01About these terms

These Terms of Service govern your use of OurArea, the websites at ourareahq.com, every OurArea product (Community, Manager, Short, Listings), and every account managed through our platform. By using OurArea, you agree to these terms.

OurArea is operated by OurArea Holdings Ltd, a company registered in Lagos, Nigeria. In these terms, "we", "us" and "OurArea" mean OurArea Holdings Ltd. "You" means the individual or organization using the service.

02Eligibility & accounts

To use OurArea you must be at least 18 years old and have the legal authority to enter into a contract. If you're signing up on behalf of an organization, you confirm you have the authority to bind that organization to these terms.

Your account

• You're responsible for keeping your login credentials secure
• You must notify us immediately if you suspect unauthorized access
• You're responsible for all activity that happens under your account
• One person per account; sharing logins is not permitted

Your team's accounts

If you invite team members (staff, managers, accountants) to your OurArea workspace, you're responsible for their behavior on the platform. You can revoke their access at any time. We can suspend an individual account if their behavior violates these terms, but we'll notify you first where possible.

03Plans, billing & payments

OurArea offers four plans: Starter (free), Professional, Business and Enterprise. Plan details, current pricing and feature comparisons live on the Pricing page.

Free trial

Every paid plan includes a 1-month free trial. No credit card required to start. At the end of the trial, we ask whether you want to continue; we do not auto-charge.

Billing

• Plans are billed monthly or annually in advance
• Annual billing receives a 15% discount
• Pricing is in Nigerian Naira (NGN) by default; available in KES, GHS and USD for relevant markets
• Prices exclude VAT unless stated; VAT is added at checkout where applicable

Failed payments

If a payment fails, we'll notify you immediately and try again. After 14 days of failed payment attempts, we'll downgrade the account to read-only. After 30 days, we'll suspend it. After 90 days, we may terminate it (with all data exportable up to the moment of termination).

Refunds

Monthly plans are non-refundable but you can cancel any time to stop the next charge. Annual plans are refundable on a pro-rata basis if you cancel within the first 60 days of the annual term.

04Acceptable use

You agree to use OurArea only for lawful purposes and in line with these terms. Specifically, you will not:

• Violate any law, regulation or third-party right
• Upload illegal, hateful, harassing or fraudulent content
• Use OurArea to spam, phish, or distribute malware
• Reverse-engineer, decompile or attempt to extract source code
• Scrape, crawl or harvest data in violation of our robots.txt or API rate limits
• Resell or sublicense the service without our written permission
• Interfere with or disrupt the service or the servers behind it
• Use the service to compete with us or build a competing product

If we believe you're violating these rules, we'll contact you first to resolve it. For severe or repeated violations, we may suspend or terminate your account.

05Your data

You own the data you put into OurArea. We don't claim ownership of, license to, or any other rights over your content beyond what's strictly needed to run the service.

What you grant us

You grant us a limited license to host, copy, transmit and display your data only as necessary to provide the service to you. This license ends when you delete the data or terminate your account (subject to retention obligations described in our Privacy Policy).

Your responsibilities

• You're responsible for the legality of the data you upload
• You must have the right to collect and process any personal data you input (residents, visitors, staff)
• You must comply with applicable data protection law (NDPA, Kenya DPA, Ghana DPA, GDPR if applicable)

Our responsibilities

• We act as a data processor for the personal data you input
• We maintain industry-standard security (TLS 1.3, AES-256, RBAC, annual penetration testing)
• We do not access your data except as required to operate or support the service
• We do not sell, share or use your data for advertising

06Service availability

We aim for 99.9% uptime, measured monthly. Enterprise customers have a contractual SLA at this level; smaller plans get the same operational target without the financial backing.

Scheduled maintenance

We'll notify you at least 48 hours in advance of any planned maintenance that will affect service. We schedule maintenance for low-traffic windows (typically Sunday 02:00–04:00 GMT+1).

Unplanned downtime

For Enterprise customers, SLA breaches result in service credits as defined in the contractual agreement. For other plans, we'll communicate clearly and resolve as fast as we can.

Beta features

Features marked "beta" or "preview" are available without uptime guarantees and may change without notice. We'll never put your production data at risk to test something.

07Intellectual property

OurArea owns OurArea. The platform, code, design, brand, documentation and underlying infrastructure are all our intellectual property. These terms grant you a license to use the service, not ownership of any part of it.

Your content

You retain all rights to the content you upload. We do not claim ownership.

Trademarks

"OurArea", the OurArea logo, "Community", "Manager", "Short", "Listings" (as product names) are our trademarks. You may not use them without permission, except to truthfully describe that you're a customer or to link to our website.

Feedback

If you give us feedback, suggestions or ideas, we may use them without obligation to you. We'll never copy your design or trade secrets, but we may incorporate generic product improvements you suggest.

08Termination

Either side can end this relationship.

Your right to terminate

You can cancel any time from your account settings. Monthly billing stops at the end of the current month. Annual billing is refundable pro-rata within the first 60 days, otherwise non-refundable.

Our right to terminate

We can suspend or terminate your account if:

• You materially violate these terms and don't fix it within 30 days of written notice
• Your payment fails for 90+ consecutive days
• You use OurArea for illegal activity
• We are required by law or court order to do so

What happens to your data

On termination, you have 90 days to export all your data. After 90 days, we permanently delete it from production systems and overwrite backups within an additional 30 days. We retain audit logs and financial records for the legally required periods (7 years under Nigerian law).

09Warranties & liability

This is the legalese section. We've kept it as plain as we can.

What we promise

• The service will perform substantially as documented
• We maintain industry-standard security
• We act in good faith

What we don't promise

The service is provided "as is". We don't warrant that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that it will meet every specific requirement you have. We disclaim implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Liability cap

Our total liability for any claim arising out of these terms is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Neither party is liable for indirect, consequential, special or punitive damages.

This cap does not apply to: (a) breach of confidentiality, (b) gross negligence or willful misconduct, or (c) liability that cannot legally be limited.

10Governing law & disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Disputes are resolved as follows:

• Step 1, Talk. Email hello@ourareahq.com. Most disputes resolve here, within days.
• Step 2, Mediation. If we can't resolve it informally, both sides agree to attempt mediation in Lagos.
• Step 3, Arbitration. If mediation fails, the dispute is settled by binding arbitration in Lagos under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act.

Each side bears its own costs unless the arbitrator awards otherwise.

11Changes to these terms

We update these terms occasionally, for new features, regulatory changes, or clarifications. When we make material changes, we'll notify account holders by email at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of OurArea after a change indicates acceptance.

Older versions of these terms are archived and available on request.

12Contact

OurArea Holdings Ltd, Lagos, Nigeria.

• General: hello@ourareahq.com
• Legal: legal@ourareahq.com
• Privacy: privacy@ourareahq.com

Under-24-hour response on every channel, every day.