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Haven lets you require a digital rental agreement that guests sign at booking — at checkout, before they can pay or send a request to book — or any time before check-in. It is your choice per listing. Unlike House Rules — which are the friendly summary of what is allowed in the home — the Rental Agreement is the legal artifact: we snapshot the markdown to a PDF, capture the signer's name, IP address, browser, and timestamp, and store the signed PDF for your records.
Turn it on when you want a paper trail beyond the OTA's terms. Common scenarios:
Open Settings → Trust & Safety → Rental agreements in the host sidebar (or /host?tab=trust&trustSub=agreements). The older /host?tab=rental-agreements link still lands on the same pill.
From there you’ll use up to four inner areas:
You can deep-link straight to a sub-panel with raSub=library, pending, signed, or settings on the same URL (for example /host?tab=trust&trustSub=agreements&raSub=library).
There is no Rental agreement item in Edit Listing. Agreement text is edited from Property settings → Manage agreement, or in Library. On Edit Listing → Arrival → Check-in & tasks, the row is Sign the rental agreement. When do guests sign? under that list is the same choice as Sign at booking, also shown in Guest verification and in Library → Signing. It is not a second menu for signing before payment.
The quickest way to set it: Settings → Trust & Safety → Rental agreements → Property settings. Every listing with an agreement attached has a Sign at booking switch on its row — on means right after booking, off means before check-in. Opening the row (Manage agreement) shows the same choice as When do guests sign? at the top of the dialog. Flipping either one also turns on the signature requirement for that listing.
At the top of Property settings is an All listings card with a Sign at booking row. It works like the account-wide rows under Guest verification:
While the row is All on or All off, each listing's Sign at booking switch shows the account choice, locked; hover it to see where it is set. Nothing is written onto the listings, so switching back to Set individually brings back exactly what each listing had. A listing with no agreement attached has nothing to sign either way.
You can also set it from the agreement itself: open a template in Rental agreements → Library, and the Signing section under the agreement text shows When do guests sign? and an OTA bookings switch, Also require the rental agreement on OTA bookings. Both apply to every listing that template is attached to. When those listings are set differently, neither timing option is selected and a choice sets them all. A template not attached to any listing yet has nothing to set here. While the account-wide Sign at booking row is All on or All off, the timing choice here is locked to it.
The same When do guests sign? choice appears under Require a signed rental agreement in Settings → Trust & Safety → Guest verification, on the multi-unit site's Guest verification settings (the default for its listings), under the task list on Edit Listing → Arrival → Check-in & tasks (the row there is Sign the rental agreement), and in Library → Signing. It is the same choice as Sign at booking, not a second menu for signing before payment.
A guest who requests to book signs the same way, before the request is sent. They save a card with the request and your approval charges it, so there is no later payment step to sign at:
Signing locks the cancellation policy. The signed copy states the policy the guest read, so once a reservation is signed its cancellation policy can no longer be changed — not from the reservation's Cancellation policy button, and not by changing the policy on the listing. To offer different terms, decline the reservation and use Send a new offer; the guest signs again when they accept. See Cancellation Policies.
A guest who only sends an inquiry is not committing to anything, so they see a preview and sign when they come back to pay after you pre-approve.
A booking confirmed without going through checkout — one you add by hand and mark as paid elsewhere, for example — is asked to sign right away instead: the confirmation email lists Complete your booking — sign your rental agreement, the guest is reminded 1 and 3 days later, and you get an email on day 3. The reservation drawer shows Not yet signed · due right after booking until it is done.
Airbnb, Vrbo, and other OTA or PMS bookings have no Haven checkout, so they always sign before check-in.
Write the agreement once and let every booking fill in its own guest, dates, and terms. A merge field is a placeholder that Haven replaces with the real value when the guest reads and signs.
In the editor a merge field shows as a small labeled pill, such as Guest full name or Check-in date, the same way it does in the email editor.
To add one
/ on a new line or after a space. The menu lists every merge field,
plus forms, headings, lists, and dividers. Keep typing to search, then
press Enter.To change one, click the small arrow on the pill. You can swap it for another field, set If it's missing, show (text the guest reads when that booking has no value), or remove it.
| Group | Merge fields |
|---|---|
| Guest | Guest full name, first name, email, phone, number of guests, adults, children, infants, pets |
| Stay | Check-in date and time, check-out date and time, number of nights, stay dates |
| Booking | Booking source, cancellation policy, payment schedule, security deposit, date booked, confirmation code, date signed |
| Property | Property name, property location (city and state), maximum occupancy, pet policy, events policy, smoking policy, quiet hours, children policy, house rules (full text), host first name, host or business name, host contact email, host contact phone |
| Yours | Every custom shortcode you have created, and the fields synced from a connected PMS |
Check-in and check-out times follow the booking: a guest who paid for early check-in or late checkout sees the time they bought.
A custom shortcode uses that property's own value when you give it one (Settings → Shortcodes, click the shortcode, Different per listing), and the account default otherwise. That is the way to add anything not in the list, such as the street address or a pool-heat fee. If you create a custom shortcode with the same name as a merge field, yours is the one guests read.
Cancellation policy prints the refund terms that belong to that booking:
Use Booking source to name the site in the text ("This stay was booked through Airbnb").
Payment schedule and Security deposit work the same way as the cancellation policy:
Pet policy reads your listing's pet settings ("Up to 2 pets are allowed. Service animals do not count toward this limit."). Events policy, Smoking policy, Quiet hours and Children policy read the matching rules on your listing, and House rules (full text) prints the house rules you wrote, with their formatting. Change a rule on the listing and the agreement follows it for the next guest who signs. Host or business name, Host contact email and Host contact phone are the contact guests see for the listing: its own contact, or your business info. They fill in on a real booking, not in a preview of your guide.
Preview shows the agreement with a sample booking. Switch between Direct booking and Airbnb stay at the top to read both versions.
The values are filled in when the guest signs and saved into the signed copy and the PDF, so the record shows exactly what the guest read. Changing a shortcode or your cancellation policy later never rewrites a signature you already have.
Before a guest books, the agreement preview on your listing shows a blank line where a booking detail will go.
Every new agreement starts as Haven's standard agreement, whether you click New agreement (or Set up your rental agreement) in Library, or Manage agreement on a listing with nothing attached yet. Edit anything you like; it saves to your library as you type.
It covers the reservation details and who the agreement binds, house rules, occupancy and visitors, your access to the property, payment, cancellation, the security deposit and damage, pets, children, smoking and prohibited activities, pools and amenities, events outside your control, what happens if the property is unavailable, linens and lost items, assumption of risk, ending the stay for a breach, governing law, and the guest's acknowledgement (they must be at least 21). It ends with your contact details and a signature form (full legal name, date signed, and an "I agree" checkbox). Everything your listing settings decide is a merge field rather than fixed text: the booking details, occupancy, house rules, events, smoking, quiet hours, pets, children, payment, deposit and cancellation terms. So the agreement matches each listing it is attached to, and one agreement reads correctly on every booking. The minimum age (21) is ordinary text; edit it if your rule differs.
Agreements you saved before keep their own wording. The standard agreement is a starting point, not legal advice; have your own counsel review it.
Use Rental Agreements → Library to maintain your library of markdown definitions.
A pinned listing renders a snapshot of its library template. To change the wording, edit the template in Library. Use Edit in library from Property settings → Manage agreement, or open the template in Library. Saving there updates every listing and site that template is attached to. A substantive edit bumps the version and may ask upcoming guests to re-sign.
This library + attach + multi-unit-default + inheritance pattern is shared with Local Guides, FAQs, Blog, and Taxes — see Reusable Content Libraries & Inheritance for the cross-feature model.
Inside /properties/[code]/guide, the guest sees a tile labeled Sign
agreement with an amber "action needed" treatment. Tapping it opens a sheet
with:
When you ask for the signature at booking, the guest fills in this same form at checkout, before paying or sending a request to book, and the guide shows the agreement as already signed.
On a phone, guests both type their legal name and draw their signature with a finger before tapping I agree and sign; the drawn signature is embedded in the audit PDF.
After signing, the tile flips to Signed with a download link to the signed PDF. The previously locked tiles — WiFi, check-in steps, smart-lock / keypad codes, directions, and host contact — unlock immediately on the same screen.
The Rental agreements pill on Settings → Trust & Safety is the central place to manage every aspect of digital rental agreements across your portfolio. From there you get:
Every time a guest signs, Haven also:
A signature taken at checkout is announced when the booking is confirmed. One taken with a request to book is announced when the request is sent.
The PDF itself records the agreement text the guest read, their answers, the typed name, the email they confirmed, the drawn signature (on phones), the time, the IP address, and the agreement version.
In addition, you can find signed PDFs in two more contextual places:
Each time you change the agreement markdown in a way that changes the legal
text, Haven increments rentalAgreementVersion. Existing signatures keep
referencing the version they signed (you can still see and download those
historical PDFs), but upcoming bookings — anyone whose stay has not yet
checked out — sees a Re-sign needed banner in their guide and must sign the
new version before access gating clears again.
When you save a version bump we show a small banner letting you know how many upcoming bookings will be asked to re-sign. The historical signed PDF is retained on every booking for your audit trail, so you always know exactly what was agreed to and when.
To waive the rental agreement for a single reservation, open it and, in the Verification section, click Skip for this stay on the rental agreement row, then confirm. The guest is no longer asked to sign: no reminders, no sign tile in the guide, and on an approved reservation waiting on payment, checkout no longer asks for a signature before paying (house rules, if you require them, are still accepted). The row then reads Skipped by host, and the stay drops out of Rental agreements → Pending.
| Concept | What it is | Where guests see it |
|---|---|---|
| House Rules | Friendly markdown of the dos & don'ts in the home | Booking modal + guide tile + welcome book PDF |
| Rental Agreement | Legally signed acceptance with audit trail | Checkout signing form when Sign at booking is on; otherwise the guide signing sheet |
Both can be on at the same time. At checkout the house-rules summary comes
first. The house-rules checkbox stores houseRulesAccepted = true. That
checkbox is not the rental-agreement signature. When Sign at booking is
on (Right after booking), the guest signs the agreement on the checkout
signing form and cannot pay until they do. The guest is already signed in to
their Haven guest account by then: checkout asks for sign-in first, and
signing the agreement does not replace it (see
Do guests need an account to book?).
When guests sign Before check-in, the signed acceptance happens in the
guide.
Guests on phones draw their signature; on a computer the typed name is the signature.
The host email links to the signed PDF rather than attaching the file. The guest's copy has the PDF attached.
Lead booker signs on behalf of the party. Co-guest invitee signatures are on the roadmap.
Only markdown agreements are supported in this release. We generate the PDF from markdown so we can stamp the signature footer reliably — host-uploaded PDFs as the source agreement are planned separately.
Guest Identity Verification — adds an optional Stripe Identity check on top of the rental agreement signature.
Guest security options — ID verification, Truvi screening, deposits, and agreements together.
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