Property Owner Terms

Sassi Villas Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales that operates a curated, luxury-first booking and management marketplace for villas in Puglia, Italy. Sassi Villas connects guests with the owners of holiday rental properties. The owner is and remains the principal accommodation supplier and the host; Sassi Villas Ltd is the platform and broker that markets the property, takes guest payment under regulated payment rails, handles the parts of Italian tax that the law obliges a platform to handle on the owner’s behalf, and routes settled funds to the owner. How much of the operational running Sassi Villas takes on depends on the plan: on Platform Listing the owner runs day-to-day operations, while on Full Property Management Sassi Villas operates and manages the property and the guest experience on the owner’s behalf, as the owner’s appointed manager, without becoming the principal supplier of the accommodation or the host. By listing a property on the platform, the owner enters into a marketplace agreement with Sassi Villas Ltd governed by these terms; on Full Property Management, an individual management agreement signed at onboarding sits alongside them. Sassi Villas operates two commission-only plans, set out under “Commission Structure” below. Both include listing on sassivillas.com, GEO and SEO optimisation, property inspection before going live, the AI-assisted guest concierge, the owner dashboard, and the platform reporting and Italian tax mechanics summarised below. There are no setup, onboarding, listing, photography, or subscription fees on either plan. These terms set out the rights and obligations of the owner on both plans. On Platform Listing there is no separate contract: these terms alone govern the relationship. On Full Property Management, the individual management agreement provided at onboarding adds property-specific provisions and is to be read with these terms.

Onboarding begins with a single guided flow that captures the data required to publish a compliant listing and to release funds at the correct net of taxes. The flow records identity and tax-status information (full legal name, registered business name where applicable, tax residency, codice fiscale, Partita IVA (required of every business owner, including one established elsewhere in the EU), and the count of Italian short-term-let units the owner currently lets), property details (address, catastale reference comprising foglio, particella and subalterno, capacity, bedrooms, bathrooms, beds, house rules and accessibility), the cancellation policy the owner has chosen for the property, the CIN (Codice Identificativo Nazionale) for each villa, the bank account to which payouts will be settled (a EUR IBAN, or a GBP or USD account for an owner resident in the UK or the US), and listing content (photography, description, calendar and any existing bookings to import via iCal). Owners then complete the Stripe Connect KYC, a short Stripe-hosted process operated by Stripe Technology Europe, Limited, an electronic money institution authorised and supervised by the Central Bank of Ireland (reference C187865). Before publication, a Sassi Villas property inspection confirms that the listing accurately reflects the home and that the safety equipment required by Italian law is in place; the safety baseline and the CIN requirement are summarised under “Your Compliance Obligations” below. Properties must hold a valid CIN before they can be listed. Sassi Villas may decline or delist properties that do not meet these standards or that receive sustained negative guest feedback.

Commission is the only source of revenue Sassi Villas charges the owner. There are no setup, onboarding, photography, listing or subscription fees on either plan, and no exclusivity lock-in. Plan 01 (Platform Listing) charges 5% of the villa rental, excluding any cleaning fee, levied only on bookings generated through sassivillas.com. No commission is charged on bookings the owner generates through other channels, and the owner may continue to list across as many channels as they choose. Plan 01 includes listing on the platform with GEO and SEO optimisation, property inspection, the AI-assisted concierge with escalations routed to the owner, compliant payment processing through Stripe Connect, the platform’s Italian tax mechanics summarised under “Italian Tax Handled by the Platform” below, the CIN displayed on the listing, and the owner dashboard and platform reporting. Plan 02 (Full Property Management) charges 20% of rental income after deduction of any OTA platform fees, calculated on the net rental amount received from the channel, and adds full guest communication with escalations handled by our team, the Sassi Villas Collection Standard, professional photography paid for by Sassi Villas, property protection monitoring through Minut, dynamic pricing, multi-channel distribution and marketing, and maintenance and cleaning coordination. Across both plans, card-processing costs are pushed to the guest via a calibrated service fee at checkout (described under “The Service Fee” below) so that the owner’s rental price is preserved at quoted value.

Funds for each booking are released into the owner’s own Stripe balance 24 hours after the guest’s check-in date, and the owner’s Stripe balance pays out to the account nominated at onboarding each week. SEPA settlement is free; where the receiving bank applies an inbound charge, that is between the owner and the bank, and the Sassi Villas obligation ends at the receiving bank. The amount released is net of (a) the applicable platform commission, (b) Italian VAT on the commission where the owner is a non-business owner (otherwise nil under the B2B reverse charge), and (c) cedolare secca withholding where the owner is a private individual whose Italian short-term lets sit inside the locazioni brevi regime. Tourist tax does not enter the owner’s net: where the comune applies one, the guest pays it to the owner directly at check-in, and the owner remits it to the comune. The owner dashboard shows, for every booking, the gross rental, the commission, the VAT on commission, the cedolare withheld, and the net amount payable to the owner. The 24-hour hold from check-in is deliberate: it gives Sassi Villas a clean window in which to process a no-show, an early-stay dispute, or a refund without having to claw back funds already settled, while still releasing the owner’s money promptly. The Stripe transfer fee on each payout to the owner’s account (0.25% + EUR 0.10) is covered within the guest’s service fee, not borne by the owner. Where a refund or chargeback is processed after a payout has been released, Sassi Villas will settle the resulting position via offset against the next scheduled payout (or by direct invoice where the offset is insufficient). The full mechanics of payouts, refunds and chargebacks are set out on our Payments & Payouts policy.

Sassi Villas does not load card-processing costs onto the owner’s rental. Instead, a single flat service fee is added to the guest’s checkout, the same for every guest regardless of card type or country of issue. It is one flat rate of 2.75% of the total the guest pays, which works out at about 2.85% of the rental, cleaning and any extras before the fee is added, because the card cost falls on the whole charge including the fee itself. Where a property carries a security deposit, the deposit is part of the same charge, so the fee is worked out on it too; the guest pays that part of the fee, as they pay the rest. The rate covers card processing (around 2.5% on a EUR-settled card) and the 0.25% Stripe transfer on each payout to the owner’s account; where a card costs more (non-EEA cards run up to 3.25% + EUR 0.25), Sassi Villas absorbs the difference rather than varying the fee or passing it to the guest. The fee is sized to cover the cost of facilitating the transaction through Stripe. The rental price displayed to the guest is the owner’s rental price; the service fee and the Italian VAT on the service fee sit on top in a single transparent line at checkout. This preserves rate competitiveness on the listing and removes a hidden cost from the owner’s margin. The full rate card and the currency mechanics are set out on our Payments & Payouts policy.

Sassi Villas handles, on the owner’s behalf, the parts of Italian tax that the law places on the platform. We charge and remit Italian VAT on our commission where the owner is a non-business owner; where the owner holds a valid Partita IVA, whether established in Italy or elsewhere in the EU, the B2B reverse charge applies, no VAT is added by Sassi Villas, and the owner self-accounts on that Italian registration. Where the owner is a private individual within the locazioni brevi regime, we withhold cedolare secca at 21% on account on the gross rental consideration, which is the villa rental plus any cleaning fee, deduct it from the owner’s payout, and remit it monthly to the Agenzia delle Entrate, issuing the owner an annual Certificazione Unica that the owner’s commercialista uses to reconcile the withholding on the annual return. The imposta di soggiorno is not handled by the platform: where the comune applies one, the guest pays it to the owner at check-in and the owner remits it to the comune (see “Your Compliance Obligations” below). From 1 January 2026, owners letting three or more Italian short-term-let units exit cedolare, must register as a business and hold a Partita IVA, and account for tax on their own returns. The full statutory basis, the second-unit 26% reconciliation, and the position for non-Italian-resident owners are set out on our Italian Tax & Platform Reporting page.

Certain Italian obligations remain with the owner as the principal accommodation supplier; Sassi Villas supplies data, reminders, and template communications, but the underlying legal duty is the owner’s. The owner is responsible for obtaining and renewing the CIN (Codice Identificativo Nazionale) with the comune; Sassi Villas displays the CIN on the listing, and without one the property cannot be listed. The owner, as the host, must register every guest with the local Questura through the Alloggiati Web portal within 24 hours of check-in, or within 6 hours for stays of 24 hours or less; the host collects each guest’s identity document directly at check-in for this purpose, and Sassi Villas does not collect this data or submit the filings. Where the property’s comune applies an imposta di soggiorno (tourist tax), the owner collects it from the guest at check-in, remits it to the comune, and files the comune’s declaration; this does not run through Sassi Villas. The owner must keep in working order at all times the safety devices required by Italian law (combustible-gas and carbon-monoxide detectors where gas appliances are present, and portable fire extinguishers maintained per UNI 9994-1) and is responsible for the underlying regulatory compliance of the building. The filing of the owner’s own income tax return, in Italy and in any other jurisdiction, remains the owner’s responsibility, with the Certificazione Unica as the supporting document. See our Italian Tax & Platform Reporting page for the statutory detail.

By listing a property, the owner grants Sassi Villas a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use property photography, descriptions, virtual tours, and any video content for marketing the property on sassivillas.com, on the AI- and search-driven discovery surfaces on which the listing appears, on the connected booking channels (Plan 02), in editorial and email content, and in third-party advertising for the platform. Photography commissioned by Sassi Villas under Plan 02 is conducted by the Sassi Villas photography partner; the resulting files remain the intellectual property of Sassi Villas Ltd, and the owner may use the same imagery for personal purposes on request, but may not supply it to competing platforms without written consent. Where the owner supplies imagery, the owner warrants that they hold the rights and consents necessary to grant Sassi Villas this licence. Sassi Villas will notify the owner before featuring the property in a major editorial campaign and will remove specific images on request where the property has materially changed since the imagery was taken. On termination, Sassi Villas removes the listing within seven (7) days of the final guest’s departure; the licence to use commissioned imagery on Sassi Villas-controlled surfaces survives termination in respect of historical content already published (for example, a journal feature or a past social post).

Every owner manages availability through the owner dashboard. The dashboard supports two-way iCal synchronisation with Airbnb, Booking.com and VRBO, so that a booking confirmed on any one channel instantly blocks the dates on the others. Owners on Plan 01 may continue to list across as many channels as they choose; Plan 01 commission is charged only on bookings generated through sassivillas.com itself. Owners on Plan 02 may also list across channels; commission on that plan is calculated on the rental amount received from each channel after deduction of any OTA platform fees levied by that channel. Owners must keep the calendar accurate, blocking personal-use dates and maintenance windows at least thirty (30) days in advance where possible. A calendar conflict that originates with another channel or with the owner’s own scheduling is not a serious underlying reason to cancel a confirmed Sassi Villas booking: where a booking is cancelled on those grounds, the owner is responsible for the costs of guest relocation and any premium incurred to source an equivalent property, and the fees set out under “Owner Cancellations” below apply. Sassi Villas will make reasonable efforts to flag potential conflicts before confirming a booking on dates that have been the subject of recent calendar movement.

The owner chooses the cancellation policy that governs a guest’s right to a refund on the property. Four options are available: the three standard policies (Flexible, Moderate, and Strict, whose refund bands are set out in our Booking Policies) and a Custom policy, for owners whose terms do not fit the standard bands. On a Custom policy the owner proposes the refund terms and Sassi Villas reviews and implements them: we confirm that the terms are lawful and consistent with the mandatory consumer rights of the guest, that they can be administered through the platform and its payment mechanics, and that they can be displayed clearly to the guest before booking. Sassi Villas may decline a proposed Custom policy or ask for it to be amended, and no property is published on Custom terms that have not been approved and implemented by us. The approved policy is shown on the listing, at checkout, and in the guest’s booking confirmation. An owner may change the policy for future bookings by writing to support@sassivillas.com; the change takes effect only once we have implemented it on the listing, and it does not affect a booking already confirmed, which continues to be governed by the policy in force when the guest booked. The cancellation policy governs the guest’s refund entitlement only. It gives the owner no right to cancel a confirmed booking, which is dealt with under “Owner Cancellations” below.

A confirmed booking is a commitment. The guest has paid in full, has arranged travel around the dates, and has contracted with the owner as the principal supplier of the accommodation. Owners therefore have no self-service route to cancel a confirmed booking. Where a booking genuinely cannot proceed, the owner must contact Sassi Villas immediately at support@sassivillas.com with the reason and any supporting evidence, and Sassi Villas manages the cancellation and the guest relationship from there. Cancelling a confirmed booking without a serious underlying reason is a breach of these terms and carries the financial consequences set out below.

A serious underlying reason means one of the following, evidenced to our reasonable satisfaction:

• An event outside the owner’s reasonable control, on the force majeure basis set out in our Booking Policies: natural disaster, severe weather, fire, flood, earthquake, pandemic, government action, civil unrest, strike, terrorism, or utility or payment-network failure.
• Sudden damage or failure that makes the property genuinely unsafe or uninhabitable for the booked dates and cannot be remedied before check-in: burst pipes, structural damage, an electrical or gas fault, or a prolonged loss of water or power.
• Loss of the permissions required to let the property lawfully, including revocation or lapse of the CIN, or an order of the comune or another competent authority.
• Serious illness, injury, or bereavement affecting the owner or a member of the owner’s immediate family, where it prevents the stay from being hosted.
• Evidence that the booking itself breaches the house rules or these terms: a misstated party size, an undisclosed event or commercial use, or a reasonable suspicion of fraud. Raise this with Sassi Villas rather than cancelling directly; where the concern is made out, we cancel the booking ourselves and no fee is charged to the owner.

The following are not serious underlying reasons, and a cancellation on any of these grounds attracts the fees below: a higher-paying enquiry for the same dates; a booking the owner regrets at the rate quoted; a double booking or calendar conflict arising from another channel or from the owner’s own scheduling; personal use that was not blocked in advance; routine maintenance, renovation, or a service visit that could reasonably have been scheduled around the stay; or a preference not to host a particular guest absent evidence of a breach.

Where a booking is cancelled by the owner without a serious underlying reason, the guest is looked after first. Sassi Villas offers the guest, at the guest’s election, an alternative property of equal or higher standard for the same dates, alternative dates at the originally booked rate, or a full refund of everything paid. The owner then bears the resulting cost: the whole cost of relocating the guest, including any premium payable to secure an equivalent property at short notice; the service fee and the non-refundable processor fees on the original payment; and a cancellation fee calculated on the rental value of the cancelled booking.

Amounts due under this section are recovered by offset against the owner’s next scheduled payouts, or by invoice payable within thirty (30) days where the offset is insufficient. The cancelled dates are blocked on the listing for the length of the original stay, so they cannot be resold through Sassi Villas at a higher rate. Sassi Villas assesses each cancellation on the evidence provided and may waive or reduce the fee where the circumstances warrant it; no fee is charged where the reason is one of those listed above, and none is charged where the cancellation results from an act or omission of Sassi Villas acting as the owner’s appointed manager on Plan 02. A pattern of owner cancellations, whatever the stated reason, triggers a quality review and may lead to temporary delisting and, in serious or repeated cases, to termination for material breach under “Termination” below.

Every property is inspected before going live and at least once a year thereafter, and additionally following any guest complaint that touches the presentation or condition of the home. The standard against which the property is inspected is that the listing accurately reflects the home and that the safety equipment required by Italian law is in place; on Plan 02, it is supplemented by the Sassi Villas Collection Standard (consistent in-villa amenities and welcome touches, curated linens and soaps, subtle branded touches, and a defined presentation baseline applied to every villa in the Collection without homogenising it). Where an inspection identifies a remediable issue, Sassi Villas will record it and request remediation within an agreed window. Persistent failure to meet the agreed standards may result in temporary delisting (the property is hidden from search and no new bookings are taken, while existing bookings are honoured) and, in serious or repeated cases, termination under “Termination” below. Sassi Villas may also delist a property at any time on safety grounds, including where required safety equipment is not in place or has not been maintained per UNI 9994-1.

On Plan 01, routine maintenance (pool servicing, garden care, appliance servicing) is the owner’s responsibility and must be scheduled so as not to disrupt confirmed guest stays. On Plan 02, Sassi Villas coordinates maintenance through its network of approved local contractors, at the owner’s expense and at cost, with no platform markup; costs are shared with the owner together with the invoice issued by the contractor. In a genuine emergency that affects guest safety or habitability (a burst pipe, electrical failure, gas leak, security breach, or similar), Sassi Villas is authorised across all plans to engage a contractor and authorise repairs up to EUR 500 without prior owner approval (on Plan 02, the management agreement may set a different threshold), in order to maintain guest safety and continuity of the stay. The owner is notified as soon as practicable, and the full documentation of any emergency expenditure is uploaded to the dashboard. Costs above the pre-authorised threshold require owner approval before work proceeds, unless guest safety or material property damage is at immediate risk, in which case Sassi Villas may act and account afterwards.

Insuring the property is the owner’s responsibility. Sassi Villas does not make a particular policy a condition of listing and does not verify cover, and it does not insure the building, its contents, or the owner’s liability. An owner letting through the platform should hold buildings and contents insurance that expressly covers short-term holiday rental use, with public liability cover for third-party injury or property damage occurring on the premises (EUR 1,000,000 is a common baseline) and, where the owner engages staff directly, employer’s liability cover. Standard residential household policies often exclude short-term lets, and any failure to disclose that use to the insurer is the owner’s risk. Sassi Villas is not liable for loss, damage, or injury arising from defects of the property, deferred maintenance, or non-compliance with safety regulation, each of which sits with the owner.

Guests are invited to leave a review after every confirmed stay. Reviews are published on the property’s listing page in the form submitted by the guest. Sassi Villas does not edit, suppress, or rewrite reviews based on sentiment; positive and negative reviews alike are published. Owners who wish to respond to a review may contact Sassi Villas, and we encourage measured, professional responses. Reviews that are defamatory, that contain personal data of third parties, or that are determined on investigation to be fraudulent are removed. A property’s average rating is displayed publicly and may affect ranking on search and discovery surfaces; properties that consistently score below the platform’s minimum threshold are subject to a quality review and, where appropriate, may be temporarily delisted while remediation is agreed. Reviews are also used in aggregate to inform inspection cycles and the platform’s broader quality work.

As standard, Sassi Villas does not take a security deposit or a pre-authorisation hold from guests at the point of booking, and does not hold a damage fund of its own. An owner who wants a deposit on a specific property may ask for one. Sassi Villas reviews the request and, where it is approved, sets the deposit up on that listing and states its amount and its terms to the guest before booking; a deposit is agreed property by property rather than offered as a matter of course, and none is applied to a listing Sassi Villas has not verified and implemented. Where a deposit is approved, the guest pays it with the booking at checkout, as its own line, and Sassi Villas holds it rather than paying it out with the booking: it is not part of the rental, so no commission, VAT on commission or cedolare secca is worked out on it. It is applied against assessed damage first, and returned to the guest in full within seven (7) days of check-out where the inspection is clean. It is security against the guest’s liability rather than a limit on it, and it changes nothing else in this section. Whether or not a deposit applies, the Sassi Villas guest booking terms make each guest personally liable for damage caused at the property during the stay, and authorise Sassi Villas to assess that damage and collect its cost from the guest on the owner’s behalf. Where damage occurs, the owner notifies Sassi Villas by email to support@sassivillas.com, with photographs, a written description, and, where applicable, repair quotes or invoices. Sassi Villas reviews the claim, opens a dialogue with the guest, and either agrees the amount with the guest or escalates to formal recovery; the assessment standard, the evidence relied on, the exclusions, and the guest’s right to dispute are set out in full in our Damage Policy. What the owner receives is what Sassi Villas recovers. Recovered sums are paid to the owner on the next payout, and damage is never deducted from the payout on the booking it relates to. Where recovery from the guest fails, no payment falls due to the owner: Sassi Villas does not advance, underwrite, or guarantee the cost of damage it has not collected. The EUR 10,000 per-booking figure is a ceiling on the claim Sassi Villas administers, not a sum it insures; amounts above it remain recoverable from the guest directly, and Sassi Villas provides the evidential file to support the owner’s own recovery action. This mechanism is not insurance and does not replace the owner’s buildings, contents, or short-term-let insurance described above, which remains the owner’s primary protection against loss. Owners should expect to be asked for evidence (photographs, communication with the guest, repair invoices) on any damage claim.

Where a guest initiates a card chargeback through the issuing bank or raises a formal dispute through Stripe, Sassi Villas manages the response on the owner’s behalf. The platform compiles the booking evidence (the confirmation, the guest’s identity and check-in data, in-stay communication, photographs and inspection notes where applicable) and submits the response within Stripe’s required timeline. The owner may be asked to supply additional evidence, in particular where the dispute touches the condition of the property or in-stay events, and the owner agrees to do so promptly. The processing fee charged by Stripe on the original payment is non-refundable, in line with industry practice across all card-processing platforms, and is borne accordingly: where the chargeback is lost on the merits, the corresponding amount is offset against the owner’s next payout in the same way as a refund. Where Sassi Villas concludes that a chargeback is the result of a genuine platform failure rather than an issue with the stay itself, Sassi Villas will absorb the loss. Recurrent chargebacks linked to a specific property prompt a quality review.

The owner decides when the property is available to guests and when it is kept for the owner’s own use; on Plan 02, the management agreement may set a minimum number of available booking nights per year to keep the listing live and competitive. Dates kept for personal use should be blocked in the calendar, ideally at least thirty (30) days in advance, so that they are not offered for booking. Personal use is not subject to commission and is not reported under platform reporting (it is not a let). Heavy blocking during peak season may, however, reduce the property’s visibility on search surfaces, because the booking-pace signal that the platform uses to rank properties weakens. Where the owner stays at the property immediately before a guest arrives, the property should be guest-ready by the guest’s check-in; on Plan 02, the handover is agreed with Sassi Villas in advance so that there is time for cleaning and the pre-arrival inspection.

Both Sassi Villas and the owner agree to keep confidential any commercially sensitive information exchanged in the course of the relationship: commission rates, individual financial performance figures, guest personal data, the pricing logic and revenue strategy applied to the property on Plan 02, the platform’s proprietary technology, and the terms of any individual management agreement. Confidential information may be disclosed to professional advisers under their own confidentiality obligations, to a tax authority or regulator under a binding order, and to a prospective purchaser of the business under a written confidentiality undertaking, but not otherwise. The confidentiality obligation survives the end of the relationship for two (2) years. Guest personal data is processed by Sassi Villas under the platform’s privacy notice and under the UK GDPR; the owner agrees to handle any guest personal data shared by Sassi Villas (in particular the Alloggiati Web data) in compliance with the GDPR, the Italian Privacy Code, and any applicable local rules.

Either party may end the relationship, and on Plan 02 terminate the management agreement, by giving ninety (90) days’ written notice. All bookings confirmed before the notice date are honoured and pay out in the normal way, including any cedolare withholding and Certificazione Unica obligation that crystallises after the relationship has ended. On termination, Sassi Villas removes the listing from sassivillas.com and from connected channels within seven (7) days of the final guest’s departure, transfers all booking communication for any onward-pending stays, and provides the owner with an export of all booking and financial reports on request within thirty (30) days of termination. Early termination by the owner without due notice may attract a fee equivalent to the average platform commission over the three (3) months immediately preceding termination, to cover marketing expenditure and pipeline disruption already committed. Sassi Villas may terminate on shorter notice in the event of a material breach (including safety violations, regulatory non-compliance, repeated failure to maintain agreed standards, or conduct that materially damages the Sassi Villas brand), and may suspend the listing pending termination. The confidentiality obligation, the photography licence in respect of historical content already published, and any obligation arising from Italian tax or platform reporting in respect of bookings settled before termination all survive termination.

These terms and, on Plan 02, the management agreement are governed by, and to be construed in accordance with, the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with them is first addressed by direct negotiation between the parties in good faith. If the dispute cannot be resolved through negotiation within thirty (30) days, it is submitted to mediation under the Model Mediation Procedure of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) in London. If mediation does not resolve the dispute within sixty (60) days of the initial request, either party may refer the matter to the courts of England and Wales, which have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising under them, save that nothing in these terms prevents either party from seeking urgent injunctive or interim relief from any court of competent jurisdiction. Italian courts retain jurisdiction over matters that, by Italian law, must be heard locally, in particular matters concerning the property itself, the CIN, the cedolare and VAT positions filed with the Agenzia delle Entrate, the imposta di soggiorno, and the Alloggiati Web obligation. For any question or complaint, contact support@sassivillas.com; the platform aims to respond to written contact from owners within one (1) business day.