Terms of service

1. Acceptance and eligibility

By creating a Habanto account or otherwise using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy.

You must be at least 18 years old to use Habanto. Habanto is not intended for, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from, anyone under 18.

If you are using Habanto on behalf of a company, partnership, or other legal entity, you confirm you have authority to bind that entity to these Terms, and "you" in these Terms means both you personally and that entity.

2. Your account

You must give us accurate, current, and complete information when you sign up, and keep it up to date. You are responsible for everything that happens on your account, so keep your login details safe. Tell us right away at info@habanto.com if you think your account has been compromised.

We may suspend or close any account that contains information we reasonably believe is false, misleading, or fraudulent, or that has been used in breach of these Terms.

You may sign in with email and password, Google, or Apple. If you sign in with a third-party provider, that provider’s terms also apply to that login.

3. The three roles on Habanto

Habanto is a marketplace with three user roles. By selecting a role at signup (or by being invited into a role by another user) you agree to the role-specific provisions below in addition to the general Terms.

3.1 Tenants

A tenant is an individual occupying or about to occupy a rental unit in the UAE. As a tenant you may use Habanto to: link to your unit using an Ejari number, Makani code, or an invite from your landlord; report maintenance issues with text and photos; choose to pay a verified contractor directly through Habanto for the work ("self-pay"); or escalate the request to your landlord for approval.

You confirm you have the right to occupy the unit you link to. Submitting an Ejari number you do not have authority to use is a breach of these Terms and may also be unlawful under UAE law.

3.2 Landlords

A landlord is an individual or entity that owns or has authority to manage one or more UAE rental units. As a landlord you may use Habanto to: add units to your portfolio (subject to a per-unit subscription fee, see Section 4); invite tenants to occupy those units; receive, review, approve, or decline maintenance requests; and authorise spend on maintenance work up to limits you set.

You warrant that for every unit you add to Habanto, you are the registered owner or you hold a written, lawful authorisation from the owner to manage that unit. Habanto is not in a position to verify this independently and relies on your warranty.

The detailed terms that apply to your role as landlord are in the Landlord Agreement, which you accept at onboarding.

3.3 Contractors

A contractor is a UAE-licensed business or sole trader that performs maintenance services. To list on Habanto you must apply, upload your trade licence, Emirates ID, insurance, and any trade-specific permits, and be approved by Habanto Admin.

The detailed terms that apply to your role as contractor are in the Contractor Agreement, which you accept at onboarding.

4. Fees, commissions, and VAT

4.1 Tenant fees

Reporting a maintenance request is free. If you choose to pay a contractor through Habanto, the price displayed before payment includes all applicable taxes and is the full amount you will be charged.

4.2 Landlord subscription

Landlords pay a subscription fee per managed unit, billed monthly or annually, at the rates as published in the applicable fee schedule. All prices are exclusive of VAT unless stated otherwise.

Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period. You can cancel any time from your account dashboard; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. We do not refund partial months or partial years except where required by UAE law.

4.3 Contractor commission

Habanto deducts a commission (excluding VAT) from each completed job booked through the platform, at the rate as published in the applicable fee schedule, plus applicable Stripe processing fees. The remainder is paid out to the contractor’s Stripe Connect account in accordance with Stripe’s payout schedule.

4.4 VAT

Where Habanto is VAT-registered, Habanto will issue tax invoices for its services (subscription fees to landlords, and commission to contractors) in accordance with the UAE Federal Tax Authority’s rules. Contractors are responsible for their own VAT registration and for issuing their own tax invoices to tenants where required.

4.5 Changes to fees

We may change subscription prices and commission rates by giving you at least 30 days’ notice by email or in-app message. If you do not agree, you can cancel before the new prices take effect.

5. Payments, refunds, and chargebacks

5.1 Payment processor

All payments on Habanto are processed by Stripe. By making or receiving payment through Habanto you also agree to Stripe’s terms of service. Habanto does not store your card or bank-account details; those are held by Stripe in their secure systems.

5.2 Refunds

If a contractor does not show up, abandons a job, or performs work that materially fails to meet what was agreed, you can request a refund through your account. We aim to resolve refund requests within 5 business days. If we agree with you, the refund is processed via Stripe back to your original payment method (typically 5 to 10 business days to appear).

We do not refund work that has already been satisfactorily performed.

5.3 Chargebacks

If you raise a chargeback with your bank without first contacting us, we may suspend your account while the chargeback is investigated. Stripe’s chargeback decision binds us. We reserve the right to recover from you any chargeback fees and loss caused by an unsubstantiated chargeback.

6. User-generated content

You retain ownership of the photos, descriptions, and other content you post on Habanto ("Your Content"). By posting Your Content, you grant Habanto a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, copy, transmit, and adapt Your Content only as needed to operate the Service (for example: showing your maintenance-request photo to the contractor you have chosen). This licence ends when Your Content is deleted, except for backup copies kept for the period stated in our Privacy Policy.

You warrant that: Your Content is yours to share, or you have permission from everyone in the photos; and Your Content does not infringe anyone’s rights, is not defamatory, and is not unlawful under UAE law (see Section 7).

We may remove any User Content that we reasonably believe breaches these Terms or any law. We do not generally pre-screen content.

7. Acceptable use

You may not, and may not let anyone else, use Habanto to: break UAE law (including the Cybercrimes Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2021), the PDPL, and IP laws); defame, harass, threaten, or impersonate anyone; upload another person’s photo or identity document without their consent; misrepresent your Emirates ID, Ejari, Makani, DEWA premise, DLD property number, or any other government identifier; solicit work or payments outside the Habanto platform once you have been introduced to a counterparty through Habanto (anti-circumvention, see Section 7.1); send unsolicited marketing through Habanto’s messaging; probe, scan, or attempt to breach Habanto’s security; scrape, crawl, or extract content other than what Habanto’s official APIs return to you; or use Habanto to coordinate, plan, or document activity that violates building rules, planning rules, or civil defence rules in the UAE.

7.1 Anti-circumvention

If a contractor and a landlord or tenant first connected via Habanto take their dealings off-platform to avoid commission, this is a material breach of these Terms. We reserve the right to recover lost commission and to remove either party from the platform.

8. Service availability and limitations of liability

8.1 As-is

We work hard to keep Habanto reliable and useful, but we provide the Service "as is" and "as available". We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure against every possible attack, nor that any specific contractor will perform to any specific standard.

Habanto is a marketplace and coordination platform. Habanto is not the contractor, not the landlord, not the tenant, and not a party to the tenancy or the maintenance contract between users.

8.2 Our role in verification

When we mark a contractor as "verified", we mean we have, at the time of verification, reviewed documentary evidence supplied by the contractor (trade licence, Emirates ID, insurance, trade-specific permits). Verification is not a guarantee of work quality, ongoing licence validity, or freedom from defects.

8.3 Limits on liability

To the maximum extent permitted by UAE law: we are not liable to you for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or loss of goodwill arising from your use of Habanto; our total aggregate liability to you arising from or relating to the Service in any 12-month period is capped at the greater of AED 1,000 or the total fees you paid to Habanto in that same 12-month period; and nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded under UAE law (for example, liability for death, personal injury caused by our negligence, or fraud).

9. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Habanto (and its directors, officers, employees, and agents) from any claim, demand, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: your breach of these Terms or any law; your User Content; your interactions with any other Habanto user; or your misrepresentation of any identifier, document, or warranty you have given Habanto.

10. Disputes and resolution

10.1 Talk to us first

If you have a problem, please email info@habanto.com before escalating. We try to resolve issues within 10 business days.

10.2 Tenancy disputes are out of scope

Disputes between landlord and tenant about the lease itself (rent amount, eviction, deposit return, lease renewal) are not within Habanto’s remit. We will direct you to the Dubai Rental Dispute Centre (RDC) at the Dubai Land Department or the equivalent body in your emirate.

10.3 Formal dispute resolution

If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, the dispute will be resolved by the competent courts of Dubai, applying the law of the United Arab Emirates and the Emirate of Dubai.

11. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the federal law of the United Arab Emirates and, where not inconsistent, the law of the Emirate of Dubai.

12. Termination and suspension

12.1 Your right to leave

You can close your account any time from your account settings or by emailing info@habanto.com. On closure we will retain the data we are required to retain (for example, transaction records for VAT and other statutory minimums) and delete the rest in line with our Privacy Policy.

12.2 Our right to suspend or close

We may suspend or close your account, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if your continued use poses risk to other users or to Habanto, if we are required to by law, or if you go inactive for an extended period and we give you reasonable advance notice.

12.3 What happens on termination

Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including Sections 6 (User Content licence for our retained backups), 7 (Acceptable Use), 8 (Limits), 9 (Indemnity), 10 (Disputes), 11 (Governing Law), and 13 (Changes).

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If the change is material we will give at least 30 days’ notice by email or in-app message, and your continued use of Habanto after the change takes effect means you accept the new Terms. If you do not accept, you can close your account before the change takes effect.

We keep an archive of past versions; ask us at info@habanto.com if you want a copy.

14. Miscellaneous

Entire agreement: together with the Privacy Policy and any role-specific agreement (Landlord Agreement, Contractor Agreement), these Terms are the full agreement between you and Habanto. Severability: if any clause is held unenforceable, the rest of these Terms stay in effect. No waiver: our not enforcing a right does not waive it. Assignment: you cannot assign your rights or obligations under these Terms without our consent; we can assign ours to a successor in the business. Notices: notices to you may be sent to your registered email; notices to us to info@habanto.com. Language: these Terms are written in English.

15. Contact

Habanto. Email: info@habanto.com. The registered office address, trade licence number, and VAT registration number (TRN) will be published here in the final version of these Terms.