Cancellations, Deposits & Refunds

Payments run through Stripe in test mode. Use a test card — real cards are not accepted and no real money moves. The model below is what the Service implements and what will apply once card payments are live.

Understanding one thing makes the rest of this page obvious:

Money is held, not taken. Nothing is captured until a rental completes.

• When a request is made: nothing happens to the renter's card. A request is an offer, not a booking.
• When the owner accepts: we place an authorisation hold on the renter's card for the rental subtotal, the renter's service fee, and the deposit. The money is reserved. It has not moved.
• When the rental completes: the hold settles for the rental and the fee only. The deposit portion is released, not captured — so the renter never pays it and never has to wait for it back. The renter's statement shows one charge, not a charge and a credit. If the hold has lapsed by then — card authorisations last about seven days — the same amount is charged to the card instead; either way the renter pays exactly the settled amount, once.
• If a damage claim was agreed: the same single settlement takes the rental, the fee, and the agreed amount, and releases the rest of the deposit. There is still no second charge and no refund — see Damage, loss and deposits.
• When a rental is declined or cancelled: the hold is voided in full. Nothing is captured and there is nothing to refund.

A hold may still show as a pending item on a statement for a few days after it is voided, depending on the bank. That is the bank releasing it, not us holding it.

A pending request can be withdrawn by the renter or declined by the owner, at any time, for any reason.

• Cost: nothing, to anyone. No hold has been placed, no units were reserved, and no fee is charged.
• Effect on standing: none. Neither withdrawing nor declining is recorded against you. Owners are expected to decline requests that do not suit them.

Once accepted, either party can still cancel until the handoff is confirmed. The units go back into availability immediately.

• The authorisation hold is voided in full. The renter is charged nothing — not the rental, not the service fee, not the deposit.
• The owner receives nothing, because nothing was captured.
• No cancellation penalty is charged by us to either side.

This is deliberately generous, and it depends on people not abusing it. A free cancellation right is worth having; an owner who accepts and then cancels the night before, repeatedly, costs renters real days. Repeated late cancellation and no-shows are handled as a conduct matter under the Community Guidelines, not as a fee.

Owners and renters may agree their own terms for a specific rental — a non-refundable arrangement for an item held for a wedding, say. Put it in the message thread. Such an agreement is between the two of you, and we do not enforce or collect it.

Returning early

The rental was priced for the dates agreed and the item was withheld from other renters for that whole period. Returning early does not automatically reduce what is owed. An owner may choose to agree a reduction — do it in the thread.

Returning late

A late return is a breach of the rental agreement. It can also strand the next renter, because the availability engine reserved those dates for someone else.

• Message the owner before you are late, not after.
• The owner may charge for the extra days at the daily rate on the listing. Agree it in the thread.
• The Service does not automatically extend a rental or automatically charge for extra days. Anything beyond the original authorisation is between the two of you.
• An item not returned at all is not a late return. It is a loss — see Damage, loss and deposits.

Extending

Ask before the rental ends. An extension means a new request for the additional dates, so availability is checked and the price is computed properly.

A deposit is the renter's money. It is held rather than taken, and released when the rental completes — in full, unless a damage claim against it was agreed. We never take a fee from a deposit, including from a claim: every cent an owner recovers reaches the owner.

We do not judge who is right. There is no insurance, no protection programme and no adjudicator here — see Safety. What the Service provides is a way for the two of you to settle against the deposit, and it only ever moves money the renter agreed to, or did not contest.

Claiming against a deposit

An owner who gets an item back damaged can file a claim before they confirm the return. A claim names an amount — never more than the deposit — and a written description, which the renter sees in full. It can carry photographs of the damage; those are visible to the rental's two parties and to nobody else.

• The renter has 72 hours to accept or decline. Accepting means the amount comes out of the deposit when the rental is closed out, and the rest is released.
• No answer within 72 hours counts as accepting. This is stated here because it is a term that costs money: a claim left unanswered stands, and is collected. If you disagree with a claim, decline it — do not ignore it.
• The 72 hours start when we have actually emailed you, not when the claim is filed. If that email fails to send, no deadline runs and nothing can be collected on silence — the owner has to get the notice to you, or withdraw the claim. A term that takes money from someone for saying nothing has to depend on them having been asked.
• Declining releases the deposit in full, and ends claims on that rental — an owner cannot file a second one. We do not weigh the evidence and we do not take contested money. The disagreement is then a civil matter between the two of you.
• The rental cannot be completed while a claim is unanswered, and an owner can withdraw a claim at any point before it is resolved.
• A claim has to be filed within seven days of the return. The window opens when the item is marked returned (or a dispute is opened) and closes seven days later. Damage found after that is a matter between the two of you directly — it can no longer come out of the deposit.
• An accepted claim is the final one. Once the renter agrees an amount — or a claim is collected on their silence — no further claim can be filed on that rental.
• Once that window has passed, the renter can close the rental out themselves. An owner who never confirms the return cannot hold a rental open indefinitely: after the seven days — and once any claim that was filed has been resolved — the renter can complete it, which settles the rental as agreed and releases the rest of their deposit.

If something is damaged or missing:

1. Raise it immediately — at the return, in the message thread, with the photographs you both took at handoff.
2. File a claim, or open a dispute, before confirming the return. Once an owner confirms a return the rental completes and the hold settles, and a released deposit cannot be reached again.
3. Agree an amount. Most cases are a part or a clean, not a replacement. A claim for the repair is far likelier to be accepted than a claim for the whole item.
4. If you cannot agree, this becomes a civil matter between you. Your options are your own insurer, a small claims court, or letting it go. We will provide the rental record — dates, messages, claims, status history — to either party or to a court on a valid request.

Reasonable wear is not damage. A blunted blade, a scuff on a case, a fraction of a tank of fuel: these are the cost of renting a thing out.

Withholding a deposit as leverage is a violation. Conditioning its release on a favourable review, or on an unagreed extra payment, is grounds for removal.

A renter who arrives to find the item missing, broken, materially different from the listing, or nobody there at all should:

• Not confirm the handoff. Confirming starts the rental. Until it is confirmed, either party can cancel and the hold is voided in full.
• Cancel the rental, which releases the hold entirely. This is the fastest and cleanest remedy, and it costs the renter nothing.
• Photograph what they found and put it in the thread.
• Report the listing if it was materially misdescribed, so it is not repeated on the next person.

If the handoff was already confirmed before the problem came to light, open a dispute rather than completing the rental.

We charge 5% to the renter on top of the rental subtotal. We also withhold 5% from the owner's payout. The fee is never charged on a deposit.

• Cancelled or declined rental: no fee is charged to either side. The fee is part of the authorisation, and the authorisation is voided.
• Completed rental: both fees apply.
• Disputed rental resolved as cancelled: the hold is voided, so no fee is charged.

We do not keep a fee on a rental that did not happen. If you believe you have been charged for one that did not, email support@[YOURDOMAIN.COM] with the rental and we will look at the record.

Nothing on this page reduces rights you have under consumer law where you live — including any right to cancel a contract within a statutory cooling-off period, and any right to a remedy where a service is not as described. Where this policy and your statutory rights differ, your statutory rights win. See the Terms of Service for how disputes with us are handled.