Offering a home here.

bayn is built around homes people actually live in. It is not a channel for a rental business, and you may not use it to run one.

• No portfolios of rental properties.
• No dedicated holiday accommodation.
• No property management businesses.
• Nothing operated mainly as short stay visitor accommodation, whatever it is called.

If you are not sure which side of that line you are on, write to us before you list rather than after.

• A sublet. You pass on the home or the room you normally live in, for a period while you are away.
• A room. You let a room in the home you live in, and you are there while someone stays in it.
• A swap. Two members exchange the use of their homes, usually for the same period.
• A hosted stay. You offer a room, a sofa or another decent place to sleep and charge nothing for the accommodation itself.

A stay described as free has to be free. Members may agree in advance to share real out-of-pocket costs, but a free stay must not be rent or work under another name.

You may only list a home you have the right to offer. Depending on where you live, that can mean permission from a landlord, an owner, a housing association, a co-tenant or housemate, a building or condominium, or a mortgage lender.

You are responsible for the registration, tax, tenancy, planning and licensing rules that apply where the home is. Some cities require a registration or licence number for stays of certain kinds or lengths, and the European rules on short term rentals can require a platform in their scope to collect and show that number and to pass activity data to the authorities. bayn may ask you for yours, and may pause a listing until you provide it.

This is the part of bayn that matters most, so it is a rule rather than a hope. If you are subletting a home you rent, the amount you ask should be the rent actually attributable to the space and the period you are offering, plus a fair share of the bills for that period.

• No bidding, and no raising a price because somebody is in a hurry.
• Someone’s urgency, their foreign salary or their lack of other options is not a reason to charge more.
• No fees that only appear once the dates are agreed.
• Where local law caps what a sublet may cost, local law wins.

For a home you own, what you ask has to be reasonable, openly explained and consistent with how bayn works. We may ask how a price was arrived at, and we may introduce further pricing rules if we need to.

Any deposit must be stated before anything is agreed: the amount, what it is for, when it comes back, and what could be deducted from it.

Describe the home honestly, and include whatever someone needs in order to decide whether the arrangement suits them. Where it applies, that means:

• the dates, and the approximate area before anything is agreed;
• the total price, any deposit, and how bills are handled;
• whether the home or the room is shared, and who else lives there;
• accessibility, stairs, and anything about getting in and out;
• pets, smoking, and the house rules that actually matter;
• any camera or security device, and where it is;
• anything else that would materially change the stay.

Never put a camera or a recording device in a bedroom, a bathroom, or anywhere else someone sleeps or changes. There is no version of this that is acceptable.

A match, a message, a reference, a stay note or an introduction never obliges anyone to stay, to host, or to keep talking. Either person can stop at any point, and nobody has to explain why.

Accommodation may never be offered or withheld in exchange for:

• sex or intimacy of any kind;
• romantic attention;
• personal company;
• work that was not agreed and paid for beforehand;
• any other condition that was not disclosed in the listing.

An account used this way is removed, and we will say so plainly to anyone it was done to. See reporting and moderation.

Once two members have agreed something, both should follow through. If your circumstances change, say so straight away rather than letting the dates arrive.

Agree any cancellation terms before money changes hands. bayn may offer standard wording for this later, but we are not the party who reimburses a member-to-member payment.

You never have to accept a stay. But a home may not be refused, or a guest treated differently, because of nationality, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or any other protected characteristic. That is both our commitments and the law.

bayn does not accept accommodation listings located in Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. A listing we reasonably believe to be in one may be paused while we check the location, and removed if the rule applies.

This is a rule about where a home is, not about who a member is. It applies to a location regardless of the nationality, religion or politics of the person listing it.

bayn does not process rent, deposits or any other payment between members, and does not hold anybody’s money. Members arrange payment directly, and bayn is not an escrow service and offers no payment protection.

So: do not send money to someone you are not satisfied is real. Meet them, see the place, and take your time. We investigate reported scams and will restrict accounts, but we cannot get your money back.

Membership is the only thing bayn ever charges for, from €6 a month — see the membership terms.