One home, several occupants, separate days: time-shared co-occupancy is the model Kowo is building, and this guide is its front door. The market had no vocabulary for this use; we coined it, and every term maps to a precise contractual reality.
The co-occupancy lexicon
- Time-shared co-occupancy: several occupants use the same property, each on their own fixed days of the week, each with their own lease. Nobody crosses paths, nobody shares anything but an address.
- Flexible multi-occupant housing: a home organised to host several occupants on alternating days, with private lockable storage and a reset between each handover.
- Fixed-days lease: each occupant’s standard contract, a Civil Code lease stating days, rent and notice. The legal guide is dedicated to it.
- Rental stacking: the owner’s strategy of adding tenants on separate days to give an under-occupied property a real occupancy rate again.
What the model is not
Co-occupancy is neither a flatshare (which legally assumes a primary residence shared by several people at the same time) nor a holiday rental (passing stays, changing travellers, caps to monitor). Each occupant uses the home as a secondary residence, on a recurring basis, often for months. The distinction is not cosmetic: it determines the applicable legal framework, and it is what keeps the model simple and stable.
Why the model changes the game
On the occupant side, co-occupancy solves the commuter’s and hybrid worker’s equation: a fixed weekday base, rent proportionate to the nights actually slept (often three to four times less than a full-month rental), belongings that stay on site, a lease that guarantees the rate.
On the owner side, it turns a home that sits empty on weekdays into recurring, contractual income: a secondary residence occupied only at weekends leaves 208 lettable nights per year (4 nights x 52 weeks), with no traveller turnover and no collective management. Every lease is independent, with no joint liability: the relationship stays bilateral, from the first occupant to the last.
Both readings meet on one point: the model only works because the contracts are precise. Days written in black and white, handover times that never overlap, notice periods and deposits defined upfront. That is the very reasonable price of everyone’s peace of mind.
Where to start
The articles in this guide, listed below, detail how it works in practice: who the co-occupants are, how the week is organised, what happens when one of them leaves. For the contractual foundation, the Civil Code lease guide is the natural companion. And to see the homes open to co-occupancy, head to the Kowo cities, for example Lyon or Nantes.