Terms of Service

1. Agreement & capacity

These Terms of Service form a binding agreement between you and Landlodz (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), registration number 2024/615543/07, under the Companies Act, 2008 (collectively "Landlodz", "we" or "us"). By booking a consult, instructing a planner, paying an application fee or otherwise using the Platform you confirm that you are at least 18 years old, have legal capacity to contract under South African law and, where you act on behalf of a company, trust or close corporation, that you are duly authorised to bind that entity.

These Terms must be read together with our Privacy Policy, Payment Terms, Refund Policy, Cookie Policy and Disclaimer, all of which are incorporated by reference.

2. What Landlodz does

Landlodz is a South African land use application platform. We connect property owners and applicants with registered town planners who prepare and lodge applications aligned with the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act 16 of 2013 (SPLUMA) and the relevant provincial planning legislation and municipal land use management by-laws. The Platform covers - among others - rezoning, consent / special consent use, subdivision and consolidation, removal of restrictive title conditions, departures and relaxations, site development plans, township establishment, encroachments, closure of public space and the lodgement of appeals against municipal decisions under section 51 of SPLUMA.

3. Your instructions & contact details

• Landlodz does not offer public user accounts. You engage us by booking a consult and instructing a registered town planner, and all communication runs by email, WhatsApp or phone with that planner
• You must give us accurate and current information, including your contact details, and update it when it changes
• You are responsible for instructions sent from your email address or phone number, and must tell us immediately if either is compromised
• Sign-in credentials issued to Landlodz planners and staff are personal, may not be shared or transferred, and may be suspended where they are used in breach of these Terms or show signs of fraud

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Platform to submit a misleading, fraudulent or materially incomplete application
• Misrepresent a Landlodz draft as an official government document or as an approval
• Scrape, reverse-engineer, bulk-extract, mirror or resell any part of the Platform, including municipal data displayed through it
• Circumvent payment, rate-limit or access-control mechanisms
• Upload content that infringes third-party rights, contains malware, or is unlawful, defamatory, harassing or discriminatory
• Use the Platform to harass, intimidate or unlawfully surveil any person
• Interfere with the integrity, performance or security of the Platform or attempt to gain access to any account that is not yours

We may remove content, suspend access or report unlawful activity to the South African Police Service or other competent authorities without prior notice where reasonably necessary.

5. Fees, payments & appeals

6. Roles & responsibilities

7. Intellectual property

The Platform, its source code, brand, design system, templates, checklists and documentation are owned by Landlodz and protected by South African and international intellectual property law. You retain ownership of the documents and information you upload. You grant Landlodz a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, process, display and transmit that content to the extent necessary to deliver the service to you and to comply with applicable law. Generated motivational reports are licensed to you for use in your specific application; you may not resell or repurpose them for third parties.

8. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by the Consumer Protection Act and other applicable law, the Platform is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not warrant that municipal data displayed through the Platform is complete, current or error-free; that the Platform will be uninterrupted; or that any application will result in a favourable municipal decision. Property and zoning data is sourced from public records and may be out of date. You must verify critical information with the municipality and, where necessary, with a conveyancer or attorney before relying on it for a transaction.

9. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits any liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for gross negligence, intentional misconduct, fraud, death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act. Subject to that:

• Our total aggregate liability for any claim is limited to the fees you paid to Landlodz in the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim
• We are not liable for indirect, consequential, special, incidental or punitive damages, including loss of profit, loss of opportunity or loss of goodwill
• We are not liable for decisions taken by a municipality, an appeal authority, a court, the Surveyor-General or the Deeds Office, nor for outages of third-party services such as banking systems, Google Maps or municipal open-data feeds

10. Termination

You may end your engagement at any time by emailing consult@landlodz.com, and you may ask us to delete your personal information subject to legal retention duties. We may suspend or terminate access on reasonable notice where we are required to by law, where you are in material breach of these Terms, or where continued service would expose Landlodz or another user to significant risk. Termination does not affect any right or obligation that accrued before termination, including the right to be paid for work already performed.

11. Governing law & dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, including the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act 16 of 2013 and the Planning Profession Act 36 of 2002. The parties will first attempt to resolve any dispute in good faith and, failing that, through mediation administered by the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA). If mediation does not resolve the dispute within 30 days, either party may approach the relevant Municipal Planning Tribunal (for SPLUMA matters), the National Consumer Commission (for CPA matters), the Information Regulator (for POPIA matters) or the competent courts of the Republic of South Africa, with the Western Cape High Court having concurrent jurisdiction.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be notified by email and through an in-app banner at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Platform after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms.