What Happens If Your House Sitting Platform Shuts Down?

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This almost certainly won't happen to you, and that's actually the honest starting point. But after 20 sits and three years building a review history on one platform, it's a question worth thinking through properly rather than assuming it could never matter.

We sit through TrustedHouseSitters ourselves, and if you're getting started, a 25% discount on membership is available here. This isn't a scare piece. It's the honest, researched answer to a question we hadn't actually thought about ourselves until we sat down to write it.

Reviews Generally Don't Belong to You

This is the part that surprised us most while researching this properly. In most cases, the review content itself is considered to belong to the platform, not the sitter, which means you genuinely can't just pack up your review history and take it somewhere else if a platform closes. A few platforms have talked about offering to transfer reviews across in specific circumstances, but by most accounts the process is enough friction, enough time and effort, that most people end up just starting fresh rather than pursuing it.

One platform, MindMyHouse, has previously offered something called "Bring My Reputation," a manual process where their team would copy reviews, endorsements, and testimonials over from another platform's public profile page. We can't currently confirm whether this feature is still active, we found references to it, but couldn't locate it live on the site or verify it's still offered in its current form, so treat this as something that has existed rather than something you can rely on right now. If you're considering this route, contact MindMyHouse directly and ask, rather than assuming based on anything written here or elsewhere.

Worth flagging too: even where a feature like this exists, whether copying review content this way fully satisfies the origin platform's own copyright claim over that content is a genuinely open question, not a settled one. Our full guide to verified reviews across platforms covers how review ownership works more broadly.

There is a low-effort, low-tech backup available to anyone though: build your own simple profile somewhere independent, a basic website or blog, and copy your public reviews and testimonials there yourself while they're still visible. Most sitters probably won't bother, and honestly, with as many house sits available as there currently are, starting a new platform profile from scratch and rebuilding quickly is realistic enough that most people won't need to.

How Likely Is This, Actually?

Genuinely low, for the platforms that matter most. Running a house sitting platform doesn't require enormous overhead, hosting, a working back-end, a support system, and a modest membership fee from a reasonable base of users covers that cost without much difficulty. Unless a platform sees essentially zero new signups over a sustained period, there's rarely a strong financial reason for it to disappear entirely.

The real risk sits with small, regional, single-country platforms carrying very few listings and showing little visible investment or marketing activity. We won't name specific ones, since this is a judgment call based on activity level rather than anything confirmed, but if a platform you're using has a genuinely small listing count and hasn't shown any real updates or growth in a while, that's worth factoring in as you decide how much to build around it specifically.

What We'd Actually Do

If TrustedHouseSitters disappeared tomorrow, our honest first reaction would be real frustration, we've built up years of accumulated referral credit and an entire review history there. But we wouldn't dwell on it for long. We'd likely try to see if any compensation was available, though we wouldn't expect much to come of that, and then we'd move on to another platform. Nomador is the clear top contender for us specifically, it's genuinely strong across continental Europe, and we already recommend it regularly.

We wouldn't stop house sitting. This lifestyle doesn't depend on one single platform existing, it depends on the exchange itself, and something would fill whatever gap opened up. That's actually part of why we deliberately promote platforms beyond just the biggest one throughout this site, a more distributed ecosystem, with real competition rather than one platform occupying the whole space, is genuinely healthier for everyone using it.

Our Honest Recommendation

We still think concentrating your effort on one main platform is the right approach, building a strong review history takes real, consistent effort, and splitting that focus across several platforms from day one usually means a weaker profile everywhere rather than a strong one anywhere. That hasn't changed.

But there's no real cost to also having a free account somewhere else, ready and waiting, even if you never actively use it. Most platforms cost nothing until you actually want to apply for or confirm a sit. For anyone focused on Europe specifically, signing up to Nomador alongside your main platform costs nothing and gives you somewhere to go immediately if you ever needed it, without it changing how you approach your day-to-day sitting at all.

Conclusion

This is a genuinely low-probability scenario, and we don't want to overstate it. But understanding that reviews generally don't travel with you, that portability options are limited and shouldn't be assumed to still exist without checking directly, and that the broader ecosystem would absorb the loss of any single platform reasonably well, is worth knowing rather than assuming. Build your reputation on one platform, keep a free account elsewhere as a quiet backup, and don't spend much energy worrying about something this unlikely to actually happen.

Caro and I have completed 20 house sits across 12 countries, driven 19,000km across Europe in our 1998 VW T4, and saved over $26,500 in accommodation costs over three years of house sitting. If you have questions about platform strategy or backup planning, DM us @housesittersguide, we answer everyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Do my reviews transfer if I switch house sitting platforms?

  Not automatically, and in most cases not at all. Review content generally belongs to the platform rather than the individual sitter. One platform has previously offered a manual process to copy reviews across, but we couldn't confirm it's still active or offered in its current form, so don't rely on this without checking directly with the platform first.

• How likely is a major house sitting platform shutting down?

  Genuinely low. These platforms don't require significant overhead to run, and a reasonable membership base comfortably covers the cost. The real risk sits with small, regional platforms with minimal listings and little visible ongoing investment.

• Should I sign up to more than one house sitting platform just in case?

  It's worth having a free account with a second platform as a quiet backup, even if you focus your actual effort and review-building on one main platform. Most platforms cost nothing until you apply for or confirm an actual sit.

• What would happen to my referral credit if a platform closed?

  It would likely be lost, and compensation is unlikely, though worth asking about if it ever happened. This is a real, if minor, financial risk worth factoring into how much you rely on any single platform's referral or credit system.

• Would house sitting as a lifestyle be affected if one platform disappeared?

  Unlikely in any meaningful way. The lifestyle depends on the underlying exchange between sitters and homeowners, not on any single company. A more distributed ecosystem across multiple platforms is generally healthier for everyone using it.

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