Terms of Service
Properties Haven Ltd ("Haven", "we", "us") operates the Haven platform at propertieshaven.com. These Terms govern your use of Haven — including our website, messaging, and WhatsApp listing service. The short version: listers are responsible for their listings, we verify people rather than properties, we are not a party to any transaction, and no money ever changes hands through Haven.
1. About these terms
These Terms of Service are a binding agreement between you and Properties Haven Ltd, a company registered in Nigeria ("Haven", "we", "us"). They govern your access to and use of the Haven platform — the website at propertieshaven.com, our messaging and notification channels, and our WhatsApp listing service — together, the "Platform". You accept these Terms when you create an account, post a listing (including through WhatsApp), send an inquiry, or otherwise use the Platform. If you use Haven on behalf of a company, you confirm that you are authorised to bind that company, and "you" includes the company. These Terms incorporate our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy by reference. If you do not agree with them, do not use the Platform.
2. Eligibility & your account
You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering a binding contract under Nigerian law to use Haven. Haven supports different account types — buyers and renters, property owners, independent agents, and companies (including property developers). The obligations in these Terms apply to everyone, but sections addressed to "listers" apply to owners, agents, and companies who publish listings. Company accounts may have multiple members; the company and its owner-level members are responsible for everything done under the company account. You agree to provide accurate, complete, and current information when registering and to keep it up to date. You must maintain only one account, keep your credentials (including one-time codes sent to your phone or WhatsApp) confidential, and not share or transfer your account. You are responsible for all activity under your account and must notify us promptly at support@propertieshaven.com if you suspect unauthorised use. We may refuse, suspend, or revoke registration where we reasonably believe information is false or an account poses a risk to others.
3. What Haven is — and is not
Haven is an advertising and introduction platform: listers publish property listings, and buyers and renters discover those listings and contact the lister. Our role ends at the introduction. Haven is not an estate agency, broker, property manager, valuer, or law firm, and we do not act as anyone's fiduciary. We are not a party to any inquiry, negotiation, inspection, agreement, or transaction between users, and we take no commission on any transaction. All dealings that follow an inquiry — viewings, negotiations, contracts, and payments — are exclusively between you and the other user. Haven does not collect, hold, or transfer money for property transactions. There is no way to pay for a property "through Haven" — any request to do so is fraudulent and should be reported to us immediately. Content on the Platform (including listings, area guides, and market information) is provided for information only and is not legal, financial, or investment advice.
4. Listings & content standards
If you post a listing, you are solely responsible for its truth, accuracy, completeness, and lawfulness — including price, availability, photos, videos, location, and the status of the property's title. By publishing a listing you warrant that: • you own the property or have the owner's authority (a valid mandate) to market it; • the photos and videos show the actual property and you own them or are licensed to use them; • the listing is not misleading, does not omit material facts, and complies with applicable law, including consumer-protection and advertising rules; • you hold, and will maintain, any licence or registration required to practise estate agency or development in the states where you operate (for example LASRERA registration in Lagos State), and any SCUML registration required of you under Nigeria's anti-money-laundering laws. Listings must advertise a specific, existing property — a house, apartment, or plot of land that a buyer can view and transact on. Listings that promote investment products, cashback or dividend offers, buy-to-resell or equity-pooling schemes, or any other financial product are prohibited and will be removed. You must promptly update or remove listings that are sold, let, withdrawn, or otherwise no longer available. We may require proof of any of the above, and we may edit for formatting, unpublish, or auto-expire stale listings at our discretion. We may — but are not obliged to — screen or moderate listings and other content.
5. The licence you grant us
You keep ownership of the content you submit to Haven — listings, photos, videos, descriptions, reviews, and messages. So that we can run the Platform, you grant Haven a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (including cropping, compressing, and generating thumbnails or previews), publicly display, and distribute that content for the purposes of operating, promoting, and improving the Platform — for example in search results, listing pages, social previews, and email or WhatsApp alerts. This licence includes processing your content through automated and AI systems for extraction, categorisation, moderation, and fraud detection. It continues for as long as your content is on the Platform and survives removal only to the extent needed for backups, records, fraud prevention, and legal compliance. You warrant that you have all rights needed to grant this licence and that your content does not infringe anyone's intellectual property or privacy rights. Feedback and suggestions you send us may be used freely without obligation to you.
6. Verification & KYC
Haven verifies the identity of agents and companies — for example by checking an agent's NIN or a company's CAC registration through licensed verification partners. Verification applies to people and businesses, never to listings. A "verified" badge means the person or company passed our identity checks at a point in time. It is not an endorsement, recommendation, or guarantee of their conduct, competence, licensing, or of any listing they publish. Haven does not verify property titles, ownership, condition, or the accuracy of any listing. Verification may be refused, re-run, or revoked at our discretion, including where credentials lapse, information proves false, or a regulator directs us. Listers must keep their professional credentials current and accurate.
7. Inquiries, messaging & inspections
Inquiries and messages sent through the Platform are stored and may be reviewed for safety, fraud prevention, moderation, and dispute resolution, as described in our Privacy Policy. Use the messaging system only to communicate genuinely about property — not for spam, harassment, phishing, or unsolicited marketing. Inspection bookings made through Haven are appointments between you and the other user, not contracts with Haven. We do not guarantee that an inspection will take place, and we are not responsible for what happens at one. Take sensible precautions when meeting anyone: verify who you are meeting, tell someone where you are going, and see section 10 before paying anyone anything. Contact details revealed to you through the Platform (phone numbers, email, WhatsApp) may only be used to communicate about the property concerned. Harvesting or reusing them for marketing is prohibited.
8. Reviews & reporting
Reviews must reflect your genuine, first-hand experience. Fake, incentivised, or retaliatory reviews, and reviews written for your own listings or business, are prohibited. We may moderate, decline, or remove reviews at our discretion. If you believe a listing, account, or review is fraudulent, misleading, or otherwise breaches these Terms, report it using the "Report" option on the listing or by emailing support@propertieshaven.com. We review reports but do not promise a particular outcome. Haven cooperates with the Nigerian Police, EFCC, SCUML, and other authorities, and may disclose account and communications data on lawful request.
9. AI-assisted features & posting via WhatsApp
Haven uses AI to help create listings — for example extracting details from text and photos you send on WhatsApp, drafting listings from an Instagram post you import, or assisting in the listing wizard. AI output can be inaccurate, incomplete, or mis-categorised. You must review and confirm every AI-extracted detail before publishing. Once published, the listing is your own statement, and you bear the same responsibility for it as if you had typed every word yourself. Haven makes no warranty about AI output and may change, limit, or withdraw AI features at any time. We may also use automated systems to help moderate content and detect fraud; if an automated decision significantly affects you, you may ask us to have a human review it. When you post through WhatsApp, your phone number identifies your account, these Terms apply to everything you submit, and WhatsApp itself is a third-party service governed by Meta's own terms. Message and data rates are your responsibility.
10. Fraud & safety — read this before paying anyone
Property fraud is real in Nigeria. Despite our identity checks and moderation, Haven cannot guarantee that any listing is genuine. Before paying anyone anything — including deposits, agency fees, or unusual "inspection fees": • physically inspect the property; • verify the title documents — Certificate of Occupancy, Governor's consent, registered deed of assignment, and survey plan — with your own lawyer and at the relevant land registry; • confirm that the person you are dealing with actually has authority to sell or let the property; • insist on written agreements and receipts, and avoid cash payments or transfers to personal accounts without documentation; • be sceptical of prices well below market and of pressure to pay quickly. You transact entirely at your own risk. If anything feels wrong, stop and report it to us at support@propertieshaven.com.
11. Prohibited conduct
You must not: • post false, misleading, duplicate, or bait listings, or list property without authority; • impersonate any person, agent, company, or Haven itself, or misrepresent an affiliation; • use the Platform for fraud, money laundering, or any unlawful purpose; • scrape, crawl, harvest, or bulk-download listings, contact details, or other data, or access the Platform with bots or automated tools, or circumvent rate limits and security measures; • frame the Platform, reverse-engineer our software, or interfere with the Platform's operation or other users' use of it; • send spam, chain messages, or unsolicited marketing through inquiries, reviews, or the WhatsApp service, or post another person's personal data without their consent. We may respond to violations with any combination of content removal, badge removal, feature restrictions, suspension, termination, and referral to law enforcement, at our discretion.
12. Fees
Browsing, inquiring, and posting listings on Haven are currently free. Haven charges no commission, closing fee, or transaction fee, because no transactions happen on the Platform. If we introduce paid features in the future (such as subscriptions or promoted listings), we will publish their pricing clearly and give existing users at least 30 days' notice before any fee applies to something that was previously free. Fees for third-party services you use (your network's data or message rates, your own professional advisers) are always your responsibility.
13. Intellectual property
The Haven name, logo, software, design, and the compiled database of listings are owned by Properties Haven Ltd or its licensors and are protected by Nigerian and international intellectual-property law. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and use the Platform for its intended purpose. Commercial reuse or republication of the Platform or the listings database, or building datasets or derivative services from it, requires our prior written consent. If you believe content on Haven infringes your copyright or other rights, send a notice to support@propertieshaven.com identifying the content, your rights, and your contact details. We operate a notice-and-takedown process consistent with the Nigerian Copyright Act 2022 and may remove content and terminate repeat infringers.
14. Third-party services
The Platform uses third-party services — for example Google (sign-in and maps), Meta's WhatsApp Business platform, identity-verification, SMS, media-hosting, and analytics providers — and listings may link to external websites. Those services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies, and a link from Haven is not an endorsement. We are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, or acts of third-party services or external sites, though we choose our processing partners carefully as described in our Privacy Policy.
15. Disclaimers
The Platform is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we make no warranty that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, and no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any listing, valuation, area guide, market data, or AI output. We do not warrant that any lister is licensed, competent, or will complete any dealing, or that any property is as described. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for gross negligence, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any liability or consumer right that cannot be excluded or limited under Nigerian law, including the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018. Nothing in these Terms limits your right to complain to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) or any other regulator.
16. Limitation of liability
PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY — IT LIMITS OUR LIABILITY TO YOU. Subject to the carve-outs in section 15 (which always prevail), Haven is not liable for: losses arising from dealings between users, including reliance on any listing, review, or statement made by another user; indirect or consequential losses such as lost profits, lost opportunities or deals, loss of reputation, or loss of data; or losses caused by events beyond our reasonable control. Subject to those same carve-outs, our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Platform is limited to the greater of (a) the fees you paid Haven in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) ₦100,000. Because Haven is currently free for all users, you should expect limb (b) to apply.
17. Indemnity
If you are a lister (an owner, agent, or company publishing listings), you will indemnify Haven against third-party claims, losses, and reasonable costs arising from your listings and content, your breach of these Terms or of applicable law (including estate-agency licensing, advertising, and anti-money-laundering law), your dealings with other users, and any claim that your content infringes intellectual-property or privacy rights. If you use Haven purely as a buyer or renter, your indemnity is narrower: it covers only claims arising from your breach of these Terms or of applicable law.
18. Suspension & termination
You may close your account at any time from your account settings or by contacting support@propertieshaven.com. We may remove content, suspend, or terminate your account — with notice where practicable, and immediately and without notice in urgent cases — for breach of these Terms, suspected fraud, failed or withdrawn verification, a legal or regulatory demand, or a genuine risk to other users. On termination we may unpublish your listings and retain records as described in our Privacy Policy. Sections that by their nature should survive termination do so — including the content licence (as scoped in section 5), disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity, and the governing-law and dispute provisions.
19. Changes, notices & general terms
We may update these Terms as the Platform and the law evolve. For material changes we will give advance notice — by email, on the Platform, or via WhatsApp for WhatsApp users — with the effective date; continuing to use Haven after that date means you accept the updated Terms. The current version always lives at propertieshaven.com/terms, with its "Last updated" date shown above. We give you notices via the contact details on your account or on the Platform; keep them current. You can give us notice at support@propertieshaven.com. If any provision of these Terms is found invalid, the rest remain in force. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them within a corporate reorganisation or sale, with notice to you. These Terms, together with the policies they incorporate, are the entire agreement between you and Haven about the Platform — but nothing in them excludes liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.
20. Governing law & disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If a dispute arises, contact us first — most issues are resolved by our support team. Both sides agree to attempt good-faith negotiation for 30 days before starting formal proceedings. For business users (agents, owners, and companies using Haven in the course of business), any dispute not resolved amicably shall be finally settled by arbitration seated in Lagos, Nigeria under the Arbitration and Mediation Act 2023, before a sole arbitrator, in English. For consumers, disputes may be brought before the competent Nigerian courts, and nothing in these Terms limits your statutory rights or your right to complain to the FCCPC. Either party may seek urgent injunctive relief in court. Properties Haven Ltd · Port Harcourt, Nigeria · support@propertieshaven.com