Terms and Conditions

1. About these terms

These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") set out the agreement between you (a user of our website) and OpenAddress Ltd ("OpenAddress", "we", "us", "our"), company number NI741612, registered office Ground Floor, Gallery Building, 65-69 Dublin Road, Belfast, BT2 7HG.

By using our website openaddress.co.uk (the "Platform") or any of our services, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, you must not use the Platform.

2. What OpenAddress does

OpenAddress lets a prospective property buyer pay a flat fee to have a physical letter delivered to a residential address, expressing that buyer's interest in purchasing the property. The property does not need to be for sale. If the homeowner chooses to respond, the Platform lets the two parties communicate directly with each other. That is what OpenAddress does.

For the avoidance of doubt, and as a matter of how the Platform is built:

• We do not value or appraise property, and we give no price guidance for any address.
• We do not market or advertise property for sale on behalf of any seller, and we do not operate a property listings service.
• We do not act for, or represent, any seller or any buyer.
• We do not negotiate, conduct, or facilitate the negotiation of any sale.
• The Platform provides no mechanism by which an offer can be accepted or countered. A homeowner who receives a letter has exactly three options: start a conversation, indicate they are not interested, or opt out of all future letters.
• We do not hold client money, deposits, or any funds relating to a property transaction.
• We take no commission, and no fee we charge is contingent on any sale, any agreed price, or any outcome whatsoever. We earn the same fee whether or not a homeowner ever responds and whether or not any property is ever sold.
• We do not give legal, financial, valuation, survey, or conveyancing advice.

Buyers and homeowners deal directly with each other. Any discussion, negotiation, agreement or transaction that may follow is entirely a matter between them. Each party should instruct their own solicitor and take their own independent professional advice before entering into any agreement relating to property. OpenAddress is not a party to, and accepts no responsibility for, any such dealings.

Nothing we say about an offer is verified. We do not carry out proof-of-funds, affordability or identity checks on buyers, and we make no representation that any buyer is able to proceed. A figure mentioned by a buyer is an expression of interest, not a verified or funded offer.

If your property is already listed with an estate agent, please check your agreement with that agent before responding to a letter. Depending on its terms, you could owe your agent commission on a sale even if you found the buyer yourself. We cannot advise you on your agreement with any agent, and nothing on this Platform is intended to encourage you to disregard any obligation you may owe to a third party. If in doubt, take your own independent advice.

3. Our regulatory status

OpenAddress Ltd has applied to register with HM Revenue and Customs for supervision under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 as an estate agency business (application XAML00000222796).

We are a member of the Property Redress Scheme, membership number PRS059824. This means that if you are unhappy with our service and we cannot resolve it between us, you can refer your complaint to an independent redress scheme free of charge. See section 19.

We hold professional indemnity insurance. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, registration number ZC179457.

4. Where we operate

The Platform operates only in Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Properties in Scotland cannot be registered or contacted through the Platform.

We accept customers with a United Kingdom billing address only.

5. Who can use OpenAddress

You must be aged 18 or over to buy credits or send a letter through OpenAddress. We ask for your name and date of birth before your first purchase, and we will not let you proceed if you are under 18.

If you have received a letter and want to respond, you do not need to give us a date of birth. You only need an email address, and there is no charge to you at any point.

You must not use OpenAddress on behalf of someone else without their knowledge, and you must not give us information you know to be false. We may suspend or close an account if we believe the account holder is under 18, or that they have given us false information.

6. Accounts and sign-in

We use passwordless sign-in: you verify your identity using a one-time code sent to your email address. You are responsible for keeping access to your email account secure. You are assigned a randomly generated display name, so you are not identified to other users by your real name.

Closing your account. You can ask us to close your account at any time by emailing [email protected]. We will do so within one month, and we will delete your personal details. We are required by law to keep a record of any letter we posted and any check we carried out for five years, but those records are separated from your account. Our Privacy Policy explains this in full.

Unused credits are forfeited when you close your account, and are not refunded. If you want your money back rather than to lose it, use the 14-day cancellation right in section 9 before asking us to close the account.

7. Fees, credits and payments

Our fees are:

• Single letter credit - £19.99. This buys one credit, which lets you send one physical letter to one property.
• Five-credit pack - £49.99. This buys five credits.
• Chat unlock - £29.99. Paid by the buyer only. This unlocks the private chat channel with a homeowner who has chosen to respond. The homeowner is never charged anything, ever.

How credits work. Buying credits does not send anything. A credit entitles you to send one letter, and no letter is sent until you separately choose a property, write your message, and instruct us to send it. Credits can be used on any eligible property, in any order, at any time.

Credits do not expire. We will not cancel or withdraw unused credits because time has passed. Section 10 explains the one circumstance in which credits may be forfeited, and section 11 explains what happens if we stop offering the service.

Credits are not transferable. They belong to your account. They cannot be sold, gifted or moved to another account, have no cash value, and are not exchangeable for cash except as set out in sections 9 and 11.

Payments are processed by Stripe. By paying, you authorise us (through Stripe) to charge the applicable fee. Prices include VAT where applicable and may change in future; the price shown at the time of your purchase is the price that applies to that purchase.

8. Sending a letter, and what you are asking us to do

When you instruct us to send a letter you will be asked to confirm two things:

• that you want us to print and post the letter now; and
• that you understand you will lose your right to cancel that letter once we have posted it.

We ask this because posting a letter is a service performed immediately at your request. Once a letter has been dispatched to our print and postage provider it cannot be recalled.

Instructing a letter uses one credit. The letter is subject to the frequency limits in section 16, and to the suppression list in section 17; if we cannot send it for either reason, the credit is returned to your account.

9. Your right to cancel

Unused credits. Because buying credits does not itself cause anything to be sent, no service has been performed while a credit remains unused. You may cancel and obtain a refund of any unused credits within 14 days of purchase, for any reason and without giving one. Email [email protected]. We will refund to your original payment method.

Letters already sent. Each letter is a separate service, performed when we dispatch it at your express request. Once a letter has been posted, the cancellation right for that letter no longer applies, because you asked us to perform it immediately and acknowledged that consequence (see section 8).

Chat unlocks. Unlocking a chat gives you immediate access to the conversation, so the service is performed at once. See section 12.

Where you cancel part of a purchase - for example, you bought five credits and used two - we refund the unused portion at the price you paid per credit.

Nothing in these Terms affects any statutory right you have as a consumer.

10. Refunds outside the cancellation period

Outside the 14-day period in section 9, our position is as follows.

If we cannot dispatch your letter, for example because the address has opted out of receiving letters, or because dispatch fails for a technical reason, we automatically return the credit to your account. This is handled by the Platform without you needing to ask.

We do not refund a fee because a homeowner did not respond, or did not respond as you hoped. A response is never guaranteed. See section 13.

Chat unlock. The unlock fee pays for access to a private conversation with a homeowner who has chosen to talk to you. It is not a fee for any outcome. A homeowner is never obliged to sell, to keep talking, or to say anything in particular, and we do not guarantee what a homeowner will say. Unlock fees are therefore not normally refundable. We may, at our discretion and case by case, refund an unlock fee in limited circumstances - for example where a homeowner opens a conversation only to confirm they will never sell.

Forfeiture on breach. Although credits do not expire, we may suspend or close an account and forfeit any unused credits if the account holder breaches section 15 (acceptable use). Unused credits are also forfeited if you ask us to close your account — see section 6.

11. If we stop offering the service

Because credits do not expire, we make the following commitment so that you are not left holding something you cannot use.

If we decide to stop offering the service, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email to the address registered on your account. During that notice period you may continue to use any unused credits normally, subject to the frequency limits in section 16.

At the end of the notice period, we will refund, to your original payment method, any credits that remain unused and that were purchased within the 12 months before the date of our notice, at the price you paid per credit.

Credits purchased more than 12 months before that notice are not refundable in cash. They remain fully usable up to the end of the notice period.

12. The chat feature

If a homeowner chooses to respond, a private chat channel is created. The channel is locked until the buyer pays the chat-unlock fee. Once unlocked:

• the buyer's original message, including any contact details the buyer chose to include in it, becomes visible to the homeowner;
• both parties can exchange messages directly through the Platform.

You use the chat feature on the understanding that you are communicating with another member of the public, not with OpenAddress, and that OpenAddress takes no part in, and accepts no responsibility for, the substance of those communications or any arrangement reached.

13. No guarantee of response or outcome

We deliver a message. We do not guarantee that:

• any homeowner will read, respond to, or engage with a letter;
• any conversation will lead to an agreement; or
• any property is, or will become, available for sale.

You accept that you pay for the delivery of a message, not for a response or a result.

14. Writing your message

When you send a letter you may include a short personal message to the homeowner. You agree that:

• your message will be checked automatically before sending, and certain personal contact details may be removed, or you may be asked to rewrite a message that breaches these Terms (see section 15 and our Privacy Policy);
• your message must be your own genuine, personal expression of interest in the property. It must not contain advertising, solicitation, abusive or unlawful content, or attempts to conduct business outside the Platform before a chat is unlocked;
• if a chat is later unlocked, your original message will be shown to the homeowner in full (see section 12).

You are solely responsible for the content of the messages you send.

15. Acceptable use and moderation

You must use the Platform lawfully and respectfully. You must not:

• harass, abuse, threaten or impersonate anyone;
• send unsolicited commercial advertising or spam;
• attempt to bypass security, automated filters, frequency limits or opt-out lists;
• use automated tools such as bots or scrapers to access the Platform without our written permission; or
• use the Platform for any purpose that breaches applicable law.

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these Terms, and may forfeit unused credits as described in section 10.

16. Frequency limits

To prevent nuisance to homeowners, the Platform enforces two limits automatically:

• One letter per address, per 30 days. No residential address can receive more than one letter through OpenAddress in any 30-day period, no matter how many different buyers are interested. This applies to every address without exception.
• No repeat letters from the same buyer. A buyer cannot send a further letter to the same property within 30 days.

We also send no follow-up, reminder or second-attempt letters of any kind. If a homeowner does not respond, nothing further is sent about that property.

These limits are enforced by the Platform, not by request. If a limit prevents your letter being sent, the credit is returned to your account.

17. Homeowners: opting out

If you are a homeowner who does not wish to receive letters through OpenAddress, you can opt out at any time by following the opt-out link or QR code on your letter, or by writing to us at our registered office. Opting out is free, immediate, and requires no registration, no personal details and no explanation.

Opting out permanently suppresses your address, so that no further letters can be sent to it through OpenAddress by anyone. We keep that suppression record indefinitely, because deleting it would defeat its purpose.

18. Our liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded by law.

Subject to that, the Platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, and to the fullest extent permitted by law we exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to it.

We are not liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort including negligence, breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, arising under or in connection with: your use of, or inability to use, the Platform; any content sent or received using the Platform; or any discussion, negotiation, agreement or transaction between users.

In particular, we are not liable for any indirect, consequential, special or punitive loss, or for loss of profits, sales, business, revenue, opportunity, data or goodwill. Our total aggregate liability to you in connection with any single order or transaction is limited to the fee you paid for that order or transaction.

19. Complaints

If something has gone wrong, please tell us. Email [email protected], or write to Complaints, OpenAddress Ltd, Ground Floor, Gallery Building, 65-69 Dublin Road, Belfast, BT2 7HG.

We will confirm receipt within 3 working days, and send our full written response within 10 working days of that confirmation.

If you are still unhappy, you can refer your complaint to the Property Redress Scheme (our membership number is PRS059824), free of charge, provided you have allowed us up to eight weeks from the date we received your written complaint, and it is less than one year since our last communication about it. Full details, including how to complain if you received a letter but are not a customer, are on our complaints page.

If your complaint concerns how we handle your personal data, you may also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

20. Intellectual property

All intellectual property rights in the Platform, its software, layout, design, text and branding belong to OpenAddress Ltd or its licensors. You may not copy, modify, distribute or reverse engineer any part of the Platform without our prior written consent.

21. Privacy

Your use of the Platform is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use and protect your personal data.

22. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The "last updated" date above shows when changes were last made. Your continued use of the Platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

We will not apply a change retrospectively to reduce the value of credits you have already bought, or to introduce an expiry on them.

23. Governing law

These Terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them including non-contractual disputes or claims, are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Northern Ireland, and the courts of Northern Ireland shall have exclusive jurisdiction, except that if you live in England or Wales you may also bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales.

24. Contact

OpenAddress Ltd, Ground Floor, Gallery Building, 65-69 Dublin Road, Belfast, BT2 7HG.

Email: [email protected]. Company number: NI741612. ICO registration: ZC179457. Property Redress Scheme membership: PRS059824.