Leaving a holiday letting agency without losing your bookings

Most owners who think about leaving their letting agency aren't worried about the agency. They're worried about the bookings: the ones already taken, and the ones that might not come once the agency stops showing the house. Both can be handled if you do things in the right order. This is the order we'd do it in.

It's a checklist, not legal advice. If a clause in your contract isn't clear, ask the agency to explain it in writing, or ask a solicitor.

1. Read your contract before you say anything

3 parts of it matter most, so find them first.

• The notice period. How much notice you have to give, how you have to give it, and the date it runs from.
• Bookings already taken. What happens to stays the agency has booked for dates after you leave: who looks after those guests, who holds their money, and when you're paid for them.
• Advertising elsewhere. Whether your listing with the agency is exclusive, and whether the agency can charge commission on bookings you take yourself, during the notice period or after it. Owners have been invoiced by their agency for their own direct bookings, so it's worth knowing before you take one.

2. Get a list of every booking the agency has taken

Ask the agency for every future booking at your house: the dates, the party size, what each guest has paid, what is still due, and who is holding the money. Ask what the agency will pay you for each one, and when.

Those guests booked with the agency, on its terms. Agree with the agency, in writing, who looks after each of them until they've stayed, and plan on running the 2 side by side until the last one has checked out.

3. Keep one calendar that's always right

From the day you start taking bookings yourself, the agency's bookings have to block your dates too, or you'll double-book.

Ask the agency whether it can give you a calendar link (an iCal link) for your house. Some can. Some don't offer owners one at all. If yours can't, put each of its bookings into your own calendar by hand as blocked dates, and check your agency login for new ones every day until it can no longer take bookings for you.

It works the other way too. If your contract lets you take bookings during your notice period, the agency has to close those dates on its side, so tell it each time.

4. Get your own website and listings live before your notice ends

The weeks after you leave are when bookings can dip, because the agency has stopped showing your house and nothing has replaced it yet. So have these ready before your notice runs out:

• Your own website, with your calendar, your prices and card payment, so a guest can book and pay in one go.
• Your own listings on the big sites, if you want them, with the agency's dates blocked.
• Your photographs and description. Check who owns them. If the agency paid for the photographer, you may need your own.
• Your house's name. Use the same name everywhere, so a guest who searches for the house finds you.
• Your reviews. Reviews left on the agency's website stay on its website. Your own start with your first guest, so ask every one of them.

5. Pick one switch-over date

Choose one date. Before it, the agency looks after its guests: their emails, their arrival details, their questions. From that date, only you do. A guest who gets arrival details from 2 places, with 2 different key safe codes, doesn't know which one to trust.

Agree the date with the agency in writing. If any of its guests arrive after it and the agency is handing them to you, tell each of them yourself, once, who to contact from now on.

Where Lettiva fits

Leaving the agency is your job, and we can't do that part for you. What we do is everything after it. We build your own website for you from your existing listing, with the booking calendar and card payments behind it, so it's ready before your notice ends. Guests pay you directly into your own Stripe account, with your name on their card statement, and each guest who books with you is yours to have back.

The agency's bookings go into the same calendar as blocked dates, so they hold the dates and we never email those guests. Your calendar syncs with Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo by iCal. iCal isn't instant, so if you take a booking by phone, block the dates straight away.

Wondering whether your own website will actually bring the bookings in? What gets bookings off your own website.