Q: We are retired so all the time in the world and v. interested in home exchange. What happens in the unlikely event of your house being "trashed"? Would one need to take out insurance to cover this? Regards, Maggie Contact your home insurance company before agreeing to an exchange to inform them that you plan to have non-paying guests staying in your home for a certain period. Generally, home exchange guests, who aren't paying rent, are treated in exactly the same way as any other friends or relatives you may have stay in your home, and your household insurance cover should remain in force (in fact, most insurance companies acknowledge that an occupied home is much safer than a home that is left empty for several weeks). The only proviso, certainly with home insurance policies in the UK, is that if you had a burglary while non-paying guests were living in your home, and there was no evidence of a break-in, most policies wouldn't cover this. Before agreeing to an exchange, you will be corresponding and sharing information on all aspects of the proposed exchange with your potential home swap partners over a period of time, so that, by the time you both agree that you want to go ahead with the exchange, you should feel very comfortable with having people that you've got to know living in and looking after your home.A: Yours is a very common (and understandable) concern of those new to the idea of swapping homes. But, in all the years we have been operating a home exchange service, we've never had reports of homes being trashed! Although, of course, there can be accidental damage, and differences in house keeping standards, the reason the vast majority of home exchangers take very good care of homes entrusted to them is that, generally, exchangers are living in each others' homes at the same time - this gives each a very powerful incentive to care for a property as they would want their own home to be cared for.
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