Terms of Service

If Walls Could Talk — Terms of Service

Version: 0.2 (pre-launch draft — awaiting solicitor review) Jurisdiction: England and Wales Last reviewed: 2026-04-20

Status markers used below:

• [TODO: user - ...] — blocked on a fact only the founder can supply (company details, emails)
• [TODO: solicitor - ...] — requires qualified legal review before publication

Pre-launch release requires all [TODO: ...] markers to be resolved.

1. Who we are and what the Platform does

If Walls Could Talk is operated by If Walls Could Talk CIC, a Community Interest Company registered in England and Wales (company number [TODO: user - insert on CIC Regulator approval]), with registered address at First Floor, Swan Buildings, 20 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JW ("we", "us", "the Platform").

The Platform allows tenants who have lived in a residential property to submit structured reviews of that property's physical condition and character. Reviews are about bricks, mortar, fittings, and maintenance — not about people. The operating principles behind this are set out in our public mission statement: the Platform is a public-good benchmark for the UK rental sector, serving tenants, landlords, and councils alike.

By creating an account or submitting a review you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

2. User eligibility

2.1 You must be or have been a tenant

You may only submit a review for a property if you were a tenant or occupier at that property. "Tenant" includes assured shorthold tenants, lodgers, and any person who paid rent or occupied the property under a licence to occupy. It does not include property owners, letting agents, or people who only visited the property.

By submitting a review you confirm that you were a tenant or occupier at the property during the year range you have stated.

2.2 Age

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. We do not support minors at MVP stage (no parental-consent mechanism is currently offered). If you are 16–17 and have been a tenant, you may still find useful information by searching the Platform without an account. [TODO: solicitor - confirm 18+ hard limit is appropriate for the platform's risk profile, or recommend a parental-consent flow]

2.3 One account per person

You may hold only one active account. Creating multiple accounts to submit multiple reviews of the same property, or to circumvent a suspension, is a breach of these Terms and will result in permanent bans on all associated accounts.

2.4 Email verification

Account creation requires a verified email address. We use email verification to reduce fraudulent and duplicate reviews. We store your email address internally but do not display it publicly.

3. Review content rules

3.1 Property only

Reviews must relate solely to the physical property: its condition, layout, fixtures, fittings, communal areas, noise from the structure or building, damp, heating, ventilation, and similar physical characteristics.

3.2 What reviews must not contain

You must not include in a review:

• Personal data of any third party — do not name, describe in a way that identifies, or include the contact details of any landlord, letting agent, neighbour, previous tenant, or any other individual.
• Defamatory statements — do not make false statements of fact about any identifiable person. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes statements that could harm the reputation of a named or identifiable person even if framed as opinion.
• Harassment or threats — do not post content that threatens, intimidates, or targets any individual.
• Illegal content — do not post content that infringes any third party's intellectual property rights, constitutes a criminal offence under English law, or is otherwise unlawful.

3.3 Factual accuracy

You must believe that the factual statements in your review are true at the time of submission. We do not verify every factual claim, but submitting a review you know to be false or misleading is a breach of these Terms and may expose you to legal liability.

3.4 Confirmation screen

Before submitting a review, you will be shown a confirmation screen reminding you that the review must be about the physical property, not people. Proceeding past that screen constitutes your agreement that the review complies with this section.

3.5 Moderation

All reviews are subject to pre-publication moderation. We may decline to publish, edit (with your consent), or remove any review that breaches these rules. See our Moderation Policy for detail. We will notify you if your review is rejected.

3.6 30-day edit window

You may edit a published review within 30 days of its original publication date. Edited reviews re-enter moderation before the new version goes live. After 30 days, reviews are locked; contact support@ifwallscouldtalk.uk if you need to correct a factual error in a locked review.

3.7 Genuine experience required

You must only submit reviews based on your genuine experience as a tenant at the property. You must not:

• submit a review of a property at which you were not a tenant;
• submit a review in exchange for any form of payment, discount, gift, or other incentive;
• submit a coordinated review on behalf of a third party, as part of a campaign, or otherwise in concert with other reviewers;
• submit multiple reviews of the same property for the same tenancy period.

We never pay for, incentivise, or solicit reviews. This is a standing commitment, not a temporary policy. If you are found to have submitted a fake, incentivised, or coordinated review, the review will be removed and your account will be permanently banned. This section forms part of our compliance with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Schedule 20 (fake-review prohibition).

4. Platform rights

4.1 Licence to host and display your content

By submitting a review, you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to store, display, and (in anonymised or aggregated form) analyse your review. You retain ownership of the content you write.

4.2 No editorial responsibility for third-party content

We are an operator of a website that hosts reviews written by users. We do not author, endorse, or adopt any user-submitted review as our own statement. We are not the publisher of reviews for the purposes of defamation law — users who submit reviews are responsible for their content.

This position is consistent with our operation under Defamation Act 2013, Section 5, which provides a defence for website operators who comply with the notice-and-takedown procedure set out in the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/3028). See section 5 below.

4.3 Right to moderate and remove

We reserve the right to remove any review, at any time, for any reason consistent with our Moderation Policy. We will generally notify you if we remove your review, but are not obliged to do so where removal is required by law or a court order.

4.4 Aggregation and anonymisation

We may use anonymised and aggregated review data (e.g. average scores for a property, neighbourhood benchmarks, market trends) to:

• provide summary information on the Platform to tenants, landlords, and councils;
• publish research, journalism, and policy insights in line with our mission as a public-good benchmark;
• license aggregated data to researchers, housing charities, councils, and policymakers.

We do not sell or license individual personal data. Where a future product requires the use of individual data (e.g. personalised recommendations), we will seek your explicit consent first. [TODO: solicitor - confirm aggregation / anonymisation threshold meets UK GDPR "truly anonymous" test before any commercial licensing begins]

4.5 Legal framework

The Platform operates within the UK legal regime for user-to-user services and consumer-review publishers. We comply with:

• Online Safety Act 2023 — illegal-content duties (we operate a moderation queue and an illegal-content complaints route; see section 5 and our Moderation Policy §3).
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Schedule 20 — fake-reviews prevention duty (see section 3.7).
• Defamation Act 2013 and the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013 — notice-and-takedown procedure (see section 5).
• UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 — see our Privacy Policy.

A comprehensive analysis of the legal regime is maintained internally in legal-context.md.

5. Defamation Act 2013, Section 5 — notice-and-takedown

5.1 If you believe a review about your property is defamatory

If you are a person mentioned in, or affected by, a review on the Platform and you believe it is defamatory, you may submit a notice of complaint to complaints@ifwallscouldtalk.uk.

Your notice must include:

• Your name and email address
• The URL of the specific review
• The specific words you say are defamatory
• Why you say those words are false and harmful to your reputation
• Whether you consent to your identity being disclosed to the reviewer

5.2 What happens next

We will acknowledge your complaint and respond within 5 working days of receiving a complete and valid notice. We may: (a) remove the review; (b) pass your complaint to the reviewer so they can respond; or (c) seek further information. Our full procedure is set out in the Moderation Policy.

5.3 Reviewer notification

If we receive a complaint about your review, we will notify you (if you are contactable) and give you an opportunity to respond before we take action, except where we are required by law to act immediately or where disclosure of the complaint would itself be harmful.

6. Account termination

6.1 Termination by you

You may close your account at any time via account settings or by contacting support@ifwallscouldtalk.uk. On closure, your email address and identifying information will be scheduled for deletion in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Your published reviews will be anonymised — they will not be deleted, because they form part of the public record of a property and were published in reliance on the information you provided. [TODO: solicitor - confirm the anonymisation-not-deletion position is defensible under UK GDPR Article 17 and the legitimate interest balance set out in the Privacy Policy]

6.2 Termination by us

We may suspend or terminate your account, with immediate effect and without prior notice, if:

• You breach any provision of these Terms
• We have reason to believe you submitted a fake or fraudulent review
• You create multiple accounts in breach of section 2.3
• You contact the moderation team in an abusive or threatening manner, or attempt to manipulate moderation decisions through inducement, harassment, or coordinated campaigns
• You attempt to circumvent the Platform's security, scrape content without authorisation, or otherwise violate the technical access rules in section 8
• We receive a court order requiring account suspension or termination
• [TODO: solicitor - confirm grounds list is exhaustive enough to support action, or recommend additions]

We will notify you of termination by email to your registered address unless a court order prohibits notification.

6.3 Effect of termination

Termination does not delete published reviews (which are anonymised on closure). Termination does not affect any legal claims or liabilities that accrued before the termination date.

7. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

7.1 Reviews are user-generated opinions

Reviews on the Platform are submitted by individual users and reflect their own experiences and opinions. We do not independently verify the factual accuracy of reviews beyond the moderation process set out in section 3.5. Reviews are intended as one input among many into a rental decision — not as a sole or determinative source.

You should not rely exclusively on any single review. Property conditions change over time, landlord management may change, and individual experiences vary. We do not accept liability for tenancy, financial, or other decisions you make on the basis of reviews alone. [TODO: solicitor - refine disclaimer to be proportionate and compliant with Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and Consumer Rights Act 2015; note that landlords may rely on reviews to their detriment and the disclaimer should address that directly]

7.2 Platform availability

We aim to keep the Platform available, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may perform scheduled maintenance, deploy updates, or temporarily restrict access for security reasons. We do not accept liability for temporary unavailability, subject to our obligations under data-protection law and the guarantees you have as a consumer under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

7.3 Liability cap

To the extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability to you in connection with your use of the Platform is limited to [TODO: solicitor - set appropriate cap; common frames are (a) the greater of £100 and the amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) a fixed sum appropriate to the risk profile].

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• any liability that cannot be limited or excluded under English law, including obligations under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.

8. Intellectual property

8.1 The Platform

The Platform, including its design, branding, scoring methodology, aggregated data products, and all associated intellectual property, is owned by us or licensed to us. You may not copy, reproduce, or redistribute Platform elements except as expressly permitted by these Terms.

8.2 Your review content

You retain ownership of the original text and ratings you submit. By submitting a review, you grant us the licence set out in section 4.1 to host, display, and analyse it in anonymised or aggregated form.

8.3 Scraping and automated access

You must not:

• scrape, crawl, or otherwise programmatically extract data from the Platform except via an API we have expressly made available;
• use automated tools to create accounts or submit reviews;
• reverse-engineer the Platform's scoring methodology or internal systems.

[TODO: solicitor - confirm IP section covers what we need, particularly the scoring methodology and aggregated data products]

9. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify registered users by email at least 30 days before material changes take effect. Continued use of the Platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

10. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the Platform will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Before commencing legal proceedings, the parties agree to attempt good-faith resolution through:

1. direct communication with our support team (support@ifwallscouldtalk.uk); and
2. where direct communication fails, structured mediation — the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) is our preferred provider.

[TODO: solicitor - confirm ADR clause is enforceable and appropriate. Some sectors mandate specific schemes (e.g. housing ombudsman); we are not currently within those regulated sectors but this should be verified]

Nothing in this section prevents either party from seeking urgent injunctive or equitable relief in court.

11. Contact

General enquiries: support@ifwallscouldtalk.uk Defamation / takedown notices: complaints@ifwallscouldtalk.uk Data protection: privacy@ifwallscouldtalk.uk Registered address: First Floor, Swan Buildings, 20 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JW