Terms of Service

1. What the Service is

Perched is a personal property research tool that helps you organise information about properties you are considering purchasing. It retrieves data from publicly available third-party services (including LINZ, Walk Score, and OpenStreetMap) and displays it alongside your own notes, and it links to publicly available research resources. The Service is offered only to people in New Zealand.

The Service is available on a freemium basis:

• Free tier: up to 5 active property slots, with no payment required.
• Subscription: unlimited active property slots for NZ$15 per month.
• Free trial: a one-time 30-day trial of the subscription tier is available with no card required, one per account (holding multiple accounts to obtain further trials is a breach, see section 4). During the trial you can create unlimited active properties. The trial expires automatically and cannot be restarted; when it ends your account returns to the 5-slot free tier (properties beyond that are not deleted, but you cannot add new ones or unarchive until you are within the limit or subscribe). If you subscribe while the trial is still running, your card is taken then and the first charge is delayed until the trial would have ended, unless only a day or so of the trial remains, in which case billing may start straight away.
• Grandfathered accounts: some accounts created during the early beta period have been granted unlimited free access for the life of the Service, subject to these terms. If your account is grandfathered, this is shown in your settings.

2. Subscription and payment

• The subscription is billed monthly at NZ$15 per month and renews automatically each month until you cancel.
• Payment is processed by Stripe. By subscribing, you also agree to Stripe’s terms and privacy policy.
• You may cancel your subscription at any time. On cancellation, your subscription remains active until the end of the current billing period, after which your account reverts to the free tier.
• Subscription fees already paid are non-refundable, including for partial months. When you cancel, you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for, but the unused portion is not refunded. This does not affect any rights you may have under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993.
• Cancelling does not delete your data or archived properties. Active properties beyond the free tier limit will not be deleted, but you will not be able to add new ones or unarchive existing ones while over the limit.
• Deleting your account immediately cancels your subscription. Because deletion takes effect right away, any remaining time in the current billing period is forfeited and is not refunded. This does not affect any rights you may have under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993.
• If a subscription payment fails, Stripe may retry it. If payment cannot be collected after a reasonable period, your account reverts to the free tier. Your data and properties are not deleted, subject to the same over-limit rules as cancellation.
• Initiating a payment chargeback while retaining access, or creating multiple accounts to obtain additional free slots or trials, is a breach of these terms. We may suspend access and refuse or reclaim trials where we detect this. This does not apply to a chargeback you raise to recover a refund we have committed to under section 10 and have failed to pay within a reasonable time.
• We reserve the right to change the subscription price. We will give current subscribers at least 30 days’ notice before any price increase takes effect, in the app and by email. If you do not accept the new price, you may cancel before it takes effect and keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for.
• If we increase the price or materially reduce the Service, you may cancel immediately and we will refund the unused portion of your current prepaid period on a pro-rata basis.
• All fees are in New Zealand dollars. The operator is not currently registered for GST, so no GST is charged on the subscription. If the operator becomes GST-registered, the price shown will be treated as GST-inclusive and we will make a GST receipt available.

3. Not professional advice

Nothing in the Service constitutes property, financial, legal, or any other professional advice.

In particular:

• Research links are provided for convenience only. They open independent third-party sites (including council portals, flood maps, and hazard viewers) that we do not own, operate, vet, control, endorse, or take responsibility for. The accuracy, currency, and completeness of information on those sites is not guaranteed by us and may not reflect current conditions. We build these links from the address and location we hold for a property, so if that is wrong or matched to the wrong place, a link may open the wrong property or the wrong council. Check that the page you land on is the property you mean before relying on it.
• The research checklist is not exhaustive. It is a general starting point, not a complete or property-specific list of everything you should investigate before purchasing. We do not warrant that it covers every relevant check for any given property, and the absence of an item from the list does not mean it is unimportant. Deciding what due diligence to carry out, and carrying it out, remains entirely your responsibility.
• Pre-filled property details: where the app pre-fills or displays property information, including the property type, construction or cladding material, roof material, contour, capital value (CV), rating valuation, land value, floor and land area, bedroom, bathroom, and room counts, ownership type, legal description, decade built, auction or deadline dates, and open-home times, that information is retrieved from third-party listing data (which itself draws on council and LINZ records) and is not independently verified by us. Values are extracted and normalised by us and may differ from the underlying council or LINZ records. It may be incomplete, out of date, or inaccurate (for example, a home described as “brick” may in fact be of a different construction type), and corrections made at the source can take time to appear here. Errors can also arise in how we retrieve, match, or display that information, including matching an address to the wrong land parcel, mis-parsing a date, or normalising a value incorrectly. Auction and open-home times in particular should be confirmed directly with the agent. Do not rely on these details when assessing a property; confirm everything independently through a Land Information Memorandum (LIM), a builder’s or moisture inspection, and your own professional advisers.
• Hazard information (flood zones, liquefaction, fault lines, volcanic risk, etc.) is indicative only. The absence of a hazard indication does not mean no hazard exists: hazard layers may be missing, incomplete, or fail to load. Always obtain a Land Information Memorandum (LIM) report and appropriate professional inspections before purchasing a property.
• Aerial (satellite) imagery is sourced from LINZ and may be out of date or not reflect the current state of a property. The parcel boundary outline shown is an approximation derived from LINZ data and may be inaccurate or highlight the wrong parcel (for example on corner or subdivided sites). Do not rely on it to identify property boundaries; obtain a registered survey and a LIM.
• Travel time estimates are calculated by third-party routing services and are approximations only.
• Walk Score is a numerical score computed by a third party from point-of-interest data; New Zealand coverage can be limited, so treat it as a rough guide, not a walkability assessment. Valuation data is likewise sourced from third parties and may be inaccurate or outdated.

We strongly recommend seeking independent legal, financial, and property advice before making any purchasing decision.

4. Your account

• You must provide a valid email address, keep your password secure, and tell us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.
• Your account is personal to you. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account, except to the extent it results from unauthorised access to your account caused by our failure to maintain reasonable security.
• You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service.
• You may share properties with other users via groups or direct invitations. Depending on the access level you grant, they will be able to view (and, if given editor access, edit) that property’s notes, photos, and details. Only share with people you trust. Each property has an owner (the person who created it, unless ownership has been transferred) who keeps ultimate control of it, including the right to change access or delete it at any time; by joining a shared property you accept this and waive any claim against us for what its owner does with it. Sharing is at your own risk: we are not a party to, and are not responsible for resolving, disputes between users about a shared property or its contents, although we may act on breaches of these terms.

You must not, and must not attempt to:

• Probe, scan, or test the security of the Service without our prior written permission, or circumvent its access controls, property slot limits, rate limits, or trial restrictions
• Access data belonging to another user other than through sharing features they have used to grant you access
• Use automated tools to scrape or bulk-extract data from the Service
• Use the Service to monitor, track, or surveil a person (for example, watching activity at an individual’s home) rather than to research a property purchase
• Use any personal information you obtain through the Service, including collaborator email addresses shown in a property’s activity history or included in a data export, to contact, market to, profile, harass, or track any person, or for any purpose other than your own property research
• Republish or redisclose content shared with you outside the Service without the owner’s consent; content shared with you remains the owner’s
• Impersonate any person, or generate invitation links for email addresses you do not control or that have not asked for access
• Vandalise a shared property, or delete or deface another member’s contributions, in order to harm them or disrupt their work
• Share, sell, rent, or transfer your login credentials or account (including any grandfathered status), or hold more than one account to obtain additional free slots or trials
• Resell the Service or make it available to third parties as a service

Breach of these restrictions is grounds for immediate suspension or termination under section 11. We may also set and adjust rate limits and usage limits to keep the Service running well for everyone.

5. Your content

You own the content you upload (photos, notes, property details). By uploading content you grant us a limited licence to store, back up, move between infrastructure providers, process (including compressing images and generating thumbnails), and display it to you and any users you share access with, solely for the purpose of providing the Service.

You are solely responsible for all content you upload. We do not pre-screen or monitor uploads. By uploading content you represent and warrant that you have the right to do so and that the content complies with these terms.

You agree not to upload content that:

• Is sexually explicit or pornographic, including nudity intended to be sexual in nature
• Depicts or exploits minors in any sexual manner. Such material is illegal under New Zealand law. We will remove it as soon as we become aware of it, permanently terminate the account responsible, and report it to the relevant authorities including the New Zealand Police and the Department of Internal Affairs. On a shared property we may suspend all members pending investigation and will cooperate with authorities to identify the responsible party.
• Infringes another person’s copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights
• Contains personally identifiable information about third parties without their consent
• Is defamatory, threatening, harassing, or incites violence or hatred
• Distributes malware or phishing, or links (including custom research links and document links) to harmful or malicious content
• Is objectionable within the meaning of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, promotes self-harm, terrorism, or violent extremism, is spam or advertising, or is otherwise harmful or unrelated to genuine property research
• Violates any applicable New Zealand or international law

Links and documents supplied by other users are third-party content that you follow at your own risk.

We reserve the right to remove any content that violates these terms, or that we reasonably determine to be harmful or inappropriate, at any time and without notice.

Removed or departed collaborators. When a collaborator is removed from a property or leaves it, remaining members no longer see their email address in the activity timeline. Their past contributions remain on the property, shown as coming from “Collaborator”.

Content on shared properties after account deletion. Notes and photos you have contributed to properties owned by other users remain on those properties when you delete your account, and are not removed automatically. To other members they are no longer identified as yours: your email is removed and your notes and photos are shown as coming from “Deleted member” rather than you, though the content you wrote stays as you left it. We keep an internal reference (not visible to other members) so we can still find and erase them if you ask. They stay unless you ask us to erase them. If you want those contributions removed entirely, contact us at henry@perched.nz either before or after you delete your account. Erasure is handled manually and is not instantaneous, and after deletion we may ask you to help identify your contributions. We will action valid requests within a reasonable time. Where content is removed, other users see a placeholder indicating that content existed there. Note that a research note you wrote that another collaborator has since edited is attributed to that collaborator and is kept; only your own unedited contributions are removed. This concerns the shared notes, photos, and checklist entries on the property itself. The note you can add about your own collaboration on a property is treated differently: it is deleted along with your membership when your account is removed, rather than kept and shown as coming from a deleted member.

Reporting content. If you believe content on the Service is unlawful, infringing, or in breach of these terms, contact us at henry@perched.nz with a link to or description of the content and the reason for your complaint. We operate a notice-and-takedown process. On receiving a valid complaint we will, where the relevant law requires, notify the person who posted the content and give them an opportunity to respond, and we will remove or restrict access to content that is unlawful or in breach of these terms. For complaints under the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, we take complaints seriously and encourage you to also contact NetSafe (netsafe.org.nz), the approved agency under that Act. Submitting a knowingly false or bad-faith complaint is itself a breach of these terms, and we may decline to act on, or consolidate, complaints we reasonably consider abusive, duplicative, or vexatious.

Copyright. If you believe content infringes your copyright, include enough detail to identify both the work and the infringing material. We act on valid notices and will terminate the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe.

Linking to your site. If you operate a website that the Service links to (whether as a built-in research link or one added by a user) and you would prefer we did not link to it, contact us at henry@perched.nz and we will remove the link and take reasonable steps to prevent it being linked again.

6. Public sharing

You may generate a public link that allows anyone to view a read-only snapshot of a property. By doing so, you accept responsibility for any information made publicly accessible via that link. Revoke the link if you no longer wish it to be public. Public links also lapse automatically after 30 days without activity on the property; you can renew a lapsed link at any time.

You must not make public any property that identifies, or reveals the location, movements, or personal information of, a real person without their consent. Doing so may constitute harassment or a breach of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 and will result in immediate termination.

A public snapshot may be indexed, cached, or archived by search engines and other third parties, and anyone you give the link to can pass it on to others. Copies may persist after you revoke the link. We do not control and are not responsible for that redistribution or persistence.

Content you add to a property you do not own is controlled by that property’s owner, who may make it public or delete the whole property (and everything in it) at any time. Keep your own copies of anything important. We may act on breaches of these terms, but we cannot recover content a member has deleted and cannot guarantee restoration.

7. Intellectual property

The Service (including its software, design, features, data models, and branding) is owned by Henry Eden-Mann and is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. All rights are reserved. This does not cover third-party map, address, and property data (such as OpenStreetMap and LINZ), which remains the property of its respective providers and is used under their own licences.

You agree not to:

• Copy, reproduce, modify, or distribute any part of the Service or its underlying code
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the Service
• Create derivative works based on the Service or its design
• Use the name “Perched” or any associated branding in a way that suggests affiliation with or endorsement by the operator

Any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you submit about the Service may be used by us to improve or develop it, without any obligation to compensate you or attribute the idea to you. This is the licence referred to in section 14. You warrant that you have the right to submit any feedback you send and that it contains no third-party personal information.

8. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by New Zealand law, and except for the guarantees you have as a consumer that cannot be excluded (see below), the Service is provided “as is” without any warranty, express or implied, including as to fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement.

We will not be liable for any loss or damage, including indirect, incidental, or consequential loss, arising from:

• Your use of or inability to use the Service
• Loss or corruption of your data, whether caused by technical failure or by any failure or outage of a third-party infrastructure provider we engage, that is not caused by our own negligence
• Unauthorised access to or disclosure of your data resulting from a security breach of a third-party provider that is beyond our reasonable control (nothing here limits our own obligations under the Privacy Act 2020, or our liability for a breach caused by our own negligence)
• The unavailability, inaccuracy, or failure of any third-party service used by the Service (including address geocoding, routing, Walk Score, or satellite imagery)
• Reliance on information linked from third-party sites (such as council portals, hazard viewers, and mapping services), which we pass through without guarantee
• Reliance on pre-filled property details, travel-time estimates, walkability scores, or hazard indications displayed in the Service, which we source and normalise from third parties and which we do not warrant, though this does not exclude our duty to provide the Service with reasonable care and skill
• Any event beyond our reasonable control, including internet outages, power failures, acts of government, or the shutdown of a third-party service we depend on

Dollar cap: Except for liability that cannot lawfully be limited (including under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, the Fair Trading Act 1986, and the Privacy Act 2020, see below), and to the extent the law otherwise allows, our total aggregate liability to you for all other claims combined shall not exceed the greater of NZ$100 or the total subscription fees paid by you to us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud, or for any liability or guarantee that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and the Fair Trading Act 1986. If you acquire the Service as a consumer, those Acts give you rights and guarantees that apply despite anything in these terms, and the disclaimers and the cap above apply only to the extent the law allows. Nothing in these terms limits your rights or our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020.

9. Your indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the operator of the Service and any associated individuals from and against any claims, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) to the extent they arise directly from:

• Content you upload or share through the Service
• Your breach of these terms
• Your material violation of any law or of the rights of a third party

This indemnity does not apply to loss caused by our own negligence or breach, and it expires six years after the act or omission it relates to.

10. Availability and data

We use reasonable care and skill to keep the Service running, but cannot guarantee it will be available at any particular time or entirely free from errors. We may change the Service, or temporarily suspend it or any part of it, at any time. We may also release preview or beta features, which may be incomplete, may change, and may be withdrawn without notice.

If we decide to permanently discontinue the Service, we will, where reasonably practicable, give you at least 30 days’ notice by a prominent notice in the app (and by email where we are able to). During that period you can export your data using the export tool in Settings. If you have paid for a subscription, we will refund the unused portion of any prepaid period on a pro-rata basis. After the Service closes we will delete your data in line with our Privacy Policy.

While we rely on Supabase’s infrastructure, which maintains its own backups, we make no guarantee that your data will be preserved in the event of data loss, corruption, or service termination. You are responsible for keeping your own records of any information that is important to you.

11. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time and request deletion of your account via Settings or by contacting us at henry@perched.nz.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account if you violate these terms or use the Service in a way that could harm other users, the operator, or the Service itself. This includes using the feedback or contact forms, or any other channel, to harass, threaten, or abuse the operator. Where practicable, we will give you notice and an opportunity to remedy the breach before terminating, except where the violation is serious (such as uploading illegal content) or where we are required to act immediately by law. If your account is terminated for a serious violation, no refund will be issued for any remaining subscription period.

While an account is suspended, your data is generally preserved but you cannot access it until the suspension is lifted or the account is terminated.

12. Governing law and severability

These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. Any dispute will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts.

If any provision of these terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable by a court, that provision will be severed to the extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

Sections 2, 4 (the restrictions on misusing personal information and shared content), 5, 7, 8, 9, and 12 survive termination or deletion of your account.

We may assign or transfer our rights and obligations under these terms (for example, if the Service is sold, merged, or restructured) to a successor, provided your rights under these terms and the Privacy Policy are not materially reduced. You may not assign your rights under these terms without our consent.

If we do not enforce a provision of these terms on any occasion, that is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

These terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements.

13. Changes and notices

We may update these terms from time to time. When we make a material change we will prompt you, in the app, to review and accept the revised terms before you continue using the Service. Minor clarifications that do not affect your rights may be made without a prompt and take effect from the date shown above.

Account and billing emails are sent to the address on your account and are effective when sent, whether or not you receive them, so keep your email address current. We may give any notice, including legal notice, electronically, whether in the app or by email.

14. Feedback and error reports

The Service includes an optional in-app feedback form. Submitting feedback is entirely voluntary. When you submit feedback you may choose to include diagnostic information (the full list is in the Privacy Policy) and screenshots. Only the fields you explicitly enable are sent, along with your browser’s user-agent string, which is recorded automatically. Feedback is stored in our database, emailed to us via Resend, and used to improve the Service. By submitting feedback you grant us the perpetual, royalty-free licence described in section 7 to use its content to improve or develop the Service.

Separately, if something in the app breaks, the Service sends us an automatic error report so we can find and fix the problem. These reports are sent without any action on your part and contain technical details about the error and your session, as described in the Privacy Policy. We store them for up to 90 days and use them solely to fix problems with the Service; new issues are also emailed to us via Resend.

15. Contact

Questions about these terms: henry@perched.nz