Terms of Use

1. Who we are

Hampton Roads Home Services (“HRHS”) is a service operated by AF Digital Native, LLC (“we”, “us”), a Virginia LLC. Hampton Roads Home Services is a trading name and is not a separate legal entity. Your agreement is with AF Digital Native.

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

2. What this service is

We publish listings for independent service professionals, let homeowners post jobs and receive bids, and provide messaging so the two can talk. That is the whole of it. 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 another 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.

3. We do not vet anyone

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

Listings appear because a business created one or claimed one, not because we approved it. Where our site 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 this site. 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 licence 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.

4. Creating an account

To create an account you must be 18 or older and able to enter a contract.

When you register, 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. We record the date and time you accepted and the version of these Terms in force at that moment.

By registering you specifically confirm that you understand and accept:

• that we do not vet, verify or endorse any member, and that choosing who to hire or whose job to accept is your decision alone (§3);
• that we are not a party to any agreement between members and take no part in payment for work (§2);
• that any dispute about work, price, quality, damage, injury or non-payment is between you and the other member, not us (§12, §14);
• that our liability to you is limited as described in §13, including for loss of income, business or reputation;
• that reviews about you are not removed on request, and are removed only on the grounds listed in the Community Policy (§6);
• that we may suspend or remove your account for breaking these Terms or the Community Policy (§17).

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 or business, one account. You may hold both a homeowner and a service professional persona on a single account. You may close your account at any time; closing it does not remove content that forms part of the record of what happened here (§7).

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 — no dashboard, no bids, no messages, no posting. You can still browse the public site, read the new Terms, and sign out.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• misrepresent who you are, what business you own, or your qualifications;
• 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 the site to defraud anyone, or to solicit payment outside the terms agreed with the other member;
• 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 the site’s operation or security.

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

6. Reviews

Reviews may be written only by a member describing their own experience of work actually performed. You may not review your own business, have staff or relatives review it, review competitors, or offer anything of value in exchange for a review expressing a particular sentiment.

We do not remove reviews 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 identically to positive and negative reviews. Being unfavourable is not a ground. Every professional may reply publicly to any review of their business.

Threatening a reviewer, or making a knowingly false public accusation against one, in order to have a review changed or removed, violates these Terms and may also violate federal law.

7. Your content

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

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

You are responsible for holding the rights to everything you upload, including photographs of completed work.

8. Additional terms for service professionals

By listing on this site you represent and warrant, on a continuing basis, that:

• you hold every licence, registration, permit, bond and insurance policy required by Virginia and by your locality for the trades you list, and you will maintain them;
• you are an independent business, and nothing here creates employment, agency, partnership or joint venture between us;
• you are solely responsible for the work you perform, for its safety, for your employees and subcontractors, for your taxes, and for your compliance with all applicable law;
• your listing is accurate and describes a business you own or are authorised to represent.

We make no promise of leads, bids, jobs, revenue or profit. Nothing on this site, on any pricing page, or in any communication from us is a guarantee of business outcomes.

Featured and sponsored placements are advertising. They are labelled, they do not affect ratings, and they are not an endorsement.

9. Paid subscriptions

Some features require a paid subscription. Price, billing period and inclusions are shown at the point of purchase.

Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price, until cancelled. You may cancel at any time from your account; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period. Unless stated otherwise or required by law, fees already paid are not refunded, and you keep paid features until the period ends.

We may change prices. Changes apply to the next billing period after we notify you, and you may cancel before then.

If we suspend or remove your account for violating these Terms, paid features end with it. We will stop billing you; whether a refund is due depends on the circumstances.

Payments are processed by a third-party payment processor. We do not store your card details.

Our Refund Policy sets out in full when a subscription fee is refunded and when it is not.

10. Communications

By creating an account you agree to receive service messages about your account, your jobs and your bids. 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 by using the unsubscribe link. If we introduce text messages, we will ask for your consent separately first.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

The site 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.

12. What you are responsible for

You are responsible for your own decisions and agreements: choosing who to hire or whose job to accept, verifying licensing and insurance, agreeing scope and price, admitting people to your property, the quality and safety of work performed, and payment.

Disputes between members are between those members. We are not an adjudicator. We may, at our discretion, provide records of what happened on the site.

13. 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 revenue, lost business, lost opportunity, lost data, or harm to reputation or goodwill, arising out of or relating to the site or these Terms, whether or not we were advised such damages were possible.
• Our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to the site or these Terms is limited to the greater of the total fees you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or one hundred dollars ($100).

This applies regardless of the legal theory, and regardless of whether a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.

14. 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 on your property or at their premises.

Any claim arising out of work arranged through the site is between you and the other member. 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.

15. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless AF Digital Native, LLC, trading as Hampton Roads Home Services, 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 the site, your content, your breach of these Terms, your agreements with other members, or work you performed or received.

16. Copyright

If you believe content on the site 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 terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

17. 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 violated, where the law requires it, or to protect members. Where practicable we will tell you what rule is at issue and you may contest it once.

We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of the site, and we may change these Terms. Material changes will be announced through the site and you will be asked to accept them (§4). Continuing to use the site after they take effect means you accept them.

18. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Virginia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and we agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Virginia.

19. 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 the site.

Notices to us: AF Digital Native, LLC, trading as Hampton Roads Home Services, , support@hamptonroadshomeservices.com.