Terms of Service

1. About these terms

These terms are an agreement between you and Habitat Org (“Habitat”, “we”). They cover the website, the resident and guard apps and the admin. Societies that sign up, and service partners that list with us, may also have a separate written agreement; where it differs, that agreement applies.

2. The service

Habitat helps housing societies and residents’ welfare associations run day to day: gate and visitors, billing and payments, accounting, notices, community, amenities, documents, staff and services. The core service is free for societies and residents. Features marked “Coming soon” are not yet available and are not part of the service until they are released.

3. Your account

• You sign in with your mobile number and a one-time code. Keep your phone and codes to yourself; you are responsible for activity on your account.
• Give accurate details. A society may require its committee to approve you, your family, tenants, vehicles and daily help before they are active.
• Society administrators are responsible for the people, roles and data they add, and for the decisions they make in Habitat (approvals, charges, refunds).

4. Society payments

• Maintenance, amenity charges, deposits, fines and other dues are set by your society and are payable to it. Habitat provides the tools to bill, collect and record them, and issues receipts on the society’s behalf.
• Online payments are processed by our payment partner. Any gateway fee is shown before you pay. Habitat does not add a fee of its own.
• Questions or disputes about what you were charged are between you and your society; we will help both sides with the records. See our Refunds & Cancellations policy.

5. Amenity bookings

Bookings follow the rules your society sets for each amenity: timing, price, deposit, approval, limits and cancellation policy, all shown before you book. The society may cancel a booking; how much comes back is described in the Refunds & Cancellations policy.

6. Service partners

Plumbers, electricians and other professionals listed in the Services tab are independent businesses. Habitat lists them and lets residents contact and rate them, but is not a party to the work you agree with them, and is not responsible for its quality, price or safety. Partners pay a listing fee to Habitat, described in the Refunds & Cancellations policy. Bookings through other platforms shown in the app are governed by those platforms’ terms.

7. Gate device

Where Habitat provides a gate device, it remains Habitat’s property. The society keeps it secure and returns it in working condition when it stops using Habitat; the refundable security deposit is then returned, less the cost of any damage beyond normal wear.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• post or send anything unlawful, abusive, defamatory, obscene, or that invades someone’s privacy;
• sell prohibited or illegal items in buy & sell, or mislead buyers;
• use other people’s data from Habitat (phone numbers, visitor details) for anything other than the society’s purposes;
• try to break into, overload, copy or reverse-engineer Habitat, or get around limits and security;
• impersonate anyone, or create accounts for people without their consent.

Residents can block and report others; moderators chosen by the society review reports. We may remove content and suspend accounts that break these terms.

9. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post and upload. You give Habitat permission to store, show and process it only to run the service for you and your society. The society’s records belong to the society, which can export them at any time.

10. Our responsibility

• We work to keep Habitat available, accurate and secure, but it is provided “as is”. Network, phone or third-party outages can delay alerts and payments; the guard’s ability to call a flat remains the fallback at the gate.
• Habitat records the decisions of residents, guards and committees; it does not make them, and is not responsible for who a resident or guard lets in.
• To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, and our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the amount you paid Habitat (not your society) in the 12 months before it arose.

11. Suspension and ending

You can stop using Habitat at any time and ask us to delete your account (see the Privacy Policy). A society can leave Habitat at any time and take its data with it; there is no contract period. We may suspend access that breaks these terms or the law, and will give notice where we reasonably can.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Habitat changes. We will show the new date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app before they take effect. Continuing to use Habitat after that means you accept the updated terms.

13. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of India. Please contact us first; most issues are resolved quickly. Any dispute that remains will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at Hyderabad, Telangana.