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These Terms are a contract between you and Hampton Roads Home Services (“HRHS”, “we”, “us”; section 11 says who runs it). They apply when you use HRHS as a homeowner. Service professionals, real estate agents and association boards have their own terms. Please read them. The sections that matter most are highlighted as you go.

Our Privacy Policy and our Community and Reporting Policy are part of this agreement.

Adults only: you must be 18 or older to use HRHS.

1. What HRHS is

On HRHS you can find service professionals and their listings, post jobs and receive bids, message pros, keep a maintenance log for your home, and, through Connect, find and talk with your neighbors. If your association runs a portal on HRHS, you can join it as a resident. In particular:

• We do not perform home services.
• We do not employ, supervise, direct, schedule, train or control service professionals. They are independent businesses.
• We are not a party to any agreement you make with a pro or any other member, and not your agent, broker or representative.
• We do not handle payment for the work. You pay the professional directly.
• We do not guarantee that any job will be bid on, awarded, or completed to any standard.
• We are not your neighborhood association, property owners’ association or management company.
• We do not confirm who lives where. A home on HRHS, the people listed as living in it, and a neighbor on Connect are not statements by us about who lives at, owns or rents an address.
• We do not give professional advice. The maintenance log and any tips are general guidelines (section 8).

HRHS is free for homeowners. If we ever offer a paid extra for homeowners, its price and terms will be shown before you buy, and you never have to buy one to use HRHS.

2. We do not vet anyone

We do not vet, screen, verify, endorse or recommend anyone listed on HRHS. We do not confirm licenses, insurance, bonding, certifications, qualifications, criminal history or references. We do not inspect work.

New listings are reviewed before they appear. Approval means the listing fits HRHS; it is not a check of licenses, insurance or background. We may decline, hide or suspend a listing or account that doesn’t follow these Terms. Where HRHS describes something as “verified”, that word refers only to the specific thing stated at that point: for example, that a review is attached to a job booked through HRHS. It is not a statement about a business, its licensing, or the quality of its work.

You are responsible for deciding who to hire. Before hiring, check the license with the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, ask for proof of insurance, get scope and price in writing, and take the same care you would with any contractor you found any other way.

3. Your account

HRHS is for adults only. You must be 18 or older and able to enter a binding contract to create an account or use the site. By creating an account, including by signing in with Google, you confirm that you are 18 or older. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it.

When you sign up, you are asked to confirm that you accept these Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Community and Reporting Policy. That confirmation is required (you cannot create an account without it) and it forms a binding agreement between you and us. Ticking the box and pressing Agree is your electronic signature, and it has the same effect as signing on paper. We keep a record of each time you agree: the date and time, the version and the exact text you agreed to, how you agreed, the IP address your request came from, and what your browser reports about itself. The Privacy Policy says how long we keep it.

By signing up you specifically confirm that you understand and accept:

• that we do not vet, verify or endorse any member, and that choosing who to hire is your decision alone (section 2);
• that we are not a party to any agreement between you and a pro and take no part in payment for work (section 1);
• that any dispute about work, price, quality, damage, injury or non-payment is between you and the pro, not us (sections 14 and 16);
• that our liability to you is limited as described in section 15;
• that the maintenance log offers general guidelines, not professional advice, and that you act on it at your own risk (section 8);
• that disputes with us go first to us, then to the courts in Norfolk, Virginia, and that a claim must be brought within 1 year (section 20);
• that we may suspend or remove your account, or your place in a home, on Connect or in a portal, for breaking these Terms or the Community Policy (section 19).

You must give accurate information and keep it current. You are responsible for activity under your account and for keeping your password secure. Tell us promptly if you believe someone else has access to it.

One person, one account. The same account is the one you use for your homes, for Connect and for any association portal. If you later add a service professional, agent or board side to your account, that side’s terms apply to it as well. You may close your account at any time; closing it does not remove content that forms part of the record of what happened here (section 6).

If we materially change these Terms, we will tell you and ask you to accept the new version the next time you sign in. Until you accept, you will not be able to use your account. You can still browse the public site, read the new Terms, and sign out.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• misrepresent who you are, or where you live;
• harass, threaten, abuse or intimidate anyone;
• discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability or family status;
• use HRHS to defraud anyone, or to arrange payment outside the terms agreed with the pro;
• collect other members’ information for any purpose other than the job at hand, or use it for marketing;
• scrape, crawl, copy or republish listings, reviews or member information;
• upload anything you do not have the right to upload, or anything unlawful, obscene or malicious;
• interfere with HRHS’s operation or security;
• use Connect or an association portal to advertise, offer services, gather leads, or send people to a business;
• join Connect for an address you do not live at, or hold more than one Connect membership;
• add, claim or ask to join a home you do not live in or own, or report a member of a household falsely;
• post another person’s address, phone number, license plate, photograph, or anything else about them that they did not share themselves;
• describe a person by race, ethnicity, religion, or how they look when reporting something you saw, rather than by what they did.

The full rules, the reasons a member can be reported, and what we do about violations are in the Community and Reporting Policy.

5. Reviews you write

You may review a pro only for work they actually performed for you. Describe your own experience. You may not review a business you own or work for, review a pro on someone else’s behalf, or accept anything of value in exchange for a review that says a particular thing.

Reviews are not removed on request. A review is removed only if we determine it meets one of the grounds set out in the Community Policy, grounds we apply the same way to positive and negative reviews. A pro may report your review, and a person will consider it against those grounds.

No one may threaten you, or make a knowingly false public accusation against you, to get your review changed or removed. Tell us if that happens.

6. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, adapt for formatting, publish and display it in connection with operating and promoting HRHS.

For reviews, job records and messages, that license survives the closing of your account. These are the record of what happened between you and a pro, and one party cannot erase a record that belongs to both.

You answer for what you post. Everything you post, upload or send through HRHS is your responsibility, not ours: its accuracy, and its being yours to share.

Photos. When you upload a photograph you confirm that you took it, or that its owner allowed you to post it here for this use, and that it shows nothing you have no right to show. We may remove any photograph, or anything else you post, that we believe does not meet that, or these Terms, without asking you first. Where we can, we will tell you what we removed and why.

Connect notices are different from reviews. A notice or reply on Connect is yours to delete at any time. If you leave Connect, everything of yours goes with you: your notices, your replies, your reactions, your points and badges, your messages in threads, your connections, your Helpers, the homes you watch and your Connect choices. Two things stay: a copy of anything that was reported while you were here, attached to the report (Community Policy), and your recommendations of pros, which stay on the pro’s count without your name unless you take them back first.

What is posted inside an association portal belongs to that association’s record. Board posts, documents, votes and announcements stay with the portal when you leave it.

Your maintenance log is shared with your home. Entries, notes, costs, photos and the jobs and pros you link are seen by everyone who lives at that home on HRHS, and stay with the home’s log when you leave it, so the people still there keep the history (section 8). They are never shown to pros or to the public.

7. Your home and who lives there

One home per address. The first member to add an address claims it on HRHS and manages it. Others who live there ask to join, or are invited, and a manager of the home approves them. Managers may remove someone from the home.

What it means, and what it doesn’t. Adding a home, asking to join one or managing one does not make you its owner or tenant in law. We do not confirm who owns or lives at an address. A home on HRHS, and the people listed as living in it, are not a statement by us about ownership, tenancy or residence.

If something is wrong. If you believe someone has claimed your home, or someone in your home doesn’t belong there, you may tell us. We may ask you, by email, for a document you choose that shows you live there. We may remove a member from a home, move a home to another member, or lock an address while we look. Our decision is about the home on HRHS only, and it is not a ruling on any right to the property.

What people who share a home see. Everyone who lives at a home on HRHS sees its maintenance log and the jobs posted for it. Only the person who posted a job may change it, award it or message the pro. Your messages, settings, reviews and other homes stay private.

8. The maintenance log

What it is. The maintenance log, including its catalog of items, suggested schedules, “How to do it” steps, reminders, seasonal tips and emails, offers general guidelines based on common household practice and routinely recommended home maintenance. It is meant to build awareness and help you plan.

What it is not. It is not professional, technical, engineering, safety, insurance or legal advice, and it does not replace an inspection or the advice of a qualified, licensed professional. Every home is different. A manufacturer’s instructions, local codes, your warranty and your own professional’s advice come first. Nothing provided anywhere on HRHS is professional or legal advice.

You decide, and you act at your own risk. You decide what to do, when, and who does it. If you do a task yourself, you do it at your own risk and are responsible for doing it safely. A reminder can be late, missing or wrong, and the log does not know everything about your home.

We are not responsible for loss. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for any loss, damage, injury, cost or expense that comes from using, relying on, or not acting on anything in the maintenance log, including a missed, late or wrong reminder or schedule. Sections 13 (Disclaimer of warranties), 15 (Limitation of liability) and 16 (Claims arising from work) apply to the maintenance log in full.

What you record. What you enter in your log (dates, notes, costs, photos, and the jobs and pros you link) is your content under section 6. It is shared with everyone who lives at that home on HRHS, and it is not shown to pros or to the public. Linking a pro to an entry does not tell the pro, does not count toward their record, and is not a review. If everyone leaves a home and the last person keeps its log for the next owner, the next member to add that home sees what was done and when, but not who did it, what it cost, or any notes or photos.

9. Connect, for neighbors

Joining. Connect is open to any homeowner member with a home address in the cities we serve. You join by turning Connect on for your home. You must live there. One person, one membership, one home. You can leave at any time from your Connect settings. To join an association portal as a resident, you join Connect first, for your own home. Leaving Connect later does not take you out of a portal.

Your neighborhood comes from city records. We match your address to the city’s own address and subdivision records to place you in your neighborhood. Those records are the city’s, not ours: a boundary can be wrong, a name can change, and we may move, split, merge or rename a neighborhood to follow them. We do not confirm who lives at an address, and nothing on Connect is a statement by us that a person lives where they say.

What neighbors see. Your first name and last initial, the way HRHS shows a homeowner everywhere. Beyond that, you choose: your street name, your house number, your phone. You can change those choices at any time, and the screen shows you what the choice looks like. Neighbors in a notice’s reach can see it and what you reply to it.

Who is near you. Connect lists the neighbors closest to your home first, by distance from the point the city lists for your address, and that group can reach across a neighborhood line to the house behind you. If you hide your street name, you are listed with your neighborhood by name only and never as anyone’s closest neighbor. What you choose to show changes what neighbors see; it never changes where you are: your notices go out from the neighborhood your address is in. The people who live in your home with you are listed apart, as living with you. Someone at your address who has not been approved into your home is not listed as your neighbor, and you are not listed as theirs.

Connections and messages. You can send a connection request to a neighbor, and accept or ignore theirs. Only neighbors who have both agreed can message each other. A group thread holds up to five people. You can end a connection at any time, and the other person is not told why. Messages are private between the people in the thread; we read a thread only when someone in it reports it.

The neighbor rules apply. They are in the Community and Reporting Policy and they are part of this agreement. In brief: be a neighbor; no business in notices; no politics; respect other people’s privacy; describe what someone did, not what they look like. You may name any pro listed on HRHS when you recommend one, and HRHS may show that listing’s public card. A neighbor who is also a pro may not use Connect to find work.

Notices. What you post to your neighborhood is a notice. Every notice has a topic, and the topic decides three things: who sees it, whether it can alert neighbors, and how long it stays. A notice can reach your closest neighbors (the homes within about 600 feet of yours), your neighborhood, or nearby (members within about 1 mile of your home, which can include other neighborhoods). You can make a notice’s reach smaller, never bigger. Notices leave on their own when their time is up. You can close or delete yours at any time. Buying, selling and giving things away are not topics, and general chat belongs in messages.

Alerts. Some topics, such as an outage, flooding or a safety concern, let you say something is happening now. That notice can alert neighbors in its reach by an app alert or an email. You can send one alert a day. Alerts are neighbors telling neighbors. We do not check them before they go out. Neighbors can say they see it too, or that it’s over, and an alert closes when three households say it’s over.

Wrong topic. A neighbor can mark a notice as the wrong topic. That is not a report and it does not come to us. When three households mark one, it folds and you are asked to pick a better topic or send a message instead. If five of your notices fold this way in 30 days, you can’t post notices for 7 days.

Recommendations. You may recommend a pro you hired through HRHS or used before, from the pro’s page or by naming them when a neighbor asks. One recommendation per home for each pro. Neighbors on Connect in your neighborhood see your first name and last initial with it; everyone else sees only how many homeowners recommend that pro. A recommendation is your opinion, not ours: we do not vet, verify or recommend anyone, and recommendations never change where a pro appears on HRHS. Do not recommend a business you own or work for, and do not accept anything for a recommendation. You can take a recommendation back at any time. We may remove recommendations that break these rules.

Your neighborhood’s guide. Pros neighbors recommend, and answers a neighbor marked helpful, are kept in a guide for your neighborhood after the notice leaves. An answer in the guide shows your first name and last initial. You can remove your answer from the guide at any time.

Recognition. You earn points when a neighbor confirms you helped, and points lead to levels, badges and monthly honors. They have no cash value, can’t be traded or sold, and may change. We may take back points earned by breaking these Terms. Neighbors see your level and any honor next to your name unless you turn that off in your Neighborhood settings.

Helpers. You can ask someone you trust, like a family member or a neighbor, to be your Helper. With your yes, a Helper can change your Neighborhood settings, get alerts for your home and post notices for you. A notice a Helper posts says it was posted by them for you. A Helper can’t read your private messages. You can remove your Helper at any time.

Check on me. If you turn on Check on me, your connected neighbors and your Helper are asked to check on you after an alert in your area. They see that you asked and how you answer. Check on me is a neighborly nudge, not a safety, medical or monitoring service. In an emergency, call 911.

Watch a home. You can get alerts for a home you don’t live in if it is a home on your account, or if someone who lives there invites you. You get its area’s alerts only. You can’t post there or see its neighbors. The person who invited you can end it at any time.

From HRHS notices. We post some notices ourselves, such as weather alerts from the National Weather Service. We pass them on as we receive them, and they can be late or wrong. Follow official instructions.

Connect is not a watch program and not an emergency service. We do not read posts as they are made. If you are in danger or see a crime, call 911 first.

10. Association portals

Joining. A board may invite you to its portal by email. Accepting creates or uses your HRHS account under these Terms, and from then on your account, your Connect choices and your messages are yours, not the board’s.

What the board sees. The board’s admins see the household details the board entered (names, addresses and email addresses) and whether you have joined. They do not see your private messages, your maintenance log or your jobs.

What the board does. The board posts, keeps documents, runs polls and events, and may remove posts or members from its own portal under the Community and Reporting Policy. That does not affect your HRHS account or your place on Connect.

What we are not. We are not your association, we do not enforce its rules, collect its dues, keep its books or decide its disputes. Whether a vote, notice or record in a portal counts as an official act of the association is a question for its governing documents, Virginia law and its board. You are never charged for being in a portal, and what happens to a portal’s plan does not affect your account.

11. Who runs HRHS

Hampton Roads Home Services is a trading name of AF Digital Native, LLC, a Virginia limited liability company. It is not a separate legal entity. When these Terms say “HRHS”, “we” or “us”, they mean AF Digital Native, LLC, and your agreement under these Terms is with it. Its officers, members, employees and agents are covered by sections 15 and 17 in the same way HRHS is.

12. Communications

By creating an account you agree to receive service messages about your account, your homes and your jobs. These are part of the service and cannot be switched off while your account is open.

Marketing and digest emails can be switched off from your email preferences or with the unsubscribe link. If we introduce text messages, we will ask for your consent separately first.

Maintenance and household emails. If you keep a maintenance log, we may send reminders and a monthly summary for your home. If you share a home, we may email you when someone asks to join it, joins it, or leaves it, and when a manager or HRHS makes a change that affects you. You can turn each of these off on your Email notifications page. These emails never print your street address.

If you are on Connect, we email you when a neighbor asks to connect, says yes, writes to you or adds you to a thread, and, if you choose, when an alert goes out in your area and with a summary of notices. You can turn each of those off on your Email notifications page or in your Neighborhood settings, and choose app alerts, email or both for each kind of alert. Email a board sends through its portal is sent by the board. We carry it; the board is the sender, and questions about it go to the board.

Buttons in our emails. Some emails have buttons like Me too, Going or It’s back that work without signing in, and a link that signs you in. They only work for you and expire after a few days. Please don’t forward these emails.

13. Disclaimer of warranties

HRHS is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.

We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that information on it is accurate or current, or that any listing, review, rating or member is accurate, honest, qualified, licensed, insured or suitable.

Ratings and reviews are the opinions of the members who wrote them. They are not our statements, and we do not adopt or endorse them.

General information is not advice. Tips, checklists, guides, the maintenance log, cost ranges and anything else we publish are general information for awareness. They are not professional, technical, safety, insurance or legal advice, and they may not fit your home. You use them at your own risk.

14. What you are responsible for

You are responsible for your own decisions and agreements: choosing who to hire, checking licensing and insurance, agreeing scope and price, letting people into your home, and paying for the work.

Your home’s upkeep is yours. You decide what maintenance to do, when, and who does it, and you are responsible for doing any task you take on yourself safely.

Disputes between members are between those members. We do not decide them. We may, at our discretion, provide records of what happened on HRHS.

The same goes for households, neighbors and associations. A disagreement between people who share a home, about who lives there, who manages it or what is in its log, is theirs; our decisions under section 7 are about the home on HRHS only. A disagreement between neighbors on Connect, or between a resident and their association about dues, rules, violations or elections, is theirs too. Nothing on HRHS is legal advice.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive or exemplary damages, or for lost profits, lost data, lost opportunity, or harm to reputation, arising out of or relating to HRHS or these Terms, whether or not we were told such damages were possible.
• Our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to HRHS or these Terms is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or one hundred dollars ($100).
• This includes any claim about the maintenance log, a reminder, a schedule or any general information we publish.

This applies whatever the legal theory, and even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.

16. Claims arising from work

We are not responsible for the acts or omissions of any member, and specifically not for work performed or not performed, property damage, injury, non-payment, delay, theft, or anything a member does at your home.

We are also not responsible for any damage, injury or loss from maintenance you do yourself, put off or skip, whether or not the maintenance log suggested it.

Any claim arising out of work arranged through HRHS is between you and the pro. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, or for fraud.

17. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Hampton Roads Home Services and the company that runs it (section 11), together with its officers, members, employees and agents, from any claim, demand, loss, liability or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of HRHS, your content, your breach of these Terms, your agreements with pros or other members, or work done at your home.

18. Copyright

If you believe content on HRHS infringes your copyright, send a notice under the DMCA to our designated agent at support@hamptonroadshomeservices.com, including everything the DMCA requires. We will respond appropriately, which may include removing the content, and we close the accounts of repeat infringers.

19. Suspension, removal and changes

We may suspend or remove an account, remove content, or restrict features where we believe these Terms or the Community Policy have been broken, where the law requires it, or to protect members. Where we can, we will tell you which rule is at issue, and you may contest it once.

Connect and portals have their own door. We may remove a post, mute a member, or remove a member from Connect or from a portal for breaking the neighbor rules, without closing their HRHS account. A board may remove a member from its own portal; that is the board’s decision, and it does not affect the member’s HRHS account or their place on Connect.

Homes have their own door too. Under section 7 we may remove a member from a home, move a home to another member, or lock an address so no one can claim or join it while we look. A manager may remove someone from their home. None of these closes an HRHS account, and none is a ruling on any right to the property.

We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of HRHS, and we may change these Terms. Material changes will be announced on the site and you will be asked to accept them (section 3). Smaller changes, such as wording that makes these Terms clearer, take effect when we post them with a new “Last updated” date.

20. Governing law and disputes

Please read this section. It says where disputes are decided, and that you must bring a claim within 1 year.

Talk to us first

If you have a dispute with us, you agree to send us a written notice first, by email to support@hamptonroadshomeservices.com or by mail to 440 Monticello Ave., Ste 1802 PMB 474253, Norfolk, Virginia 23510-2670. Tell us your name, how to reach you, what happened, and what you want.

We will try to work it out with you. Neither of us may start a court case until 60 days after the notice is received. If we have a dispute with you, we will send you a notice the same way, to the email on your account. The 1-year deadline below pauses during this 60-day period.

Where cases go

Any case between you and us may be brought only in:

• the Norfolk General District Court, including its Small Claims Division;
• the Circuit Court for the City of Norfolk; or
• the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division.

Either of us may bring an individual claim in the Small Claims Division of the Norfolk General District Court, as long as the claim fits that court’s limits. You and we agree to the personal jurisdiction of these courts, and give up any objection that they are an inconvenient place.

Virginia law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.

You have 1 year to bring a claim

To the extent the law allows, any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms, the site, the app or our services must be filed in one of the courts above within 1 year after the claim arises. If it is not, the claim is permanently barred. This applies to claims against us, and to claims we bring against you.

If part of this section can’t be enforced

If any part of this section is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. This section survives after your account is closed or these Terms end.

21. General

If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign this agreement; we may. These Terms, with the Privacy Policy and the Community and Reporting Policy, are the entire agreement between us about your use of HRHS as a homeowner.

Notices to us: Hampton Roads Home Services, 440 Monticello Ave., Ste 1802 PMB 474253, Norfolk, Virginia 23510-2670, support@hamptonroadshomeservices.com.