Buyer’s Q&A
Does COP charge buyers anything?
No. Browsing the marketplace, reading comparison guides, and being introduced to operators are all free. COP earns referral commission from operators when buyers transact — never from buyers.
The short answer: No. Co-Ownership Property is free for buyers. There is no membership fee, no transaction fee, no premium tier, no paywall on editorial content, and no charge for being introduced to an operator. We earn referral commission from operators when a buyer we introduce successfully transacts. Buyers pay the same price whether they come through COP or directly to the operator — the commission is included in the operator's standard cost base, not added to the buyer's headline price.
The full picture for buyers
Three things that are explicitly free for buyers on COP:
- The marketplace — browse all fractional listings, filter by destination, price, share size; no membership required
- Editorial content — buyer's guides, comparison guides, partner profiles, market research, glossary, this Q&A library — all free, no paywall, no email-gating
- Operator introductions — request to be introduced to one or multiple operators; we facilitate the introduction; no buyer-side charge
What buyers do pay
Whatever the operator's headline share price is for the property they choose to buy — paid directly to the operator, not through COP. COP doesn't sit in the financial transaction at all. The buyer's relationship is with the operator after the introduction.
The buyer's headline price is the same whether they discovered the operator through COP or directly. We don't add to it; the operator builds their referral commission into their standard cost base, the same way they account for any other marketing-acquisition cost.
How COP makes money
Referral commission from the operators we work with, paid only when a buyer we introduce successfully transacts. Standard real-estate marketplace model — same as Rightmove, Zoopla, Idealista. See how does COP make money? for the full economic model.
What this means for editorial trust
The free-for-buyers model is the structural foundation of our editorial independence. If we charged buyers, we'd have a commercial reason to favour high-converting operators in our editorial. We don't; we have a commercial reason to give buyers the best comparison data so they trust us enough to come back for future research and eventual transactions. This aligns our incentives with buyer usefulness rather than transaction volume.
The "if it's free, you're the product" question
Worth addressing directly. Buyers using COP aren't the product in the social-media sense (we don't sell buyer data, we don't run ads against you, we don't monetise your attention). Buyers are users of a free research and comparison tool; operators are the customers who pay when a useful introduction converts. The model is closer to a real-estate marketplace than to a free consumer-data product.
What we don't do with buyer data
Three things to be clear about. We don't sell buyer contact information to third parties. We don't share buyer details with operators without explicit buyer consent. We don't run third-party advertising against COP traffic. Our privacy policy covers the specifics; the short version is that buyer information is used to provide the marketplace and editorial service, not as a separate product.
Hidden fees that don't exist
Four common buyer worries that don't apply at COP:
- No "premium tier" with paywalled comparison data
- No transaction fee added at the point of purchase
- No "concierge service" upsells
- No email-gated downloads of editorial guides
What we ask buyers to do
Two simple things, both optional. First, sign up for the newsletter if you want occasional new-listing alerts and editorial updates (unsubscribe at any time). Second, fill in a brief enquiry form if you want a personal introduction to a specific operator — this is where we capture the information needed to make the introduction useful (destination, budget, timeframe). Neither is required to use the marketplace freely.
Where to start using COP
The marketplace is the starting point — browse, filter, read the comparison guides at compare and the operator profiles at partners.