Terms & Policies

1. Introduction

1.1 Contract

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a contract between you and Houfy Corporation/Houfy Luxembourg Unlimited Company. They govern your use of Houfy's sites, services, and content (“Services”).

You agree that by clicking “Join Now”, “Join Houfy”, “Sign Up” or similar, registering, accessing or using our services (described below), you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding contract with Houfy (even if you are using our Services on behalf of a company). If you do not agree to this contract (“Terms” or “Terms of Service”), do not click “Join Now” (or similar) and do not access or otherwise use any of our Services. If you wish to terminate this contract, at any time you can do so by closing your account and no longer accessing or using our Services.

By using Houfy, you agree to these Terms. If you don’t agree to any of the Terms, you can’t use Houfy.

These Terms of Service and all policies and additional terms posted on and in our sites, applications, tools and services (collectively "Services") set out the terms on which Houfy offers you access to and use of our Services. You can find an overview of our policies here. You agree to comply with all terms of These Terms of Service when accessing or using our Services.

The entity you are contracting with is:

For users outside the Designated Countries: HOUFY Corporation - PO Box 8392 - Breckenridge, CO 80424 - USA

For users in the Designated Countries: HOUFY Luxembourg Unlimited Company - 9 Rue Ordre de la Couronne de Chene - Luxembourg L-1361 - Luxembourg

We use the term “Designated Countries” to refer to countries in the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), and Switzerland. : You and Houfy Luxembourg agree that the laws of Luxembourg, excluding conflict of laws rules, shall exclusively govern any dispute relating to this Contract and/or the Services. You and Houfy Luxembourg agree that claims and disputes can be litigated only in Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and we each agree to personal jurisdiction of the courts located in Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

As a Visitor or Member of our Services, the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to this Privacy Policy (which includes our Cookie Policy and other documents referenced in this Privacy Policy) and updates.

1.2 Members and Visitors

When you register and join the Houfy Services, you become a Member. If you have chosen not to register for our Services, you may access certain features as a “Visitor.”

1.3 Change

We may modify this Contract, our Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policy from time to time. If a change is material, we’ll let you know before they take effect. By using Houfy on or after that effective date, you agree to the new Terms. If you don’t agree to them, you should delete your account before they take effect, otherwise your use of the site and content will be subject to the new Terms.

2. Obligations

2.1 Eligibility

The Services are not for use by anyone under the age of 16.

To use the Services, you agree that: (1) you must be 16* or older; (2) you will only have one Houfy account, which must be in your real name; and (3) you are not already restricted by Houfy from using the Services. Creating an account with false information is a violation of our terms, including accounts registered on behalf of others or persons under the age of 16.

*If law requires that you must be older in order for Houfy to lawfully provide the Services to you without parental consent (including using of your personal data) then the Minimum Age is such older age.

In order to access and use the Houfy Marketplaces you must be an individual at least 18 years old or a duly organized, validly existing business, organization or other legal entity in good standing under the laws of the country you are registered and able to enter into legally binding contracts.

If we learn someone under 16 is using Houfy, we’ll terminate their account.

You will comply with any applicable export control laws in your local jurisdiction. You also represent and warrant that (i) neither you nor your Service(s) are located or take place in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo, or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a "terrorist supporting" country, and (ii) you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

2.2 Your Account

Members are account holders. You agree to: (1) use a strong password and keep it confidential; (2) not transfer any part of your account (e.g., connections) and (3) follow the law and our list of Dos and Don’ts and Professional Community Policies. You are responsible for anything that happens through your account unless you close it or report misuse.

User verification on the Internet is difficult and we do not assume any responsibility for the confirmation of any Member’s identity. Notwithstanding the above, for transparency and fraud prevention purposes, and as permitted by applicable laws, we may, but have no obligation to (i) ask Members to provide a form of government identification or other information or undertake additional checks designed to help verify the identities or backgrounds of Members, (ii) screen Members against third party databases or other sources and request reports from service providers, and (iii) where we have sufficient information to identify a Member, obtain reports from public records of criminal convictions or sex offender registrations or an equivalent version of background or registered sex offender checks in your local jurisdiction (if available).

2.3 Payment

If you buy any of our paid Services (“Premium Services”), you agree to pay us the applicable fees and taxes and to additional terms specific to the paid Services. Failure to pay these fees will result in the termination of your paid Services. Also, you agree that:

• Your purchase may be subject to foreign exchange fees or differences in prices based on location (e.g. exchange rates).
• We may store and continue billing your payment method (e.g. credit card) even after it has expired, to avoid interruptions in your Services and to use to pay other Services you may buy.
• If you purchase a subscription, your payment method automatically will be charged at the start of each subscription period for the fees and taxes applicable to that period. To avoid future charges, cancel before the renewal date. Learn how to cancel or suspend your Premium Services.
• All of your purchases of Services are subject to Houfy's refund policy.
• We may calculate taxes payable by you based on the billing information that you provide us at the time of purchase.

You can get a copy of your invoice through your Houfy account settings under “Purchase History”.

2.4 Notices & Messages

You agree that we will provide notices and messages to you in the following ways: (1) within the Service, or (2) sent to the contact information you provided us (e.g., email, mobile number, physical address). You agree to keep your contact information up to date.

Please review your settings to control and limit messages you receive from us.

2.5 Sharing

Our Services allow messaging and sharing of information in many ways, such as your profile, articles, group posts, links to news articles, Listings and messages. Information and content that you share or post may be seen by other Members, Visitors or others (including off of the Services). Where we have made settings available, we will honor the choices you make about who can see content or information (e.g., message content to your addressees, sharing content only to Houfy connections, restricting your profile visibility from search engines, or opting not to notify others of your Houfy profile update).

We are not obligated to publish any information or content on our Service and can remove it with or without notice.

2.6 Access

Houfy may make access to and use of the Houfy Services, or certain areas or features of the Houfy Services, subject to certain conditions or requirements, such as completing a verification process, meeting specific quality or eligibility criteria, meeting Ratings or Reviews thresholds, or a Member’s booking and cancellation history.

The access to or use of certain areas and features of the Houfy Services may be subject to separate policies, standards or guidelines, or may require that you accept additional terms and conditions, before you can access the relevant areas or features of the Houfy Services. If there is a conflict between these Terms and terms and conditions applicable to a specific area or feature of the Houfy Services, the latter terms and conditions will take precedence with respect to your access to or use of that area or feature, unless specified otherwise in the latter terms and conditions.

If you access or download the Application from the Apple App Store, you agree to Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement. Some areas of the Houfy Services implement Google Maps/Earth mapping services, including Google Maps API(s). Your use of Google Maps/Earth is subject to the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service.

3. Rights and Limits

3.1 Your License to Houfy - You own the rights to the content you create and post on Houfy.

As between you and Houfy, you own the content and information that you submit or post to the Services, and you are only granting Houfy and our affiliates the following non-exclusive license:

A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish and process, information and content that you provide through our Services and the services of others, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others. These rights are limited in the following ways:

1. You can end this license for specific content by deleting such content from the Services, or generally by closing your account, except (a) to the extent you shared it with others as part of the Service and they copied, re-shared it or stored it and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove from backup and other systems.
2. We will not include your content in advertisements for the products and services of third parties to others without your separate consent (including sponsored content). However, we have the right, without payment to you or others, to serve ads near your content and information, and your social actions may be visible and included with ads, as noted in the Privacy Policy. If you use a Service feature, we may mention that with your name or photo to promote that feature within our Services, subject to your settings.
3. We will get your consent if we want to give others the right to publish your content beyond the Services. However, if you choose to share your post as "public", we will enable a feature that allows other Members to embed that public post onto third-party services, and we enable search engines to make that public content findable though their services.
4. While we may edit and make format changes to your content (such as translating or transcribing it, modifying the size, layout or file type or removing metadata), we will not modify the meaning of your expression.
5. Because you own your content and information and we only have non-exclusive rights to it, you may choose to make it available to others, including under the terms of a Creative Commons license.

You and Houfy agree that we may access, store, process and use any information and personal data that you provide in accordance with, the terms of the Privacy Policy and your choices (including settings).

By submitting suggestions or other feedback regarding our Services to Houfy, you agree that Houfy can use and share (but does not have to) such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.

You agree to only provide content or information that does not violate the law nor anyone’s rights (including intellectual property rights). You also agree that your profile information will be truthful. Houfy may be required by law to remove certain information or content in certain countries.

3.2 Service Availability

We may change, suspend or discontinue any of our Services. We may also modify our prices effective prospectively upon reasonable notice to the extent allowed under the law.

We don’t promise to store or keep showing any information and content that you’ve posted. Houfy is not a storage service. You agree that we have no obligation to store, maintain or provide you a copy of any content or information that you or others provide, except to the extent required by applicable law and as noted in our Privacy Policy.

3.3 Other Content, Sites and Apps

By using the Services, you may encounter content or information that might be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful. Houfy generally does not review content provided by our Members or others. You agree that we are not responsible for others’ (including other Members’) content or information. We cannot always prevent this misuse of our Services, and you agree that we are not responsible for any such misuse. You also acknowledge the risk that you or your organization may be mistakenly associated with content about others when we let connections and followers know you or your organization were mentioned in the news. Members have choices about this feature.

Houfy may help connect Members offering their services (marketing, insurance, accounting, etc.) with Members seeking services. Houfy does not perform nor employs individuals to perform these services. You must be at least 18 years of age to offer, perform or procure these services. You acknowledge that Houfy does not supervise, direct, control or monitor Members in the performance of these services and agree that (1) Houfy is not responsible for the offering, performance or procurement of these services, (2) Houfy does not endorse any particular Member’s offered services, and (3) nothing shall create an employment, agency, or joint venture relationship between Houfy and any Member offering services. If you are a Member offering services, you represent and warrant that you have all the required licenses and will provide services consistent with our Professional Community Policies.

Similarly, Houfy may help you register for and/or attend events organized by Members and connect with other Members who are attendees at such events. You agree that (1) Houfy is not responsible for the conduct of any of the Members or other attendees at such events, (2) Houfy does not endorse any particular event listed on our Services, (3) Houfy does not review and/or vet any of these events, and (4) that you will adhere to these terms and conditions that apply to such events.

3.4 Limits

Houfy reserves the right to limit your use of the Services, including the number of your connections and your ability to contact other Members. LinkedIn reserves the right to restrict, suspend, or terminate your account if you breach this Contract or the law or are misusing the Services (e.g., violating any of the Dos and Don’ts or Professional Community Policies).

3.5 Intellectual Property Rights

We reserve all rights in Houfy's look and feel. Some parts of Houfy are licensed under third-party open source licenses. We also make some of our own code available under open source licenses. As for other parts of Houfy, you may not copy or adapt any portion of our code or visual design elements (including logos) without express written permission from Houfy unless otherwise permitted by law.

Houfy is in the process of reserving all of its intellectual property rights in the Services. Trademarks and logos used in connection with the Services are the trademarks of their respective owners. Houfy and other Houfy trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used for our Services might be trademarks or in the process of being trademarked by Houfy.

3.6 Automated Processing

We use the information and data that you provide and that we have about Members to make recommendations for connections, content and features that may be useful to you. For example, we use data and information about you to recommend Listings to you and you to members searching for listings. Keeping your profile accurate and up to date helps us to make these recommendations more accurate and relevant.

4. Disclaimer and Limit of Liability

4.1 Disclaimer of warranty

This is our disclaimer of legal liability for the quality, safety, or reliability of our Services.

HOUFY AND ITS AFFILIATES MAKE NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY ABOUT THE SERVICES, INCLUDING ANY REPRESENTATION THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, AND PROVIDE THE SERVICES (INCLUDING CONTENT AND INFORMATION) ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, HOUFY AND ITS AFFILIATES DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, ACCURACY OF DATA, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

4.2 Limitation of Liability

These are the limits of legal liability we may have to you.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW (AND UNLESS HOUFY HAS ENTERED INTO A SEPARATE WRITTEN AGREEMENT THAT OVERRIDES THIS CONTRACT), HOUFY, INCLUDING ITS AFFILIATES, WILL NOT BE LIABLE IN CONNECTION WITH THIS CONTRACT FOR LOST PROFITS OR LOST BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, REPUTATION (E.G., OFFENSIVE OR DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS), LOSS OF DATA (E.G., DOWN TIME OR LOSS, USE OF, OR CHANGES TO, YOUR INFORMATION OR CONTENT) OR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES.

HOUFY AND ITS AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU IN CONNECTION WITH THIS CONTRACT FOR ANY AMOUNT THAT EXCEEDS (A) THE TOTAL FEES PAID OR PAYABLE BY YOU TO HOUFY FOR THE SERVICES DURING THE TERM OF THIS CONTRACT, IF ANY, OR (B) US $1000.

4.3 Basis of the Bargain; Exclusions

The limitations of liability in this Section 4 are part of the basis of the bargain between you and HOUFY and shall apply to all claims of liability (e.g., warranty, tort, negligence, contract and law) even if HOUFY or its affiliates has been told of the possibility of any such damage, and even if these remedies fail their essential purpose.

These limitations of liability do not apply to liability for death or personal injury or for fraud, gross negligence or intentional misconduct, or in cases of negligence where a material obligation has been breached, a material obligation being such which forms a prerequisite to our delivery of services and on which you may reasonably rely, but only to the extent that the damages were directly caused by the breach and were foreseeable upon conclusion of this Contract and to the extent that they are typical in the context of this Contract.

5. Termination

We can each end this Contract, but some rights and obligations survive.

Both you and Houfy may terminate this Contract at any time with notice to the other.

On termination, you lose the right to access or use the Services. The following shall survive termination:

• Our rights to use and disclose your feedback;
• Members and/or Visitors’ rights to further re-share content and information you shared through the Services;
• Sections 4, 6, 7, and 8.2 of this Contract;
• Any amounts owed by either party prior to termination remain owed after termination.

Houfy may immediately, without notice, terminate this Contract and/or stop providing access to the Houfy Platform if (i) you have materially breached your obligations under these Terms, our Policies or Standards, (ii) you have violated applicable laws, regulations or third party rights, or (iii) such action is necessary to protect the personal safety or property of Houfy, its Members, or third parties (for example in the case of fraudulent behavior of a Member).

In addition, Houfy may take any of the following measures (i) to comply with applicable law, or the order or request of a court, law enforcement or other administrative agency or governmental body, or if (ii) you have breached these Terms, our Policies or Standards, applicable laws, regulations, or third party rights, (iii) you have provided inaccurate, fraudulent, outdated or incomplete information during the Houfy Account registration, Listing process or thereafter, (iv) you and/or your Listings or conduct at any time fail to meet any applicable quality or eligibility criteria, (v) you have repeatedly received poor Ratings or Reviews or Houfy otherwise becomes aware of or has received complaints about your performance or conduct, (vi) you have repeatedly cancelled confirmed bookings or failed to respond to booking requests without a valid reason, or (vii) such action is necessary to protect the personal safety or property of Houfy, its Members, or third parties, or to prevent fraud or other illegal activity:

• refuse to surface, delete or delay any Listings, Ratings, Reviews, or other Member Content;
• cancel any pending or confirmed bookings;
• limit your access to or use of the Houfy Services;
• temporarily or permanently revoke any special status associated with your Houfy Account;
• temporarily or in case of severe or repeated offenses permanently suspend your Houfy Account and stop providing access to the Houfy Services.

In case of non-material breaches and where appropriate, you will be given notice of any intended measure by Houfy and an opportunity to resolve the issue to Houfy's reasonable satisfaction.

When this Contract has been terminated, you are not entitled to a restoration of your Houfy Account or any of your Member Content. If your access to or use of the Houfy Services has been limited or your Houfy Account has been suspended or this Contract has been terminated by us, you may not register a new Houfy Account or access and use the Houfy Services through an Houfy Account of another Member.

If Houfy takes any of the measures described in this Section 5 you may appeal such a decision by contacting our customer service.

You can visit our Help Center to close your account.

6. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

This section shall not deprive you of any mandatory consumer protections under the law of the country to which we direct Services to you, where you have your habitual residence.

If you live outside of Designated Countries, including those who live outside of the United States: You and Houfy agree that the laws of the State of Colorado, U.S.A., excluding its conflict of laws rules, shall exclusively govern any dispute relating to this Contract and/or the Services. You and Houfy both agree that all claims and disputes can be litigated only in the federal or state courts in Breckenridge, Summit County, Colorado, USA, and you and Houfy each agree to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

If your country of residence or establishment is the United States, these Terms will be interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of Colorado and the United States of America, without regard to conflict-of-law provisions. Judicial proceedings (other than small claims actions) that are excluded from the Arbitration Agreement in Section 6 must be brought in state or federal court in Breckenridge, Colorado, unless we both agree to some other location. You and we both consent to venue and personal jurisdiction in Breckenridge, Colorado.

If you live in the Designated Countries: These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with Luxembourg law. If you are acting as a consumer and if mandatory statutory consumer protection regulations in your country of residence contain provisions that are more beneficial for you, such provisions shall apply irrespective of the choice of Luxembourg law. As a consumer, you may bring any judicial proceedings relating to these Terms before the competent court of your place of residence or the competent court of Houfy's place of business in Luxembourg. If Houfy wishes to enforce any of its rights against you as a consumer, we may do so only in the courts of the jurisdiction in which you are a resident. If you are acting as a business, you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Luxembourg courts.

You and Houfy Luxembourg agree that the laws of Luxembourg, excluding conflict of laws rules, shall exclusively govern any dispute relating to this Contract and/or the Services. You and Houfy Luxembourg agree that claims and disputes can be litigated only in Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and we each agree to personal jurisdiction of the courts located in Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

If your country of residence or establishment is China these Terms will be interpreted in accordance with the laws of China (“China Laws”). Any dispute arising from or in connection with this Agreement shall be submitted to the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) for arbitration in Beijing which shall be conducted in accordance with CIETAC’s arbitration rules in effect at the time of applying for arbitration, provided that this section shall not be construed to limit any rights which Houfy may have to apply to any court of competent jurisdiction for an order requiring you to perform or be prohibited from performing certain acts and other provisional relief permitted under China Laws or any other laws that may apply to you. The arbitration proceedings shall be conducted in English. The arbitral award rendered is final and binding upon both parties.

7. General Terms

If a court with authority over this Contract finds any part of it invalid or unenforceable, you and we agree that the court should modify the terms to make that part enforceable while still achieving its intent. If the court cannot do that, you and we agree to ask the court to remove that invalid or unenforceable part and still enforce the rest of this Contract.

Houfy's failure to enforce any right or provision in these Terms will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision unless acknowledged and agreed to by us in writing. Except as expressly set forth in these Terms, the exercise by either party of any of its remedies under these Terms will be without prejudice to its other remedies under these Terms or otherwise permitted under law.

Except as they may be supplemented by additional terms and conditions, policies, guidelines or standards, these Terms constitute the entire Contract between Houfy and you pertaining to the subject matter hereof, and supersede any and all prior oral or written understandings or agreements between Houfy and you in relation to the access to and use of the Services.

No joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between you and Houfy as a result of this Contract or your use of the Services.

If we don't act to enforce a breach of this Contract, that does not mean that Houfy has waived its right to enforce this Contract. You may not assign, transfer or delegate this Contract and your rights and obligations hereunder without Houfy's prior written consent. Houfy may without restriction assign, transfer or delegate this Contract and any rights and obligations hereunder, at its sole discretion, with 30 days prior notice to its affiliates or a party that buys it without your consent. There are no third-party beneficiaries to this Contract. Your right to terminate this Contract at any time remains unaffected.

These Terms do not and are not intended to confer any rights or remedies upon any person other than the parties.

Unless specified otherwise, any notices or other communications to Members permitted or required under this Contract, will be provided electronically and given by Houfy via email, Houfy Platform notification, or messaging service (including SMS). If your booking is in respect of a Listing in Japan, you agree and acknowledge that such notifications via electronic means in lieu of a written statement, satisfies Houfy's obligations under Article 59 Paragraph 1 of the Japanese Housing Accommodation Business Act.

You agree that the only way to provide us legal notice is at the addresses provided in Section 10.

8. Houfy “Dos and Don’ts”

8.1 Dos - You agree that you will:

1. Comply with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements;
2. Provide accurate information to us and keep it updated;
3. Use your real name on your profile; and
4. Use the Services in a professional manner.

8.2 Don'ts - You agree that you will not:

1. Create a false identity on Houfy, misrepresent your identity, create a Member profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person), or use or attempt to use another’s account;
2. Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons or any other technology) to scrape the Services or otherwise copy profiles and other data from the Services;
3. Override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits of the Service (such as caps on keyword searches or profile views);
4. Copy, use, disclose or distribute any information obtained from the Services, whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines), without the consent of Houfy;
5. Disclose information that you do not have the consent to disclose (such as confidential information of others (including your employer));
6. Violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets or other proprietary rights. For example, do not copy or distribute (except through the available sharing functionality) the posts or other content of others without their permission, which they may give by posting under a Creative Commons license;
7. Violate the intellectual property or other rights of Houfy, including, without limitation, (i) copying or distributing our learning videos or other materials or (ii) copying or distributing our technology, unless it is released under open source licenses; (iii) using the word “Houfy” or our logos in any business name, email, or URL except as provided in the Brand Guidelines;
8. Post anything that contains software viruses, worms, or any other harmful code;
9. Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decipher or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the Services or any related technology that is not open source;
10. Imply or state that you are affiliated with or endorsed by Houfy without our express consent (e.g., representing yourself as an accredited Houfy trainer);
11. Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell or otherwise monetize the Services or related data or access to the same, without Houfy's consent;
12. Deep-link to our Services for any purpose other than to promote your profile or a Group on our Services, without Houfy's consent;
13. Use bots or other automated methods to access the Services, add or download contacts, send or redirect messages;
14. Monitor the Services’ availability, performance or functionality for any competitive purpose;
15. Engage in “framing,” “mirroring,” or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of the Services;
16. Overlay or otherwise modify the Services or their appearance (such as by inserting elements into the Services or removing, covering, or obscuring an advertisement included on the Services);
17. Interfere with the operation of, or place an unreasonable load on, the Services (e.g., spam, denial of service attack, viruses, gaming algorithms); and/or
18. Violate the Professional Community Policies or any additional terms concerning a specific Service that are provided when you sign up for or start using such Service, and the Google Maps terms where applicable.

If you find a security vulnerability on Houfy, inform us.

9. Complaints Regarding Content

Contact information for complaint about content provided by our Members.

We respect the intellectual property rights of others. We require that information posted by Members be accurate and not in violation of the intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties. We provide a policy and process for complaints concerning content posted by our Members.

10. How To Contact Us

For general inquiries, you may contact us online or join our support community at Facebook

For legal notices or service of process, you may write us at these addresses.

Questions? E-mail us know at info@Houfy.com

If you don’t agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, you may not access or use the Houfy Services. If you have any comments or questions about this Privacy Policy, feel free to contact us at info@houfy.com

Privacy Policy Summary

1. What does this Privacy Policy cover?

This Privacy Policy is designed to describe:

• How and what type of personal information we collect and use
• When and with whom we share your personal information
• What choices you can make about how we collect, use, and share your personal information

2. What personal information do we collect and use, and how do we collect it?

We collect personal information when:

• You give us the information
• We collect it automatically
• We receive it from others

When you create an account on Houfy, sign up to receive offers or information, or make a booking using our platform, you give us your personal information.

We also collect such information through automated technology such as cookies placed on your browser—with your consent where applicable—when you visit our sites or download and use our mobile apps. We also receive information from business partners and other third parties, which helps us improve our platform and associated tools and services, update and maintain accurate records, detect and investigate potential fraud, and more effectively market our services.

3. How is your personal information shared?

Your personal information may be shared to help you make a booking, assist you with or during your travel or stay, communicate with you (including when we send information about products and services or enable you to communicate with travel providers or property owners or managers), or to comply with the law. Our full Privacy Policy provides additional detail regarding how your personal information may be shared.

4. What are your rights and choices?

You can exercise your data-protection rights in various ways. For example, you can opt out of marketing by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in emails you receive, changing preferences in your account, as applicable, or by contacting our customer service team. Our Privacy Policy has more information about the options and data-protection rights available to you.

5. How to contact us

More information about our privacy practices is in our full Privacy Policy. You can also contact us as described below in the Contact Us section to ask questions about how we handle your personal information or to make requests about your personal information.

1. Core Principles

When it comes to your personal information we believe in transparency, not surprises. So before we get into the details, we want to share with you a few of our core privacy principles.

• First, we don’t sell your personal information to anyone. It’s just not the type of business we’re in.
• Second, we don’t share your personal information unless you’ve specifically allowed it, or for the very limited purposes described below.
• Finally, we appreciate that when you use our Houfy Services, you trust us with your information, and we take that responsibility very seriously.

This Privacy Policy applies to the use of the Houfy Services (as defined below), including by both consumers and Professionals. “Professional(s)” means individuals, companies and other organizations or persons acting as real estate professionals or otherwise engaged in a business related to Houfy's Services, including, without limitation, agents, brokers, real estate professionals, home service professionals and other service professionals. Except as otherwise indicated, Professionals, consumers and other persons using the Houfy Services are individually and collectively referred to as “you.”

This Privacy Notice applies to personal information collected by Houfy Corporation, through the Houfy websites, and mobile apps, mobile-optimized websites and other applications and/or electronic media (such as emails Houfy sends) (collectively, the “Services”). This includes, but is not limited to: https://www.houfy.com & https://www.maps.houfy.com

This Privacy Policy holds us accountable for protecting your rights and your privacy.

1.1 Definitions

If you see an undefined term in this Privacy Policy (such as “Listing” or “Houfy Services”), it has the same definition as in our Terms of Service (“Terms”).

When this policy mentions “Houfy,” “we,” “us,” or “our,” it refers to the Houfy Corporation that is responsible for your information under this Privacy Policy.

2. Collection

When you use the Houfy Services, we collect the following information, and use it only as described below:

2.1. Account Information.

We ask for and collect the following personal information about you when you use the Houfy Services. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us and to allow us to comply with our legal obligations. Without it, we may not be able to provide you with all the requested services.

• Account Information. When you sign up for an Houfy Account, we require certain information such as your first name, last name and email address.
• Profile and Listing Information. To use certain features of the Houfy Services (such as booking or creating a Listing), we may ask you to provide additional information, which may include your address, phone number, and a profile picture.
• Identity Verification Information. To help create and maintain a trusted environment, we may collect identity verification information (such as images of your government issued ID, passport, national ID card, or driving license, as permitted by applicable laws) or other authentication information.
• Payment Information. To use certain features of the Houfy Services (such as booking or creating a Listing), we may require you to provide certain financial information (like credit card information) in order to facilitate the processing of payments (via Stripe or Square Payments).
• Communications with Houfy and other Members. When you communicate with Houfy or use the Houfy Services to communicate with other Members, we collect information about your communication and any information you choose to provide.

2.2. Third Party Account Information. If you use Third Party Services, such as social media or photo-sharing services, you may provide us with your Third Party Services account information, such as your username (note that we don’t store any passwords you use to access Third Party Services). We transmit, and may store, such account information, only as needed to provide the Houfy Services, and only in accordance with the terms and policies of the Third Party Services.

We do not control, supervise or respond for how the third parties providing your information process your Personal Information, and any information request regarding the disclosure of your personal information to us should be directed to such third parties.

• Third Party Services. If you link, connect, or login to your Houfy Account with a third party service (e.g. Google, Facebook), the third party service may send us information such as your registration, friends list, and profile information from that service. This information varies and is controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.
• Background Information. For Members in the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws, Houfy may obtain reports from public records of criminal convictions or sex offender registrations. For Members outside of the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws and with your consent where required, Houfy may obtain the local version of police, background or registered sex offender checks. We may use your information, including your full name and date of birth, to obtain such reports.
• Enterprise Product Invitations and Account Management. Organizations that use our Enterprise products (such a FabStayz LLC and programs with property managers and owners) may submit personal information to facilitate account management and invitations to use enterprise products.
• Referrals. If you are invited to Houfy, the person who invited you may submit personal information about you such as your email address or other contact information.
• Other Sources. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may receive additional information about you, such as demographic data or information to help detect fraud and safety issues, from third party service providers and/or partners, and combine it with information we have about you. For example, we may receive background check results (with your consent where required) or fraud warnings from service providers like identity verification services for our fraud prevention and risk assessment efforts. We may receive information about you and your activities on and off the Houfy Services through partnerships, or about your experiences and interactions from our partner ad networks.

2.3. Payment Information. When you initially provide or update your payment information, we transmit it via an encrypted connection to our Payment Processor, Stripe or Square. Stripe and Square use and process payment information in accordance with their Privacy Policies. We don’t store payment information, other than zip code and/or country, which is required for billing and to comply with tax and other government regulations.

2.4. Communications With Us. When you send us emails or other communications, such as customer support inquiries, we maintain those communications and their contents so that we can resolve your inquiries or otherwise assist you.

Sometimes we’ll send you emails about your account, service changes or new policies. You can’t opt out of this type of “transactional” email (unless you delete your account). But, you can opt out of non-administrative emails such as digests, newsletters, and activity notifications through your account’s “Settings” page

When you interact with an email sent from Houfy (such as opening an email or clicking on a particular link in an email), we may receive information about that interaction. We won’t email you to ask for your password or other account information. If you receive such an email, please send it to us so we can investigate.

2.5. Public Comments On The Services. We maintain any comments, contributions to discussions or messages submitted to members of the Houfy Services, in order to provide the Houfy Services.

2.6. Files You Provide Us. When you use the Houfy Services, we store, process and transmit your Member Content (such as your photos) and information related to your Member Content (such as location tags in photos). We process and store such files and information in order to provide the Houfy Services, as described in our Terms of Service.

You may choose to provide us with additional personal information in order to obtain a better user experience when using the Houfy Services. This additional information will be processed based on our legitimate interest or when applicable, your consent.

• Additional Profile Information. You may choose to provide additional information as part of your Houfy profile, such as preferred language, city, and a personal description. Some of this information as indicated in your Account settings is part of your public profile page, and will be publicly visible to others.
• Address Book Contact Information. You may choose to import your address book contacts or enter your contacts’ information manually to access certain features of the Houfy Services, like inviting them to use Houfy.
• Other Information. You may otherwise choose to provide us information when you fill in a form, update or add information to your Houfy Account, respond to surveys, post to community forums, participate in promotions, communicate with our customer care team or use other features of the Houfy Services.

2.7. Usage Information. This includes information about your activity on and interaction with the Houfy Services, such as your IP address, your device or browser type, the webpage you visited before coming to our sites and identifiers associated with your devices. This information enables us to analyze how the Houfy Services are being accessed and used, and to track performance of the Houfy Services.

When you use the Houfy Services, we automatically collect personal information about the services you use and how you use them. This information is necessary for the adequate performance of the contract between you and us, to enable us to comply with legal obligations and given our legitimate interest in being able to provide and improve the functionalities of the Houfy Services.

• Geo-location Information. Your devices (depending on your settings) may transmit location information to the Houfy Services. We use this information to customize, improve and protect the Houfy Services. For example, we may use your location information to determine local language preferences, or to geotag a post.
• Usage Information. We collect information about your interactions with the Houfy Platform such as the pages or content you view, your searches for Listings, bookings you have made, and other actions on the Houfy Services.
• Log Data and Device Information. We automatically collect log data and device information when you access and use the Houfy Services, even if you have not created an Houfy Account or logged in. That information includes, among other things: details about how you’ve used the Houfy Services (including if you clicked on links to third party applications), IP address, access dates and times, hardware and software information, device information, device event information, unique identifiers, crash data, cookie data, and the pages you’ve viewed or engaged with before or after using the Houfy Services.
• Cookies and Similar Technologies. We use these technologies to do things such as remember your preferences, keep you safe and improve and promote the Houfy Services. You can read more about how we use these technologies in our Cookie Policy, which is incorporated by reference into this Privacy Policy. We may collect certain information by automated means using technologies such as cookies, web beacons, pixels, browser analysis tools, server logs, and mobile identifiers. In many cases the information we collect using cookies and other tools is only used in a non-identifiable without reference to personal information. For example, we may use information we collect to better understand website traffic patterns and to optimize our website experience. In some cases we associate the information we collect using cookies and other technology with your personal information. Our business partners may also use these tracking technologies on the Houfy Services or engage others to track your behavior on our behalf.
• Pixels and SDKs. Third parties, including Facebook, may use cookies, web beacons, and other storage technologies to collect or receive information from our websites and elsewhere on the internet and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads. For apps, that third parties, including Facebook, may collect or receive information from your app and other apps and use that information to provide measurement services and targeted ads. Users can opt-out of the collection and use of information for ad targeting by updating their Facebook account ad settings and by contacting info@houfy.com with a description of your request and validation information. Users can access a mechanism for exercising such choice by going to http://www.aboutads.info/choices and http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/. For more information on our use of these technologies, see our Cookie Policy.
• Do Not Track Signals. While you may disable the usage of cookies through your browser settings, the Houfy Services currently does not respond to a “Do Not Track” signal in the HTTP header from your browser or mobile application due to lack of standardization regarding how that signal should be interpreted.

3. Sharing

When you use the Houfy Services, we may share your information only as described below:

3.1. Third Parties You Authorize. You can give third parties access to your and your End Users’ information on the Houfy Services. For example, you may wish to integrate Your Sites with a third party newsletter service that requires access to the email addresses you collect from your End Users, in order for that newsletter service to send emails on your behalf and at your direction. Just remember that such third party’s use of this information will be governed by the terms and privacy policies of the third party.

3.2. Following The Law. We may disclose your information to third parties if we determine that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, protect our rights or prevent fraud or abuse of Houfy or our members. When we receive law enforcement or national security requests for information, we strongly believe in privacy and transparency. We scrutinize such requests carefully and challenge vague, overbroad or otherwise unlawful requests. And when legally permitted, we provide our members with notice that their information is being requested. This notice is provided so that you have the opportunity to challenge such requests.

3.3. Others Working For Houfy. Houfy uses certain trusted third parties to help us provide, improve, promote and protect the Services. For example, we may use third parties to help us provide customer support, manage our ads on other sites or assist with data storage. These third parties may access, process or store your information to perform tasks only for the purposes we’ve authorized, and we require them to provide at least the same level of protection for your information as described in this Privacy Policy. We also may share with third parties aggregated or anonymized information that does not directly identify you.

3.4. Business Transfers. If we're involved in a reorganization, merger, acquisition or sale of our assets, your information may be transferred as part of that deal.

4. Protection

We employ security measures such as using firewalls to protect against intruders, building redundancies throughout our network (so that if one server goes down, another can cover for it) and testing for and protecting against network vulnerabilities. We use encryption (HTTPS/TLS) to protect data transmitted to and from our site. However, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure, so we can’t guarantee security. You use the Service at your own risk, and you’re responsible for taking reasonable measures to secure your account.

If you know or have reason to believe that your Houfy Account credentials have been lost, stolen, misappropriated, or otherwise compromised or in case of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your Houfy Account, please contact us following the instructions in the Contact Us section below.

5. Retention

We'll retain your personal information for as long as we need it to provide you with the Services. You can ask for your personal information to be deleted at any time by deleting your Account or contacting us at info@houfy.com. Please note that there may be latency in deleting your personal information from our servers and backup storage, and we may retain your personal information in order to comply with the law, protect our rights, resolve disputes or enforce our agreements.

6. Location

Information that you submit through the Houfy Services may be transferred to countries other than where you live (for example, to our servers in the US). We also may store information locally on the devices you use to access the Houfy Services. We also may transfer information to third parties outside the US for processing or to support the Houfy Services, and we require them to provide at least the same level of protection for your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

7. Access

To modify or delete the personal information you have provided to us, simply log into the Houfy Services and update your profile. We may retain certain information as required by law or for necessary business purposes. On request, we'll provide you with a copy of your personal information that we maintain. This request may be subject to a fee not exceeding the prescribed fee permitted by law.

8. Communications

We may periodically email you service-related announcements. We'll also send you emails related to your transactions. We may also send you marketing or promotional communications, but you can opt out of receiving subsequent marketing or promotional communications by clicking the link marked unsubscribe (or a similar phrasing) that’s included in those communications.

9. End User Information

9.1. Collection And Use Of End User Information. You may use the Services to create or publish Your Sites, and Your Sites may have End Users. We may collect, use or delete the same types of information described in Section 2, above, from your End Users, on your behalf and at your direction, and we treat such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We do this in order to enable you to use the Services, and to provide, improve and protect the Services. For example, during checkout you may ask your End Users to provide name, address, email address and payment information so that you can complete their orders.

9.2. Your Relationship With End Users. You can collect, use or delete your End Users’ information at any time. However, you're solely responsible for complying with any laws and regulations that apply to your End Users’ information, including without limitation the posting of your own privacy policy. We’re not liable for your relationship with your End Users, and we won’t provide you with any legal advice regarding such matters.

9.3. End User Payment Information. Your End Users’ payment information may be processed via third party eCommerce Payment Processors with which you integrate your Account, in accordance with such eCommerce Payment Processors’ terms and policies. We transmit your End Users’ complete payment information when they initially provide or update it, only so that we can pass it along to the eCommerce Payment Processors you agree to use. We don’t collect or store your End Users’ payment information.

9.4. A Message To The End Users. Hello, End User! We hope you create your own site on Houfy some day! However, Houfy has no direct relationship with you. If you’d like to make any requests regarding your personal information, please contact the owner of the site you’ve visited or used, as they control your data. They may then submit any such information requests to us, and we’ll respond to them. We retain your information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

10. Privacy Shield

To facilitate our global operations Houfy may transfer, store, and process your information within our partners, and service providers based in Europe, India, Asia Pacific and North and South America. Laws in these countries may differ from the laws applicable to your country of residence. For example, information collected within the EEA may be transferred, stored, and processed outside of the EEA for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. Where we transfer store, and process your personal information outside of the EEA we have ensured that appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure an adequate level of data protection.

10.1. Compliance. Houfy complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union to the United States (“EU Personal Data”). We’ve certified to the Department of Commerce that we adhere to the Privacy Shield Principles and, assuming our certification is approved, you’ll be able to find it here. You can learn more about Privacy Shield by visiting https://www.privacyshield.gov/

10.2. Accountability. Our accountability for EU Personal Data we receive under the Privacy Shield and subsequently transfer to a third party is described in the Privacy Shield Principles. In particular, we may use third parties to process data on our behalf as described in this Privacy Policy, and we remain liable if they do so in a manner inconsistent with the Privacy Shield Principles and we're responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

10.3. Inquiries And Disputes. If you have questions you believe to be within the scope of our Privacy Shield certification, please contact us first at info@houfy.com and we'll respond within 45 days. For any complaints that we can’t resolve directly, JAMS is the independent organization responsible for reviewing and resolving complaints about our Privacy Shield compliance, and you can contact JAMS at https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-privacy-shield. In the event your concern still isn't addressed by JAMS, you may be entitled to a binding arbitration under the Privacy Shield Principles. For purposes of enforcing compliance with the Privacy Shield, Houfy is subject to the investigatory and enforcement authority of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

10.4 California & Vermont Residents.

Houfy will not share information it collects about you with its affiliates or third parties (both financial and non-financial), except as required or permitted by your state’s law.

10.5 California Privacy Rights.

California law permits Members who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information (if any) for their direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the type of personal information disclosed to those third parties. See the “Contact Us” section for where to send such requests. Houfy does not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes without your prior consent. Accordingly, you can prevent disclosure of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes by withholding consent.

11. Modifications

Houfy reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with this provision. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post the revised Privacy Policy on the Houfy Services and update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. We will also provide you with notice of the modification by email at least thirty (30) days before the date they become effective. If you disagree with the revised Privacy Policy, you may cancel your Account. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued access to or use of the Houfy Services will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy or Houfy's information handling practices, you may email us at the email addresses provided in the relevant sections above or contact us via mail at: info@houfy.com

Houfy, Inc., Legal Department, PO Box 8392, Breckenridge, CO 80424 USA

Complaints regarding content posted on the Houfy website

Our Terms of Service requires that information posted by members be accurate, lawful and not in violation of the rights of third parties. To promote these objectives, Houfy provides a process for submission of complaints concerning content posted by our members. Our policy and procedures are described and/or referenced in the sections that follow.

Please note that whether or not we disable access to or remove content, Houfy may make a good faith attempt to forward the written notification, including the complainant’s contact information, to the Member who posted the content and/or take other reasonable steps to notify the member that Houfy has received notice of an alleged violation of intellectual property rights or other content violation. It is also our policy, in appropriate circumstances and in our discretion, to disable and/or terminate the accounts of members, or groups as the case may be, who infringe or repeatedly infringe the rights of others or otherwise post unlawful content.

Please note that any notice or counter-notice you submit must be truthful and must be submitted under penalty of perjury. A false notice or counter-notice may give rise to personal liability. You may therefore want to seek the advice of legal counsel before submitting a notice or a counter-notice.

Claims regarding copyright infringement

Notice of Copyright Infringement:

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512), Houfy has implemented procedures for receiving written notification of claimed infringements. Houfy has also designated an agent to receive notices of claimed copyright infringement. If you believe in good faith that your copyright has been infringed, you may complete and submit a Notice of Copyright Infringement form, or otherwise provide a written communication which contains:

1. An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest;
2. A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed;
3. A description specifying the location on our website of the material that you claim is infringing;
4. Your email address and your mailing address and/or telephone number;
5. A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
6. A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.

Please submit your notice to Houfy Corporation’s Copyright Agent as follows:

Fill out our online submission form to contact the Houfy Copyright Agent

Or contact us by mail at: Houfy Corporation - ATTN: Copyright Agent

Legal Department

PO Box 8392,

Breckenridge, CO 80424,

USA

Counter-Notice:

If you believe that a notice of copyright infringement has been improperly submitted against you, you may submit a Counter-Notice, pursuant to Sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. You may complete the Counter-Notice Regarding Claim of Copyright Infringement form, or otherwise provide a written communication which contains:

1. Your physical or electronic signature;
2. Identification of the material removed or to which access has been disabled;
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that removal or disablement of the material was a mistake or that the material was misidentified;
4. Your full name, your email address, your mailing address, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District court (i) in the judicial district where your address is located if the address is in the United States, or (ii) located in the Breckenridge, Colorado (Summit County), if your address is located outside the United States, and that you will accept service of process from the Complainant submitting the notice or his/her authorized agent.

Please submit your Counter-Notice to Houfy’s Copyright Agent via our online submission form or mail to the address specified above.

Claims regarding content other than copyright infringement

For issues other than copyright infringement please visit our Help Center where you’ll find information on how to flag and report other types of content violations. Learn more:

• Reporting Inappropriate Content, Messages, or Safety Concerns
• Houfy's False Profile Policy

Notice regarding Associated Press content on Houfy: Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. Users may not download or reproduce a substantial portion of the AP material found on this web site. AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing.

We and our affiliates, third parties, and other partners use cookies and other identification technologies on our websites, email communications, advertisements, and other online services (collectively, the "Services") for a number of purposes, including: authenticating users, remembering user preferences and settings, determining the popularity of content, delivering and measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, analyzing site traffic and trends, and generally understanding the online behaviors and interests of people who interact with our Services. You can read more here about the types of cookies we use, why we use them, and how you can exercise your choices.

01. What are cookies, pixels, and local storage?

A cookie is a small amount of data that's placed in the browser of your computer or on your mobile device. Like many websites, Houfy and our other services use cookies to discover how people are using our services and to make them work better.

A pixel is a small amount of code on a web page or in an email notification. We use pixels to learn whether you’ve interacted with certain web or email content. This helps us measure and improve our services and personalize your experience.

Local storage is an industry-standard technology that allows a website or application to store information locally on your computer or mobile device. We use local storage to customize what we show you based on your past interactions with our services.

First-party cookies are cookies served by the entity operating the domain through which the cookie is served. Houfy.com’s own cookies are therefore “first-party cookies." In case we allow others to service cookies through the Houfy.com websites and apps, these cookies are so-called “third-party cookies." We may use third party cookies, such as Google Analytics, to assist with analyzing performance. Any third party cookie usage is governed by the privacy policy of the third party placing the cookie.

In addition, there's a difference between session cookies and permanent cookies. Session cookies only exist until you close your browser. Permanent cookies have a longer lifespan and aren't automatically deleted when you close your browser.

All these technologies together are referred to in this Cookie Statement as “cookies."

02. Why do our services use these technologies?

Cookies allow you to be recognized as the same user across the different pages of a website, between websites, or when you use an app. The types of info that we collect through cookies include IP address; device ID; viewed pages; browser type; browsing info; operating system; internet service provider; timestamp; whether you have responded to an advertisement; the referring URL; and features used or activities engaged in within the website/apps.

Our services use these technologies to deliver, measure, and improve our services in various ways. These uses generally fall into one of the following categories:

Technical Cookies: We try to give our visitors an advanced, user-friendly website and apps that adapt automatically to their needs and wishes. To achieve this we use technical cookies to show you our website, to make them function correctly, to create your user account, to sign you in, and for example to manage your bookings. These technical cookies are absolutely necessary for our website to function properly.

• Authentication and security:
• To log you into Houfy.
• To protect your security.
• To let you to view content with limited distribution.
• To help us detect and fight spam, abuse, and other activities that violate the Houfy Rules.
• For example, these technologies help authenticate your access to Houfy and prevent unauthorized parties from accessing your account. They also let us show you appropriate content through our services.

Functional Cookies: We also use functional cookies to remember your preferences and help you use our website and apps efficiently and effectively. If you're using the Houfy.com websites or apps to search for a property, for example, these cookies remember your preferred currency, language, your searches, and your previously viewed searches. We might also use cookies to remember your registration info so that you don’t have to retype your login credentials each time you visit our site. Passwords will, however, always be encrypted. These functional cookies aren't strictly necessary for the functioning of our website or apps, but they add functionality and enhance your Houfy.com experience.

• Preferences:
• To remember information about your browser and your preferences.
• For example, cookies help us remember your preferred language or the country that you are in. We can then provide you with Houfy content in your preferred language without having to ask you each time you visit Houfy. On Houfy, we can also customize content based on your country, such as showing you what topics are trending near you, or to withhold certain content based on applicable local laws.
• Analytics and research:
• To gain insight into how our visitors use Houfy.com.
• To help us analyze how the Houfy Services are being accessed and used, and enable us to track performance of the Houfy Services, including Houfy buttons and widgets, and Houfy Ads.
• For example, cookies determine if you viewed a page or opened an email. This helps us provide you with information that you find interesting. We use cookies to provide insights regarding your End Users and Your Listing(s) or social Posts performance, such as page views, conversion rates, device information, visitor IP addresses and referral sites.
• For example, cookies help us test different versions of our services to see which particular features or content users prefer. We might also optimize and improve your experience on Houfy by using cookies to see how you interact with our services, such as when and how often you use them and what links you click on. We may use Google Analytics to assist us with this. Learn more about the cookies you may encounter through our use of Google Analytics.
• Personalized content:
• To customize our services with more relevant content, like tailored trends, stories, ads, and suggestions for people to follow.
• For example, local storage tells us which parts of your Houfeed you have viewed already so that we can show you the appropriate new content. Cookies can help us make smarter and more relevant suggestions about who you might enjoy following based on your visits to websites that have integrated Houfy embeds, including embedded timelines.
• Personalization across devices:
• By better understanding how devices are related, we can use information from one device to help personalize the Houfy experience on another device.
• When you log in to Houfy on a device, we associate that device with your Houfy account. Whether or not you are logged in to Houfy, we may also receive information about your devices when, for example, that information is shared by a partner; you visit Houfy.com; you visit third-party websites that integrate Houfy content; or you visit a Houfy advertiser’s website or mobile application. We may use this information, most commonly IP addresses and the time at which the information was received, to infer that certain devices are associated with one another, including the devices on which you log in to Houfy. To learn more about the devices associated with your account, check out
  Your Houfy Data while logged in. To learn more about the other devices associated with the device or browser you are currently using, visit Your Houfy Data while logged out.

Marketing cookies: Houfy.com and our trusted partners use third-party cookies. These cookies are used to display personalized ads both on Houfy.com and other sites. These ads are based on your browsing, such as the accommodations and prices you view. These cookies are also used to integrate social media into our site, allowing you to like or share pages or products on social media.

• Advertising:
• To help us deliver ads, measure their performance, and make them more relevant to you based on criteria like your activity on Houfy and visits to our ad partners' websites.
• For example, we use cookies and pixels to personalize ads and measure their performance. Using these technologies, we can show you ads and evaluate their effectiveness based on your visits to our ad partners' websites.
• We also work with third-party advertising partners, including Google, to market our services and serve ads on behalf of our advertisers, including through the delivery of interest-based ads. For example, if you visit Houfy and also use a social media platform, you may see a Houfy ad in your social media newsfeed or timeline.

03. Where are these technologies used?

We (along with third parties) use these technologies on our websites, applications, and services and on other websites, applications, and services that have integrated our services, including third-party properties that incorporate our advertising technology. This includes our ad partners’ websites and sites that use our embeds, including embedded timelines. Third parties may also use these technologies, for example, when you click on links from our websites or applications, view or interact with third-party content from within our services, or visit third-party websites that incorporate our advertising technology.

04. What are your Privacy choices?

To learn more about cookies and how to manage or delete them, just visit allaboutcookies.org and the help section of your browser. In the settings for browsers like Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox or Chrome, you can set which cookies to accept and which to reject. Where you find these settings depends on your browser – use the "Help" function in your browser to locate the settings you need.

If you decide not to accept certain technical and/or functional cookies, you might not be able to use some functions on our website. We currently don't support “Do Not Track” browser settings. In case a common standard has been developed that defines what exactly will be meant by “Do Not Track” browser signals, we'll review Cookie Statement again.

Advertising: When it comes to online advertising and marketing companies, we strive to work with companies that are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and/or the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Members of NAI and IAB adhere to industry standards and codes of conduct. NAI and IAB members allow you to opt out of behavioral advertising. Visit www.networkadvertising.org to identify the NAI members that may have placed an advertising cookie file on your computer.

To opt out of an NAI member's behavioral advertising program, just check the box that corresponds to the company you want to opt out from. You can also visit www.youronlinechoices.com or www.youradchoices.com to learn how to opt out of customized advertisements. Your mobile device may allow you to limit the sharing of information for retargeting purposes through its settings. Be aware that opting out of an online advertising network doesn't mean that you will no longer receive or be subject to online advertising or marketing analysis. It just means the network you opted out of won't deliver ads customized to your web preferences and browsing patterns anymore.

Analytics: In order to control the collection of data for analytical purposes through Google Analytics from certain browser types, visit the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on (for desktop only).

We may modify this Cookie Policy from time to time, and will post the most current version on our site. If a modification meaningfully reduces your rights, we'll notify you in accordance with the procedures set forth in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments about this Cookie Policy, feel free to contact us at info@houfy.com

Last updated: September 22, 2020

These Listing & Marketplace Guidelines are best practices for how property owners and managers who list with Houfy can provide guests with the experience they expect. These guidelines ensure that online booking is simple, secure, and consistent so guests are more likely to return in the future.

Houfy reserves the right to remove any content that violates any of the following:

You cannot cancel a material number of confirmed requests

Canceling a confirmed request can result in lost time and money, and result in an overall disappointing experience for guests.

You must maintain an accurate calendar

Your calendar should be kept accurate at all times. This will save potential guests from spending time submitting booking requests for unavailable dates and will save you time in having to respond about availability.

You cannot use one listing to drive bookings for multiple unlisted properties

General content guidelines: Use the fields in the listing editor for their intended purpose. The following types of information are not permitted in text areas of your listing (unless otherwise indicated by field names):

• Company names
• URLs such as www.rentalcompanyname.com
• HTML
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• Property addresses

General guidelines

• A listing must accurately portray the rental.
• The advertising region selected for a listing must be as exact as possible.
• Listings may not contain information copied from another listing.

These guidelines are intended to provide the best experience possible for you and your guests.

Should any of these be violated, your listing is subject to less visibility to travelers, that include but are not limited to removing or disabling your ability to receive inquiries or removal from search results, or removal from the Houfy altogether.

If you have more questions, please join our facebook member group

Introduction:

These Community Standards provide guidance and rules for the use of our services and outline some examples of prohibited conduct in connection with our services. These policies are incorporated by reference into, and governed by the Terms of Service or other similar written agreement between you (Member) and Houfy Inc.

A core value at Houfy is to put our members first. These Community Standards ensure that the conversations taking place each day on our services help our members be more productive and successful and are free of inappropriate and unwanted content or behavior. The Houfy Services are used by people to share information, build their brands, grow their businesses and everything in between. We’re proud of the creative and inspiring ways that people use the Houfy Services. As a Houfy member, you agree not to misuse the Houfy Services or help anyone else do so.

We ask every member on Houfy to act responsibly. If you see something that you believe may violate our policies, please report it to us. This includes whether it appears in profiles, posts, comments, conversations, or anywhere else. These reports, along with our automated defenses, help us identify and prevent abuse and misbehavior. Please use the reporting tools responsibly and only for their intended purposes. To learn more about how to report inappropriate behavior, visit our Houfy Safety Center.

A violation of these policies may result in us taking enforcement actions. Depending on the severity of the violation and a member’s behavior or account history, we may limit the visibility of certain content, remove content from our Services, or even restrict a member’s account in the event of severe or repeated offenses. If you believe action taken on your content or your account was in error, you can submit a request to appeal your case.

1) Integrity & Authenticity

Be trustworthy. Our members must be real people, who provide their real name and accurate information about themselves. We don’t allow fake profiles on our Services and it’s not okay to provide misleading or deceptive information about yourself.

Be professional. We acknowledge the value of discussions around professional activities and ask our members to behave professionally by not being dishonest or inappropriate. When creating content, we ask that you keep it professional, relevant, and on-topic. For more information, see our Publishing Platform Guidelines. Do not share false information or use the services to shock or intimidate others. And it is not okay to share graphic, obscene, or pornographic content on the services.

Be Relevant. Your messages, posts, comments, hashtags, and other content should be on-topic and relevant. Houfy is a professional community for sharing professional content and information, so don’t share content that’s irrelevant or inappropriate.

Be Honest and authentic. Be honest, forthright, and respectful. Only invite people that you know, that are recommended to you by trusted connections, or that you otherwise trust to join your network. Do not share comments, opinions, or other content in a manner that is intended to be misleading or inaccurate or to conceal a conflict of interest or unlawful motive, including to interfere in or improperly influence an election. Do not share content that directly contradicts guidance from leading global health organizations and public health authorities. You may not use the services to share false content or information, including news stories, that presents untrue facts or events as though they are true or likely true. When you share content or endorse someone or something in exchange for personal benefit (including personal or family relationships, monetary payment, free products or services, or other value), you must include a clear and conspicuous notice of the personal benefit you receive.

Impersonation & Misrepresentation. You may not impersonate others or mislead, confuse, or deceive. Pretending to be someone else or representing a business in a way that’s not truthful is not allowed. You’re not allowed to use an image of someone else, or an artificial or synthetic image, as a representation of yourself. You may not post “deep-fake” images or videos of others or otherwise post content that has been manipulated to deceive. You likewise may not associate yourself on Houfy with a business or organization that you are not actually associated with. You may not use or attempt to use another person's Houfy account or create a member profile for anyone other than yourself. When choosing a profile picture, you may not use an image that is not your likeness for your profile. Also, you may not manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any message or post transmitted through the services. The fact that Houfy, in rare cases, may allow clearly fictional profiles with express prior permission does not waive our right to prohibit your false profile or false association with a business or organization.

• Don’t do anything that's false, fraudulent, inaccurate or deceiving.
• Don’t impersonate another person, company or entity.
• Don’t engage in misleading or unethical marketing or advertising.
• Don't create a false identity or forged email address or header, or phone number, or otherwise attempting to mislead others as to the identity of the sender or the origin of a message or phone call.

Spam and scams. We do not allow un-targeted, irrelevant, obviously unwanted, unauthorized, inappropriately commercial or promotional, or gratuitously repetitive messages or other similar content. Do not use Houfy to sensationalize or capitalize on tragic events for commercial purposes. Do not use our invitation feature to send promotional messages to people you don’t know or to otherwise spam people. Please make the effort to create original, professional, relevant, and interesting content in order to gain popularity, instead of trying ways to artificially increase the number of views, re-shares, likes, or comments.

1. Don’t send spam or other unsolicited communications, promotions or advertisements. (We reserve the right to determine what constitutes spam.)
2. Do not use the Houfy Services in connection with unsolicited, unwanted, or harassing communications (commercial or otherwise), including, but not limited to, phone calls, SMS or MMS messages, chat, voice mail, video, or faxes.
3. Do not engage in any unsolicited advertising, marketing or other activities prohibited by applicable law or regulation covering anti-spam, data protection, or privacy legislation in any applicable jurisdiction, including, but not limited to anti-spam laws and regulations such as the CAN SPAM Act of 2003, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act.
4. Don't use the Houfy Services to harvest or otherwise collect information about individuals, including email addresses or phone numbers, without their explicit consent or under false pretenses.
5. Don’t send altered, deceptive or false source-identifying information, including without limitation phishing or spoofing.

2) Safety

Be safe. We strive to maintain a civil and friendly community for our members. The services shouldn't be used to harm others or their business prospects or to air personal grievances and disputes. It is not okay to harass, abuse, or send other unwelcome communications to people (e.g., romantic advances, sexually explicit content, junk mail, spam, chain letters, phishing schemes). We do not allow hate speech, hate groups, terrorists, or those who engage in violent crimes on the services.

Bullying and harassment. We don’t allow bullying or harassment that targets individuals or groups to degrade or shame. This includes abusive language, sexual advances and innuendo, revealing others' personal or sensitive information (aka "doxing"), posting content about them without consent, or inciting or engaging others to do any of the same.

3) Objectionable Content

Hate speech. We don’t allow content that denigrates, intimidates, or incites or threatens hatred, violence, or prejudicial action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or mental, medical, or physical condition. Hate groups are not welcome and not permitted on the services.

We do not allow posts or accounts that glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups. This includes the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others. We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above.

We do not allow hateful text, images, symbols, or other content in your username, profile, or bio.

Harmful content and shocking material. We don’t allow graphic or other content intended to shock or humiliate others. We don’t allow activities that promote, organize, depict, or facilitate criminal activity. We also don’t allow content depicting or promoting instructional weapon making, drug abuse, and threats of theft. Content or activities that promote or encourage suicide or any type of self-injury, including self-mutilation and eating disorders, is also not allowed. If you see signs that someone may be considering self-harm, please report it.

• Don’t do or post anything threatening, harassing, abusive, excessively violent, offensive, sexually explicit or obscene.
• Don’t advocate bigotry or hatred against any person or group based on their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual preference, age or disability.
• Don't use the Houfy Services to transmit any material or content that is offensive, inappropriate, pornographic, obscene, illegal, or otherwise objectionable to any person or entity.
• Don't use the Houfy Services to transmit any material that is, facilitates, or encourages libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, or otherwise malicious or harmful speech or acts to any person or entity, including but not limited to hate speech, and any other material that Houfy reasonably believes degrades, intimidates, incites violence against, or encourages prejudicial action against anyone based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, geographic location or other protected category.

Adult content. It's not acceptable to post content containing nudity or sexually explicit material or language. (Some adult content may be allowed if the intent is clearly educational, medical, scientific, or artistic, and it’s not gratuitously graphic.) The services are never to be used for sexual exploitation of children. You also may not post content that threatens sexual violence or sexual assault. You may not use the services to send unsolicited sexual advances, engage in or promote non-consensual sexually explicit content (e.g., revenge porn), escort services, prostitution, or human trafficking.

4) Violence & Criminal Behavior

Threats of violence and incitement. We do not allow content or actions that threaten, encourage, or incite violence against anyone, directly or indirectly. This includes statements of an intent to kill or inflict serious physical harm. We don’t allow individuals or groups that engage in or promote violence, property damage, or organized criminal activity. You may not use our services to express support for such individuals or groups or to post content or otherwise use the services to incite or glorify violence.

Terrorism. We don’t allow any terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups on our Services. And we don’t allow any individuals who affiliate with such organizations or groups to promote their activities. Content that depicts terrorist activity, that is intended to recruit for terrorist organizations, or threatens, promotes, or supports terrorism in any manner is not tolerated on the services.

5) Respecting Intellectual Property and Following the Law.

• Don’t do anything that otherwise violates the law, including without limitation all local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.

Copyright and trademark. We respect the intellectual property rights of others and don’t allow copyright infringement. You may not violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or other proprietary rights. For example, don’t copy or distribute (except through the available sharing functionality) the posts or other content of others without their permission, which they may give by posting under a Creative Commons license. Visit the Houfy Copyright Policy to learn more about how to report copyright infringement. For more information on trademark rules, see our Trademark Policy.

• Don't use Houfy Services to transmit any material that infringes anyone's copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights.

Respect others' rights and follow the law. Before sharing or using someone else's copyrighted works, trademarks, private information, or trade secrets, make sure you have the legal right to do so. The services should not be used for illegal activities, promoting illegal products, or violating the rights of others. Don't use the services to commit fraud or to try to trick others. Also, don't use the services to intentionally distribute viruses, worms, or other software that can destroy or interrupt others' data or computer devices.

Privacy and publicity. You must respect others' privacy on the services. You may not solicit email addresses or other personal information from Houfy members you don't know without authorization; use, disclose or distribute on Houfy any data obtained in violation of any of our policies or agreements; disclose information that you don’t have the right to disclose (such as personal or confidential information of others, including your employer); or post or distribute content depicting children without the necessary consent from such child's legal guardian or parent. Don’t use others' names, likenesses, or photos to suggest an endorsement of a product, service, or investment without their prior consent.

• Don’t violate anyone’s privacy or publicity rights.

Compliance with law. Your use of the services must comply with all applicable laws including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements. You may not use the services to create or operate a pyramid scheme, engage in fraud, or to sell or promote illegal products, including drugs.

• Don’t use the Houfy Services in violation of any US export controls, regulations or sanctions.

6) Respecting Houfy's rights.

Respect Houfy's rights. Don't violate the rights of Houfy. For more information about what this means, see our User Agreement . It’s not okay to suggest that you’re affiliated with or endorsed by Houfy when you’re not. Don’t violate our intellectual property rights, scrape the services, or interfere with or disrupt the services.

• Don’t probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any system or network.
• Don’t breach or otherwise bypass any security or authentication measures.
• Don’t access, tamper with or use nonpublic areas or parts of the Houfy Services, or shared areas of the Houfy Services you haven't been invited to.
• Don’t interfere with or disrupt any member, host or network (whether it’s Houfy’s or someone else’s), for example by distributing malware or overloading, flooding or mail-bombing any part of the Houfy Services.
• Don’t take apart, decompile or reverse engineer any part of the Houfy Services in an effort to access things such as source code or algorithms.
• Don’t access, search or create accounts for the Houfy Services by any means other than our publicly supported interfaces (for example, scraping, spidering or crawling).
• Don’t take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure or our third party providers. (We reserve the right to determine what’s reasonable.)
• Don’t provide your password to any other person, use any other person’s username and password, or otherwise manage the Houfy Services through shared credentials.

Unauthorized access and use. You may access the services only in the manner that we expressly authorize, for the tasks that the services are intended for. You may not access the services except through the interfaces intentionally provided by Houfy, such as its mobile applications and Houfy.com.

Interference with the Services. You may not interfere with the functionality of, or our rights in, the services. You may not remove any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on the services.

Respect our rules. You must follow the spirit and letter of our rules, agreements, and policies. You may not violate any additional terms concerning the specific services that are provided when you sign up for or start using such services.

• Don’t use unauthorized credit cards, debit cards or other unauthorized payment devices on the Houfy Services.
• Don’t promote or advertise products or services other than your own without appropriate authorization.
• Don’t sell the Houfy Services unless specifically authorized to do so, or publish or use the Houfy Services on any network or system other than those provided by Houfy unless previously authorized by Houfy.

If we conclude that you’re violating any of these policies, or engaging in any other behavior we deem abusive or inappropriate, we may take action against your Account. We try to ensure fair outcomes, but in all cases we reserve the right to remove any content or suspend your Account, without any refund of any amounts paid for the Houfy Services, without notice, at any time and for any reason. We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, these Community Standards at our sole discretion.

You can report violations of these guidelines to us directly by emailing info@houfy.com

We may modify these Community Standards from time to time, and will post the most current version on our site. If a modification meaningfully reduces your rights, we'll notify you in accordance with the procedures set forth in our Terms of Service.

If you have more questions, please join our facebook member group or contact us directly by e-mail.

Some examples of photos that shouldn't be used are:

• Company Logos
• Landscapes
• Animals
• Words or phrases

All photos must comply with our Terms of Service. If we remove your photo, you can upload a different photo of yourself to remedy this situation. You can also:

• See or edit your current photo
• See step-by-step instructions for adding your profile photo
• Learn how to add or change a background photo
• Learn more if you're having trouble uploading your photo
• Report an inappropriate photo

If you have more questions, please join our facebook member group

Houfy reserves the right to remove photographs that violate our Terms of Service, Listings Guidelines and Copyright & Trademark Policies and suspends members who upload such media.

If you scale an image up in size, the resolution goes down = more pixelation.

Photos should be relevant to the listing represented. Specifically, they should be of a respectable quality. Photos that are overly blurry, noisy, rotated, or too dark may be removed. Horizontal photos (landscape style) display the best and are recommended. Vertical photos (portrait style) are accepted but not recommended, as these dimensions do not take full advantage of the space provided.

Photos should not be copyrighted, unless uploaded with permission of the copyright owner. You can review our copyright and trademark policy here.

Photos that violate our policies & guidelines might contain:

• Illegal & inappropriate content
• Violations of copyright
• Trademark infringement
• Pornography
• Incitement of violence
• Promotions of hate
• Invasion of privacy

Houfy and the banana problem

When you go shopping at your local market and need bananas, which one do you choose? Why? Does the fresh one look better? Which banana do you think your potential guest(s) will choose? Really? Imagine Houfy: Someone searches, selects dates and gets 2 results?

https://www.houfy.com

If you have more questions, please join our facebook member group or contact us directly.

By using the Services, you expressly relieve and hold harmless Houfy from any and all liability arising from your use of any Third Party Website. Houfy reserves the right to remove links that violate its listing guidelines and suspends members who upload such links.

The hyperlinks to Third Party Websites are intended for verification and reference purposes only.

Do you have a homepage, link with a floor plan, or is your property listed on another site?

Houfy objective is to be as clear as possible, we recommend our members to add as many direct links, with similar/the same information.

The following content is not permitted:

• Sites that are under construction
• Inappropriate content considered to be not family friendly
• Dysfunctional videos or videos with embedding disabled

If you have more questions, please join our facebook member group

• Content published on Houfy's publishing platform remains your work. You own the rights to any original articles you publish.
• You can request the deletion of your content from our platform at any time.
• Houfy can distribute your content, annotate your content (e.g., to highlight that your views may not be the views of Houfy), and sell advertising on pages where your content appears.
• Expect that your articles will be publicly available and can be shared.
• Postings for Listings don't belong on our publishing platform. Learn more about posting a listing on Houfy and the Premium Listings account.
• Advertisements and promotions for specials, products, or services aren't appropriate content for article publishing. Advertisements can be purchased using Houfy Marketing Solutions.
• Remember to be professional and don't post anything misleading, fraudulent, obscene, threatening, hateful, defamatory, discriminatory, or illegal.
• You're responsible for the content of your articles, including any harm caused by you to others, or harm caused to you through your use of this service.
• Houfy may restrict, suspend, or terminate your Houfy account and/or disable your articles for any violation of the Terms and Conditions. Please refer to our Terms and conditions for full details.
• Houfy will disable accounts found using infringing content.

Please don't publish anything you don't have permission to share. This includes other people's articles, things that you've found on the Internet, or content that belongs to your employer but not you. Most content on the Internet belongs to someone, and unless you have clear permission from the owner to share it, you shouldn't include it in your articles. You can republish something that you have published somewhere else, as long as it is original content that you own the rights to.

If you have more questions, please join our facebook member group

• A Houfy host with multiple listings can set up one custom URL for each of their listings or choose a custom URL for the combined listings at Menu > My Listings
• Each listing can only have one custom URL: Menu > My Listings > Edit

Each URL is valid only while the listing or account is active and may be forfeited if the listing or account is deactivated or removed from Houfy for any reason.

You don’t own your custom URL, and upon any violation of this policy or Houfy's terms, Houfy may end your use of it. Here are the policies to follow when creating a custom URL.

Custom URLs can't include:

Any variation of the word "Houfy" or any other content that violates our brand guidelines (TBA)

• The word "verified"
• The word "official" unless sanctioned by the person, place, or organization with whom the connection is asserted
• Symbols or punctuation, except for hyphens
• Fewer than five characters
• Anything that violates Houfy's acceptable use policy

Custom URLs can't consist only of:

• Generic property types (for example, Apartment, Cottage, Loft, Home)
• Generic geographic locations (for example, Miami)
• Numbers (all URLs must contain at least one letter)

Some examples of acceptable URLs:

• /colorado-mountains-vacation-homes
• /Alicias-homes
• /private-apartment-in-breckenridge-town

There are only a few countries and states that exempt short-term lodging/vacation rentals/hotels from taxes. Short term renting triggers the requirement to collect and remit taxes. These taxes (known by many names: sales tax, occupancy tax, lodging tax, room tax, accommodations tax, bed tax, hotel tax, etc.) are different from the income taxes, which are filed once a year.

These taxes are paid to City, County and/or State tax agencies each month and quarter. They play an important part in funding the local infrastructure where your rental resides such as tourism promotion, beach preservation, transportation system, airline subsidies, snow removal and other operating costs to support tourist visitation.

As the popularity and growth of short term renting & specifically vacation rentals has risen; so, has the enforcement of these taxes. Tax agencies nationwide and internationally are monitoring vacation rental sites in search of violators.

These taxes are charged on total consideration (money or value) received from the renter, including rent, cleaning fees and any other mandatory fees such as a booking fee, extra person charge, pet fee, etc. Refundable deposits are not taxable.

For US residents: Please review below:

Topic 415 - Renting Residential and Vacation Property

If you receive rental income for the use of a dwelling unit, such as a house or an apartment, you may deduct certain expenses. These expenses, which may include mortgage interest, real estate taxes, casualty losses, maintenance, utilities, insurance, and depreciation, will reduce the amount of rental income that is subject to tax.

You will generally report such income and expenses on Form 1040 (PDF),U.S. Individual Income Tax Return and on Form 1040, Schedule E (PDF), Supplemental Income and Loss.

If you are renting to make a profit and do not use the dwelling unit as a personal residence, then your deductible rental expenses may be more than your gross rental income. Your rental losses, however, generally will be limited by the "at-risk" rules and/or the passive activity loss rules. For information on these limits, refer to Publication 925 , Passive Activities and At-Risk Rules.

If you rent a dwelling unit to others that you also use as a personal residence, limitations may apply to the rental expenses you can deduct. You are considered to use a dwelling unit as a personal residence if you use it for personal purposes during the tax year for more than the greater of:

1. 14 days, or
2. 10% of the total days you rent it to others at a fair rental price.

It is possible that you will use more than one dwelling unit as a personal residence during the year. For example, if you live in your main home for 11 months, your home is a dwelling unit used as a personal residence. If you live in your vacation home for the other 30 days of the year, your vacation home is also a dwelling unit used as a personal residence unless you rent your vacation home to others at a fair rental value for 300 or more days during the year.

A day of personal use of a dwelling unit is any day that it is used by:

• You or any other person who has an interest in it, unless you rent your interest to another owner as his or her main home under a shared equity financing agreement
• A member of your family or of a family of any other person who has an interest in it, unless the family member uses it as his or her main home and pays a fair rental price
• Anyone under an agreement that lets you use some other dwelling unit
• Anyone at less than fair rental price

If you use the dwelling unit for both rental and personal purposes, you generally must divide your total expenses between the rental use and the personal use based on the number of days used for each purpose. You will not be able to deduct your rental expense in excess of the gross rental income limitation (your gross rental income less the rental portion of mortgage interest, real estate taxes, and casualty losses, and rental expenses like realtors's fees and advertising costs). However, you may be able to carry forward some of these rental expenses to the next year, subject to the gross rental income limitation for that year. If you itemize your deductions on Form 1040, Schedule A (PDF), Itemized Deductions, you may still be able to deduct your personal portion of mortgage interest, property taxes, and casualty losses on that schedule.

There is a special rule if you use a dwelling unit as a personal residence and rent it for fewer than 15 days. In this case, do not report any of the rental income and do not deduct any expenses as rental expenses.

Another special rule applies if you rent part of your home to your employer and provide services for your employer in that rented space. In this case, report the rental income. You can deduct mortgage interest, qualified mortgage insurance premiums, real estate taxes, and personal casualty losses for the rented part, subject to any limitations, but do not deduct any business expenses. For information on these limits, refer to Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home (Including Use by Daycare Providers).

If you have a rental income, you may be subject to the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT). For more information, refer to Topic 559.

For more information on offering residential property for rent, refer to Publication 527, Residential Rental Property (Including Rental of Vacation Homes).

FAQ:

Are pet fees taxable? Pet fees are taxable in some jurisdictions.  Please check with the specific tax jurisdiction(s) to determine whether or not pet fees are considered taxable revenue.

Are cleaning fees taxable? Any charge that is mandatory or a condition of the rental is taxable, and therefore should be included in the revenue that you report at the end of the tax period. If cleaning is not optional, then it is taxable.

Check out Avalara for tax services:

Lodging & Hotel Tax Compliance Software - Avalara

Simplify your lodging taxes You face a host of tax compliance challenges when you run a hotel or rent out your vacation home. Let Avalara help, with solutions and services that manage licenses, calculate tax, prepare and file returns, and more.

https://www.avalara.com

The Fair Housing Act protects people from discrimination when they are renting, buying, or securing financing for any housing. The prohibitions specifically cover discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability and the presence of children.

Complaints filed with HUD are investigated by the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO). If the complaint is not successfully conciliated, FHEO determines whether reasonable cause exists to believe that a discriminatory housing practice has occurred. Where reasonable cause is found , the parties to the complaint are notified by HUD's issuance of a Determination, as well as a Charge of Discrimination, and a hearing is scheduled before a HUD administrative law judge. Either party - complainant or respondent - may cause the HUD-scheduled administrative proceeding to be terminated by electing instead to have the matter litigated in Federal court. Whenever a party has so elected, the Department of Justice takes over HUD's role as counsel seeking resolution of the charge on behalf of aggrieved persons, and the matter proceeds as a civil action. Either form of action - the ALJ proceeding or the civil action in Federal court - is subject to review in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Get basic facts about the Fair Housing Act:

1. What Housing Is Covered?

The Fair Housing Act covers most housing. In some circumstances, the Act exempts owner-occupied buildings with no more than four units, single-family housing sold or rented without the use of a broker, and housing operated by organizations and private clubs that limit occupancy to members.

2. What Is Prohibited?

In the Sale and Rental of Housing: No one may take any of the following actions based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap:

• Refuse to rent or sell housing
• Refuse to negotiate for housing
• Make housing unavailable
• Deny a dwelling
• Set different terms, conditions or privileges for sale or rental of a dwelling
• Provide different housing services or facilities
• Falsely deny that housing is available for inspection, sale, or rental
• For profit, persuade owners to sell or rent (blockbusting) or
• Deny anyone access to or membership in a facility or service (such as a multiple listing service) related to the sale or rental of housing.

In Mortgage Lending: No one may take any of the following actions based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap (disability):

• Refuse to make a mortgage loan
• Refuse to provide information regarding loans
• Impose different terms or conditions on a loan, such as different interest rates, points, or fees
• Discriminate in appraising property
• Refuse to purchase a loan or
• Set different terms or conditions for purchasing a loan.

In Addition: It is illegal for anyone to:

• Threaten, coerce, intimidate or interfere with anyone exercising a fair housing right or assisting others who exercise that right
• Advertise or make any statement that indicates a limitation or preference based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or handicap. This prohibition against discriminatory advertising applies to single-family and owner-occupied housing that is otherwise exempt from the Fair Housing Act.

3. Additional Protection if You Have a Disability

If you or someone associated with you:

• Have a physical or mental disability (including hearing, mobility and visual impairments, chronic alcoholism, chronic mental illness, AIDS, AIDS Related Complex and mental retardation) that substantially limits one or more major life activities
• Have a record of such a disability or
• Are regarded as having such a disability

your landlord may not:

• Refuse to let you make reasonable modifications to your dwelling or common use areas, at your expense, if necessary for the disabled person to use the housing. (Where reasonable, the landlord may permit changes only if you agree to restore the property to its original condition when you move.)
• Refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services if necessary for the disabled person to use the housing.

Example: A building with a no pets policy must allow a visually impaired tenant to keep a guide dog.

Example: An apartment complex that offers tenants ample, unassigned parking must honor a request from a mobility-impaired tenant for a reserved space near her apartment if necessary to assure that she can have access to her apartment.

However, housing need not be made available to a person who is a direct threat to the health or safety of others or who currently uses illegal drugs.

4. Requirements for New Buildings

In buildings that are ready for first occupancy after March 13, 1991, and have an elevator and four or more units:

• Public and common areas must be accessible to persons with disabilities
• Doors and hallways must be wide enough for wheelchairs
• All units must have:
• An accessible route into and through the unit
• Accessible light switches, electrical outlets, thermostats and other environmental controls
• Reinforced bathroom walls to allow later installation of grab bars and
• Kitchens and bathrooms that can be used by people in wheelchairs.

If a building with four or more units has no elevator and will be ready for first occupancy after March 13, 1991, these standards apply to ground floor units.

These requirements for new buildings do not replace any more stringent standards in State or local law.

5. Housing Opportunities for Families

Unless a building or community qualifies as housing for older persons, it may not discriminate based on familial status. That is, it may not discriminate against families in which one or more children under 18 live with:

• A parent
• A person who has legal custody of the child or children or
• The designee of the parent or legal custodian, with the parent or custodian's written permission.

Familial status protection also applies to pregnant women and anyone securing legal custody of a child under 18.

Exemption: Housing for older persons is exempt from the prohibition against familial status discrimination if:

• The HUD Secretary has determined that it is specifically designed for and occupied by elderly persons under a Federal, State or local government program or
• It is occupied solely by persons who are 62 or older or
• It houses at least one person who is 55 or older in at least 80 percent of the occupied units, and adheres to a policy that demonstrates an intent to house persons who are 55 or older.

A transition period permits residents on or before September 13, 1988, to continue living in the housing, regardless of their age, without interfering with the exemption.

If you think your rights have been violated

HUD is ready to help with any problem of housing discrimination. If you think your rights have been violated, the Housing Discrimination Complaint Form is available for you to download, complete and return, or complete online and submit, or you may write HUD a letter, or telephone the HUD Office nearest you. You have one year after an alleged violation to file a complaint with HUD, but you should file it as soon as possible.

Step 1: What to Tell HUD:

• Your name and address
• The name and address of the person your complaint is against (the respondent)
• The address or other identification to the housing involved
• A short description to the alleged violation (the event that caused you to believe your rights were violated)
• The date(s) to the alleged violation

Step 2:Where to Write or Call:

Send the Housing Discrimination Complaint Form or a letter to the HUD Office nearest you or you may call that office directly.

If You Are Disabled:

HUD also provides:

• A toll-free TTY phone for the hearing impaired: 1-800-927-9275.
• Interpreters
• Tapes and braille materials
• Assistance in reading and completing forms

What happens when you file a complaint:

HUD will notify you when it receives your complaint. Normally, HUD also will:

• Notify the alleged violator of your complaint and permit that person to submit an answer
• Investigate your complaint and determine whether there is reasonable cause to believe the Fair Housing Act has been violated
• Notify you if it cannot complete an investigation within 100 days of receiving your complaint

Conciliation

HUD will try to reach an agreement with the person your complaint is against (the respondent). A conciliation agreement must protect both you and the public interest. If an agreement is signed, HUD will take no further action on your complaint. However, if HUD has reasonable cause to believe that a conciliation agreement is breached, HUD will recommend that the Attorney General file suit.

Complaint Referrals

If HUD has determined that your State or local agency has the same fair housing powers as HUD, HUD will refer your complaint to that agency for investigation and notify you of the referral. That agency must begin work on your complaint within 30 days or HUD may take it back.

What if You Need Help Quickly?

If you need immediate help to stop a serious problem that is being caused by a Fair Housing Act violation, HUD may be able to assist you as soon as you file a complaint. HUD may authorize the Attorney General to go to court to seek temporary or preliminary relief, pending the outcome of your complaint, if:

• Irreparable harm is likely to occur without HUD's intervention
• There is substantial evidence that a violation of the Fair Housing Act occurred

Example: A builder agrees to sell a house but, after learning the buyer is black, fails to keep the agreement. The buyer files a complaint with HUD. HUD may authorize the Attorney General to go to court to prevent a sale to any other buyer until HUD investigates the complaint.

What Happens after a Complaint Investigation?

If, after investigating your complaint, HUD finds reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred, it will inform you. Your case will be heard in an administrative hearing within 120 days, unless you or the respondent want the case to be heard in Federal district court. Either way, there is no cost to you.

The Administrative Hearing:

If your case goes to an administrative hearing HUD attorneys will litigate the case on your behalf. You may intervene in the case and be represented by your own attorney if you wish. An Administrative Law Judge (ALA) will consider evidence from you and the respondent. If the ALA decides that discrimination occurred, the respondent can be ordered:

• To compensate you for actual damages, including humiliation, pain and suffering.
• To provide injunctive or other equitable relief, for example, to make the housing available to you.
• To pay the Federal Government a civil penalty to vindicate the public interest. The maximum penalties are $16,000 for a first violation and $70,000 for a third violation within seven years.
• To pay reasonable attorney's fees and costs.

Federal District Court

If you or the respondent choose to have your case decided in Federal District Court, the Attorney General will file a suit and litigate it on your behalf. Like the ALA, the District Court can order relief, and award actual damages, attorney's fees and costs. In addition, the court can award punitive damages.

In Addition

You May File Suit: You may file suit, at your expense, in Federal District Court or State Court within two years of an alleged violation. If you cannot afford an attorney, the Court may appoint one for you. You may bring suit even after filing a complaint, if you have not signed a conciliation agreement and an Administrative Law Judge has not started a hearing. A court may award actual and punitive damages and attorney's fees and costs.

Other Tools to Combat Housing Discrimination:

If there is noncompliance with the order of an Administrative Law Judge, HUD may seek temporary relief, enforcement of the order or a restraining order in a United States Court of Appeals.

The Attorney General may file a suit in a Federal District Court if there is reasonable cause to believe a pattern or practice of housing discrimination is occurring.

For Further Information:

The Fair Housing Act and HUD's regulations contain more detail and technical information. If you need a copy of the law or regulations, contact the HUD Office nearest you.

Last updated: January 22, 2019