Planning your holiday home and pet care is always critical before you go away. Before you leave ensure your home and pets are in the safe hands of a trusted house sitter.  This is especially important when you leave to travel for long periods of time. So, what do you need to do to prepare? Our latest blog provides some top, practical tips and general house sitting guidelines.

Before leaving – Planning your holiday home and pet care

Whether you are leaving home for a short holiday or a long world tour, it is always best to plan ahead.

Part of your essential plan is how you are going to care for your home and pets.

Keeping them safe and secure at home is vital to your peace of mind while you are away.

Finding good and trusted home and pet sitters is helped by joining a pet and house sitting website.

Housesitting

There are professionally run websites that can help to match you to sitters, like Housesitmatch.com.

You join as a member paying a small annual fee for checking and management of the site.

Then you post an advert to find a suitable house and pet sitter.

If you are absent from home for a long period of more than four weeks, home insurance companies are usually concerned.

Making sure your house insurance is valid

I spent last weekend mapping out my work and holiday travel plans. By doing this just for the first six months of the year and realise I am going to be away quite a lot.

So I will need a house-sitter to come and look after my dog.

However, ensuring that Cleo is happy in her own environment by having a live in pet sitter saves on kennelling fees.

Yet this is not the only reason a house-sitter comes in very handy.

Home Insurance companies like having homes occupied for the reasons they outline below:

• Aviva – Director of Policy
  “Most home insurance policies become invalid after a period of 30 days of in-occupancy. A house-sitter resident during an extended absence will validate the insurance policy.”
• Churchill – Marketing Director
  “Always inform the insurance provider of your house-sitting plans. This is especially recommended if your absence from home is planned for longer than four weeks. It is important to keep your insurer fully updated of your plans to ensure your policy fully covers you in your absence”.
• Hiscox – Director of Claims
  “We have many clients who take extended absences from their homes especially during holiday seasons. It is always preferable that a property is occupied if at all possible. If the owner is away for an extended period it is recommended that the insurance company is kept aware of all the plans and details for security of the property.”

Planning your holiday home and pet care

Trusteed house sitting

If you are planning your holiday home and pet care then consider organising a housesitting arrangement. There are several ways to do this. Start with a plan to meet the housesitter and introduce them to your pets.

Find a house sitter

The first step when planning your holiday home and pet care is to find a housesitter. Join a housesitting and petsitting website. There are several trusted professional housesitting networks that help you organise such arrangements.

House and pet sitter meet and greet

Part of planning your holiday home and pet care is meeting the sitter. Then introducing the pets to the sitter, and ideally walking the dogs so that both sitter and pets get to know each other.  Sometimes if there isn’t an opportunity to meet before the house sit assignment starts, you can invite the sitter to arrive a day or two early.

That way they can experience a full 24 hour routine cycle in your presence.

House sitting agreement

A house sitting agreement should always be part of planning your holiday home and pet care. Make sure you have prepared some housesitting guidelines for the sitter ahead of time so you can help them prepare also. Brief them on the regular pet and home duties and routines.

This is best done by documenting them and sharing them with the sitter ahead of the housesit so that both sides have an opportunity to ask for clarification.

Planning your holiday home and pet care – Get a live in house sitter!

Plan to have a live in housesitter because of your home insurance. Making sure your house insurance is not invalidated by leaving your home empty while you are away is critical. Consider having a checked live in house-sitter look after your pets, home and garden in your absence. That way the insurance company will be satisfied that you have taken ever precaution.

To Register as a House-Sitter yourself for housesitting and pet sitting follow this link HOUSE-SITTER REGISTRATION

To Register as a Homeowner yourself follow this link HOMEOWNER REGISTRATION

We hope you found these few house sitting guidelines useful! The are just a starting point and by no means an exhaustive list. Be sure to do your homework before travelling. Ensure that everything is prepared for your departure and your house sitter is briefed and settled.

Trusted housesitting

More questions about House Sitting and Pet sitting? Perhaps some of our most popular FAQs pages could prove useful:

What is pet sitting?

How to advertise pet sitting

FURTHER READING ON PET CARE

How to prepare for a trip away and any eventuality

4 Pet care tips for when you are away

What to do if your pet is stolen