How to rent out a holiday home in Cornwall

We are Sean and Lisa, and we run holiday homes across Cornwall for their owners. This is the guide we wish someone had handed us when we started letting our own places from 250 miles away.

It covers what you actually have to do, roughly in the order you have to do it. Where something is genuinely a job for an accountant, a solicitor or a qualified engineer, we say so rather than pretending otherwise.

1. Is the property right for letting?

Before anything else, be honest about what you have. The things that decide whether a Cornwall property lets well are mostly fixed:

• How many it sleeps. Four to six is the sweet spot on this coast. Two sleeps well in shoulder seasons but caps your summer rate. Eight or more is a different market with different expectations.
• Parking. The single most common cause of an unfair review. It does not have to have parking, but the listing has to be honest about it. Our Fowey and Mevagissey pages go into why that matters more here than almost anywhere.
• Access. Steep stairs, narrow lanes, a long walk from the car. All lettable, none of it hideable.
• What is nearby. A beach, a coast path, a pub within walking distance. These do more for your occupancy than a new kitchen.

If your property is short on the fixed things, you compete on the flexible ones: presentation, photography, pricing and reviews.

2. Planning and change of use

This is the one that has moved most in recent years, and the one where you should check rather than assume.

Cornwall has more second homes and holiday lets than almost anywhere in the country, and the planning position around short-term letting has been under active review. Depending on where your property is and how it is currently classified, letting it out as a holiday let may need permission you do not yet have.

We are not planning consultants and we will not guess on your behalf. Ask Cornwall Council's planning team about your specific property before you commit to anything, particularly if you are converting an annexe, an outbuilding or a property that has been someone's permanent home.

3. The safety and compliance list

This is where most owners underestimate the work. None of it is difficult, but it is not optional, and it is the part people most often discover late.

• Fire risk assessment. A written assessment for the property. Required for holiday lets, and the basis for what else you need.
• Gas safety certificate. Annual, by a Gas Safe registered engineer, if there is any gas appliance.
• Electrical installation condition report (EICR). By a qualified electrician, and typically renewed every five years.
• Portable appliance testing. For the kettle, toaster, hairdryer and everything else with a plug.
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Correct type, correct places, tested and logged between guests.
• Furniture and furnishings fire safety. Upholstered items need to meet the regulations and carry the labels. This catches people out who furnish from second-hand shops.
• Legionella risk assessment. Straightforward for most properties, but properties that sit empty between bookings are exactly the ones it exists for.

Sean is a qualified electrical and mechanical engineer, so we can talk you through what is involved, and we arrange all of the above for the properties we look after. What we will not do is tell you that you can skip any of it.

4. Insurance

Ordinary home insurance does not cover holiday letting, and finding that out after a claim is a bad day. You need a policy written for holiday lets, which will usually cover the building, contents at let-property levels, public liability for guests on site, and often loss of income if the property becomes unlettable.

Tell your insurer exactly how the property will be used, including whether you will ever let to groups or take pets. Speak to a broker who writes holiday let cover rather than adapting a domestic policy.

For what it is worth, we carry two million pounds of public liability insurance covering our own team while they are at your property. That is separate from, and not a substitute for, your own cover.

5. Furnishing and equipping it

The mistake almost everyone makes is furnishing it as though they are going to live in it. You are not. Guests are.

• Buy for wear, not for looks alone. Everything gets used harder than at home, by people who did not pay for it.
• Beds and mattresses matter more than anything else you will buy. More reviews turn on the bed than on the kitchen.
• Enough of everything for a full house. If it sleeps six, that means six of everything, plus spares.
• Make it work in the rain. This is Cornwall. Somewhere to dry coats and boots, a decent drying option, board games, a good sofa and a television that works.
• Check furniture will physically fit. In older cottages, get the tape measure out before you order the sofa.

6. Photography and the listing

Photographs do more for your booking rate than anything else you can change after the property is ready. Bright, honest, in a sensible order, leading with whatever actually sells the place.

Write the listing straight. Say where the parking is and how far the walk is. Say if there are stairs. Say if the harbour wakes up early. Guests forgive what they were told about and punish what they were not, and a listing that filters out the wrong guests is doing its job.

7. Where to list it

Most owners end up on more than one channel:

• Airbnb. Big reach, strong for shorter stays, and rewards fast responses and good reviews. See Airbnb management and co-hosting for how that works day to day.
• Booking.com. Different audience, often older, often booking further ahead.
• Cornwall holiday agencies. Higher commission, but they bring an established audience.
• Direct bookings. The commission-free ones, and the ones that come back year after year. Slowest to build and worth the most.

8. Pricing and the season

Cornwall is seasonal but less brutally than people assume, and the shoulder seasons are where the money is won or lost. School holidays and August set themselves. What separates a good year from an average one is March, October and half terms.

Two local specifics worth knowing: Fowey Regatta week in August and Mevagissey Feast Week in June both book a long way ahead and should never sit at your ordinary summer rate. Charlestown holds up over October half term and Christmas in a way pure beach villages do not.

Set minimum stays deliberately. A three-night minimum in peak protects you. The same rule in November just leaves the property empty.

9. What to do yourself, and what to hand over

Plenty of owners run their own lets very well. It is worth being realistic about what that involves before you decide.

A changeover is three to five hours of physical work to a proper standard, on a Friday or a Saturday, every week of the season. Add guest messages at all hours, a boiler that fails on a bank holiday, laundry, restocking, and being the person who drives over when a key does not work.

If you live locally and enjoy it, that is a genuinely good way to run a let. If you live three hours away, or you would rather have your weekends, that is what we are for. Our holiday home management across Cornwall covers as much or as little of it as you want, from a single changeover to the whole operation. If you are not letting much and mainly want the place looked after, second home management is probably the page you want.