Property manager or host: what they do, what they cost, what contract you need
Updated 14.09.2026
Search for «property manager» and you find a number — twenty per cent, twenty-five — and think you have understood. Under that one word sit different trades, and only one of them changes your legal position.
One word, two different trades
The first confusion is in the word itself. In Italy people say property manager, gestore, host, sometimes simply «the person who looks after my place». But there are two trades here, and the difference is not one of degree. It is one of kind.
On one side is the person who works on your house: welcomes the guests, hands over the keys, opens the door when they arrive, turns up when the boiler fails. They provide a service, they invoice you, and the house stays yours in every sense. On the other side is the person who works instead of you: publishes the listings, sets the prices, concludes the rental agreements, often collects the money. That is not a service alongside your business. That is your business, carried on by somebody else.
One question separates the two trades: who concludes the contract with the guest? If you do, the other person is helping you. If they do, a mandate is needed — and contract, taxation and liability all change.
What they actually do
Within each trade the boundaries shift again, and nobody tells you beforehand. Some handle only the online side: listings, prices, calendars, replies to guests. They never enter the house, never clean, never open the door.
Some do only the welcome: they wait for the guest, hand over the keys, show the house. Some take on everything including cleaning with their own team — and some do not touch the cleaning, because a firm you pay does it. Some also take on the paperwork, police reporting and tourist tax, and some leave it to you.
Before you look at any figure, ask three things: what exactly do they do, what stays with me, and who pays for the items that are not included.
What it costs
The commonest model in Italy is a percentage of gross revenue. These are the orders of magnitude quoted in industry guides for 2026, but they have to be read together with what is inside them:
| Model | What it usually covers | Order of magnitude |
|---|---|---|
| Online only | listings, prices, calendars, guest messaging | 10–15 % of gross |
| Full management | everything, cleaning and compliance included | 20–28 % of gross |
| Fixed monthly fee | varies, to be agreed | €150–400 per month per unit |
| By the hour or per call-out | only what is asked for each time | to be agreed |
Other surveys give a wider range, from 15 to 30 per cent, with peaks above thirty in the major tourist cities. The figure on its own tells you nothing: ten per cent that excludes cleaning and welcome can cost more than twenty-five that includes both.
What stays outside the percentage
Almost always left to you, even under full management: cleaning and linen changes, laundry, routine and extraordinary maintenance, professional photographs, insurance, utilities and the software subscription. Industry guides put these at several thousand euros a year per unit.
So the real sum is not the percentage. It is the percentage plus everything that is not inside it. Ask for it in writing, item by item, before you sign.
The contract: mandate with or without representation
Whoever runs the house instead of you does so under a mandate, the contract by which one party undertakes to perform legal acts on behalf of another (article 1703 of the Italian civil code). There are two forms, and the difference for you is considerable.
Under a mandate with representation (article 1704) the manager acts not only on your behalf but in your name: the effects of what they do fall directly on you, you remain the landlord, and your guests are your guests.
Under a mandate without representation (article 1705) the manager acts in their own name: they acquire the rights and assume the obligations towards third parties, and those third parties have no legal relationship with you. The provision says so expressly. In this form, as far as the guest is concerned, the landlord is them.
Before signing, look for which of the two forms is written into the contract. If it is not written at all, that is the first point to settle — not with the person offering it to you, but with your accountant or a lawyer.
Who collects the rent, and why it matters
What most often surprises owners is not the percentage but the path the money takes. Article 4, paragraph 5, of decree-law no. 50 of 24 April 2017 provides that anyone carrying on property intermediation or running online portals, where they collect the rents or intervene in the payment, acts as withholding agent, deducts 21 per cent of the gross amount, pays it over and certifies it.
Two practical consequences. First: if your manager collects, you do not receive the full rent but the rent less twenty-one per cent — and you need the certificate for your tax return. Since the 2024 budget law the withholding is always on account and never final, even under the cedolare secca regime.
Second: what triggers the provision is not the job title of whoever looks after your house, but the fact that the money passes through their hands. Someone who merely welcomes guests and keeps the house does not fall within it.
The same article 4 carries the intermediary's liability for the tourist tax and for the obligations set out in the municipal regulations. One more reason to know precisely who collects what. Before setting up the arrangement, it is worth consulting a professional.
If one day you change
This is the question nobody asks before signing and everybody pays for afterwards: if I change, what is left in my hands? If the listings sit on their account, if the calendar is theirs, if receipts and invoices are on their computer, changing means starting again from nothing.
The house is yours; the work of years is not. Reviews, booking history, guest contacts, documents: ask in advance, in writing, who owns them and in what form they are returned to you.
How Chilloso solves it
Chilloso does not impose a model on you: it follows whatever you and the person working with you have agreed. Whoever welcomes the guests comes in with their own access and sees what their work requires; whoever runs the house instead of you does so under a contract between the two of you, not with us in between.
What never changes is whose house it is. The account is yours: calendar, documents, receipts and contacts sit under your name. If one day you go separate ways, you close their access and everything stays where it has always been. There is nothing to ask back.
And you see what is happening while it happens: the bookings, the expenses with the receipt attached, the messages. You do not receive the month-end statement — you have watched it take shape day by day.
The software is not an extra line in the sum: it is in the price, together with the house's own website and domain.
Do you need more information?