Cleaner agreement starter

When to use

Use this starter when you and a cleaner are about to work together at {property_name} and you want the plain terms on one page before the first turnover. {host_name} and {cleaner_name} are the people who will sign, not a company name you hope sounds official. {pay_terms} is the rate and the moment they are paid: “eighty dollars a turnover, paid the Friday after the clean, by the method you both write here.” {access_rule} is how they enter and when they may not: “key in the lockbox, no entry while a guest is in residence, text before an unscheduled visit.” {done_means} should point at the turnover checklist: “the turnover list is ticked, or the open boxes are written on the page.”

The page says it is not legal advice, and that sentence has to stay. Signing a printout from a website does not tell you whether your city treats this person as an employee, how insurance works, or what tax you owe. If you need that answered, ask a person who is allowed to answer it where the property is. This template refuses to answer it on purpose.

Both people should edit the blanks before anyone signs. A host who fills every line and slides it across the table has not made an agreement. They have made a draft. {cleaner_name} gets a copy they can mark up.

Timing tip

Talk through it before the first stay, not during a same-day turn when the guest is late and nobody is reading. {access_rule} decided in a doorway becomes a fight about whether they could walk in on a late checkout. Write the no-entry-while-occupied line in {access_rule} unless you truly have a different rule, and then write the different rule in words you both accept.

Re-read {pay_terms} when the rate changes. A signed page in a drawer and a new verbal rate is how two people remember two numbers. When the rate changes, write a new date on a new copy. Do not rely on a text message alone if you wanted this page to be the record.

The turnover checklist can change without a new signature if {done_means} says “the current turnover list” and you both treat that list as the one on the clipboard. If you want a frozen list, attach the dated checklist and say so in {done_means}. Pick one. Ambiguity is the dispute.

Common mistakes

Pretending the page settles employment status is the serious mistake. The template says it does not. Do not add a line that says “cleaner is an independent contractor” as if the label were magic. Status depends on facts this page cannot know: other clients, tools, schedule control, and local rules. Leave the label off, describe the work, and get advice if you need a label.

The second is a fine you copied from a feeling. “Fifty dollars off for a bad review” punishes a person for a guest’s stars and will not age well. {pay_terms} can say what happens if a turn is missed, if you both agree, in a sentence you understand. Do not invent a fine schedule to look official.

The third is access that ignores the guest. {access_rule} that says “cleaner may enter any time” will put a cleaner in a home with a guest who was granted late checkout. Tie entry to the calendar and to an empty home, or to a specific window the guest already accepted in the booking thread.

What belongs in the checklist instead

How to fold a towel does not belong here. {done_means} points at the turnover list so this page stays about pay, access, and the relationship. Damage reporting is here because throwing away a broken lamp and a left-behind phone are decisions that should come back to {host_name}. The incident report is the host’s form after that report. The cleaner is not asked to accuse a guest or to negotiate a charge.

Keep the signed copies. A photo of a blank template is not the agreement. The filled blanks and the two signatures are.