-care texts after that. Reply START to opt back in. You can also contact us and ask us to stop.
• For help: reply HELP to any text, or contact us.
• SMS consent is optional and is not a condition of purchase. You can book, host and use YouAndHost with email and without agreeing to texts.
• Supported use: messages go only to mobile numbers in the United States and Canada that belong to the account holder who opted in. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
• Your mobile number and your agreement to texts are never shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes, and they are not passed to hosts or other businesses.

For how we handle mobile information and messaging consent, see the privacy policy. Questions about texts: contact us.

Suspension

We can pause or close an account, and take a listing down, when these rules are broken, when a verification fails, or when we have good reason to think someone is being defrauded. Where we can, we tell you why and what to do about it. Money owed to you for stays that already happened is still yours.

What we promise, and what we do not

We run the service with care, but we do not own the properties and we are not the host. We do not guarantee a listing is as described, that a stay will be available, or that the site will always be up. Nothing here takes away rights you have under the law where you live.

Closing your account

You can leave at any time once you have no upcoming stays and no live listings. The steps are on the delete your data page, and what happens to your information is in the privacy page.

Changes and contact

If these terms change we will update the date at the top, and tell you by email when the change matters to you. Questions: contact us.