How to Set Up a Shared Property Agreement for Your Vacation Home
A clear, written shared property agreement is the single best investment a co-ownership group can make. It turns the awkward conversations — who pays for the new roof, what happens when one owner wants out, who gets the Fourth of July week — into decisions everyone signed off on in advance. OurSharedPlace gives you a place to draft, store, and revisit your agreement so every co-owner can find the latest version when they need it.
This guide walks through the practical steps of setting up a shared vacation home agreement: what to cover, where to store it, and how to keep it visible to everyone in the group. For a deep dive on what every clause should include, see the companion blog article linked below.
Step-by-step
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Start from the template
Download our free shared vacation home agreement template from the blog post linked at the bottom of this guide. It covers ownership shares, usage schedules, expense splits, maintenance duties, voting rules, dispute resolution, and exit strategies — every section a typical co-ownership agreement should include.
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Customize the agreement to your group
Open the template in your word processor and adapt each section to your shared vacation property. Common decisions: how peak weeks are allocated (rotating, round-robin, lottery), how operating expenses are split (equal, by ownership share, by usage), and what happens if a co-owner wants to sell.
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Get every co-owner to sign
Send the draft to every co-owner for review. Collect signatures using e-signature software (DocuSign, HelloSign, or even a signed PDF). Save the final signed version as a single PDF.
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Store the signed agreement on your property blog
In OurSharedPlace, create a new blog post on your property titled 'Co-Ownership Agreement (signed)'. Upload the signed PDF, set visibility to Members only, and pin it to the top. Now every co-owner can find the latest version any time they need it — no hunting through email threads.
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Add the key rules to your house policies
Pull the most-referenced rules out of the agreement (booking quotas, peak-week order, guest policy, pet policy) and put them in a separate, easier-to-skim 'House Rules' blog post. Set this one to Guests visibility so visiting friends and family can see the rules too.
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Encode the booking rules in OurSharedPlace itself
Wherever the agreement maps to a feature, configure that feature so the rules enforce themselves: set per-member booking quotas, kick off the round-robin queue at the start of each season, and use maintenance blocks for any owner-only stretches. The agreement is the source of truth; the app makes the rules automatic.
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Schedule an annual review
Add a recurring calendar reminder for the group to revisit the agreement once a year. Co-ownership arrangements drift — someone's life changes, the property gets a major renovation, a new owner buys in. A short annual review is much easier than rewriting the whole thing under stress later.
Tips
- Draft the agreement before any money changes hands. The hardest conversations get easier when nobody has skin in the game yet.
- Cover exit scenarios specifically: right of first refusal, valuation method, payout schedule. This is the single most common gap in informal co-ownership arrangements.
- Have a real estate or family lawyer in your state review the final draft. Templates are a strong starting point but state law varies — especially for partition rights and LLC formation.
Frequently asked
Do we need a lawyer to draft this?
You don't strictly need one to start, but you should have one review the final draft before signing. Many co-ownership groups also form an LLC to hold the property — that's a step where legal advice is essential.
What happens if a co-owner wants out?
This is the most important section to get right. Typical approaches include a right of first refusal for the other owners, a defined valuation method (appraisal or formula), and a payout schedule. The blog post walks through the trade-offs.
Can the agreement be changed later?
Yes — most agreements include an amendment clause requiring a defined majority (often unanimous, sometimes a supermajority). Store every amended version on the property blog so the history is clear.
Read more on the blog
Shared Vacation Home Agreement Template: What Every Co-Ownership Agreement Should Include
Download a free co-ownership agreement template and read a section-by-section walkthrough of what every shared vacation home agreement should cover.
Read the full article