Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: Getting Started

Now that you’ve completed your group budget and are ready to go with your financing, it’s time to look at the way your household will work. This step involves looking at the human aspects of living together and it’s important to have an open mind and embody the co-operative mindset.

To foster a trusting environment and facilitate the conditions your group needs to co-purchase and live together well, you should create Co-Ownership Guidelines. Some groups refer to this as their “House Rules,” “Collective Agreement,” "Group Agreement", or “Guiding Principles,” and it is a way of clearly stating your commitments to each other in this arrangement. Co-Ownership Guidelines can be as formal or informal as your group desires, and often detail processes such as:

• How the spaces of the home are managed
• How the responsibilities of maintaining the home are divided
• How you communicate and resolve issues or conflicts if they arise

What’s important in this step is:

• Creating your group decision-making model
• Deciding on your group communication method(s)
• Practicing conflict resolution

There may be some overlap with the next step, creating your legal agreement. There are many foundational exercises within this step that will greatly benefit your group before moving on to a legal arrangement. Take your time and discuss thoroughly throughout this step before moving on. The first step is to identify your shared goals.

“It is better to have more documented, rather than less. Agreeing on House Rules and writing them down together can create an expectation that what is agreed will actually happen.

— Lesli Gaynor, Co-founder of Husmates

How Do You Create Your Co-Ownership Guidelines?

Click on the sections below to learn more.

1. Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: Getting Started
2. Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: Identifying Shared Goals
3. Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: Collective Decision Making
4. Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: The Power of Communication
5. Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: Conflict Resolution
6. Creating Your Co-Ownership Guidelines: Real-Life Case Studies