Article 1 - Acceptance of the Terms of Use

1. HELLO KOT SRL, with its registered office at Rue de Campine 143, 4000 Liège, registered with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises under number 0842.026.613 (hereinafter “HELLO KOT”) provides the websites https://www.hellokot.be, https://www.kotaliege.be, https://www.brukot.be, https://www.kotanamur.be, https://www.kotamons.be and https://www.kotalouvain.be (the “Platform”) as well as various services (the “Services”) to you or to the legal entity you represent (the “User”), subject to your compliance with all the terms, conditions and notices contained or referenced herein (the “Terms of Use”), as well as any other written agreement between HELLO KOT and you.

2. These Terms of Use, together with the Privacy Policy, govern the use of the Platform and the Services and constitute a binding agreement between HELLO KOT and the User. These Terms of Use apply to the use of the Platform by any User, and in particular to any person looking for accommodation through HELLO KOT (the “Applicant”), and to any person wishing to rent out a property through HELLO KOT by placing a listing on the Platform (the “Advertiser”).

3. By using the Platform and the Services, the User fully and irrevocably consents to the terms and conditions of use of the Platform and the Services contained in these Terms of Use.

4. For any questions, complaints and/or remarks concerning the Platform and the Services, HELLO KOT can be contacted at the following email address: contact (at) kotanamur.be. HELLO KOT will do its best to respond adequately and within a reasonable time to every complaint or remark.

5. HELLO KOT reserves the right to modify, adapt, improve and/or update the Platform and the Services as well as the Terms of Use, at any time and without prior notice, in order to comply with (changing) legal obligations or to improve its Services. Any modified version of these Terms of Use applies from the day of its publication. HELLO KOT therefore recommends that the User consult them regularly. Use of the Platform and the Services constitutes acknowledgement of the existence of the modified Terms of Use, of their binding effect and of the obligation to comply with them.

Article 2 - Description of the Services

1. HELLO KOT offers various Services through its Platform, in particular the publication of listings for the rental of student rooms, studios or flats. Aimed mainly at students, interns, researchers and young professionals, the Platform publishes offers from private individuals and real estate professionals.

2. HELLO KOT additionally offers practical and topical information, whether in the form of downloadable documents or not, provided for information purposes only and without contractual value, which Users remain free to use under their own responsibility.

3. HELLO KOT reserves the right to unilaterally modify or discontinue the Platform, as well as certain elements of the Platform or of the Services offered, at any time, with or without notice to the User. In order to constantly improve the quality of the Services provided to the Users of the Platform, HELLO KOT reserves the right at any time to modify elements of the content or to add services to it, and may carry out any development on the various operating elements of the Platform. Any modification or new feature that improves or extends the existing service(s) is subject to these Terms of Use.

Article 3 – Ownership of the Platform and the Services

1. All components of the Platform and the Services (including the software used, source code and object code, layout, texts, logos, photos, drawings, images, sounds, databases, names, trademarks and domain names) each constitute a work protected by copyright and/or other intellectual property rights, including registered trademarks.

2. All ownership rights in these components, including intellectual property rights (copyright, trademarks, database rights, designs and models, software code, etc.) belong to HELLO KOT or are included in the Services and on the Platform with the permission of the owner of those rights.

3. HELLO KOT hereby grants the User a non-exclusive, revocable, non-transferable and non-sublicensable permission to use the Platform and the Services in a manner consistent with these Terms of Use during the subscription period. Any rights acquired by HELLO KOT on behalf of the User may be transferred to the User upon withdrawal or termination, subject to payment by the User of all expenses and costs related to them.

4. No component of the Services and/or the Platform, and no data or information provided on the Services and/or the Platform, may be stored (except where required for the proper use of the Platform and the Services), reproduced, modified, translated, made public, distributed, rented, sold, transferred to others, or used in any way whatsoever without the prior written permission of HELLO KOT.

5. In order to promote its Services, HELLO KOT is entitled to use any element provided by the User on the Platform or on any advertising medium.

Article 4 – Automated access, extraction and reuse of data

1. The Platform is intended for the individual consultation of listings by persons looking for accommodation, and for the management of their listings by Advertisers. Any other use, in particular the collection of listings in order to republish them, aggregate them, resell them or feed a third-party service, is prohibited without the prior written consent of HELLO KOT.

2. Unless HELLO KOT has given its prior written consent, it is prohibited to access the Platform by means of robots, scripts, scraping tools or any other automated process, and to extract or reuse its content by such means. This prohibition does not apply to general-purpose search engines that identify themselves honestly, comply with the robots.txt file and index pages for the sole purpose of referring their own users to them. The absence of a prohibition on a page in the robots.txt file constitutes permission for that indexing only.

3. HELLO KOT is the producer of the database constituted by the listings published on the Platform, within the meaning of Book XI, Title 7 of the Belgian Code of Economic Law, by reason of the substantial investment it devotes to obtaining, verifying and presenting its content. The extraction and reuse of all or a substantial part, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively, of the content of this database are prohibited without its prior written consent. The repeated and systematic extraction and reuse of non-substantial parts of this content are also prohibited where they conflict with a normal exploitation of the database or unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of HELLO KOT, which is in particular the case where, by their cumulative effect, they aim to reconstitute a substantial part of the database.

4. HELLO KOT expressly reserves its rights with regard to text and data mining, within the meaning of Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 and of the provisions of the Belgian Code of Economic Law transposing it. This reservation is also expressed by machine-readable means.

5. It is prohibited to display on a third-party website or service images or other files served directly from the servers of HELLO KOT.

6. It is prohibited to circumvent the technical measures by which HELLO KOT limits or blocks access, in particular by rotating IP addresses, using proxy server networks, falsifying the identity of the browser or creating multiple accounts. Any access maintained in breach of a blocking measure or after express notice of an access ban constitutes a breach of these terms.

7. HELLO KOT may implement, in a proportionate manner, measures intended to preserve the availability, security and performance of the Platform, in particular by limiting or blocking access that shows reasonable signs of automation, scraping, circumvention of technical measures or excessive load on the infrastructure, unrelated to normal consultation.

8. Any breach of this article by a person acting for professional purposes engages the liability of its author. In the event of unauthorised extraction, reuse or republication of content from the Platform, HELLO KOT is in particular entitled to claim compensation for the resulting damage, including the costs reasonably incurred for the detection, analysis, recording, prevention and cessation of the breach, as well as the infrastructure costs and, where applicable, the costs incurred with service providers or third parties.

   Where the breach gives rise to specific processing or intervention on the part of HELLO KOT, the internal costs reasonably related to those operations may be taken into account in the assessment of the damage, on the basis of the time actually spent by the persons involved and the hourly cost reasonably applicable to those interventions.

   HELLO KOT also reserves the right to claim compensation for any commercial, technical or other damage that is established, in particular in the event of republication, aggregation, resale or commercial exploitation of the extracted data.

   The amounts thus claimed are limited to the damage actually suffered and reasonably substantiated, without prejudice to the other rights of HELLO KOT provided for by law.

9. Any request for data access or partnership may be sent through the contact form.

Article 5 – Fight against fraud

1. HELLO KOT strives to fight fraud by means of software that automatically detects fraudulent listings (“KotCop”), and by manually monitoring registrations and listings.

2. Any User may also contact HELLO KOT through the contact form to draw its attention to behaviour that the User considers potentially fraudulent, and HELLO KOT may decide, at its discretion, what measures to take.

3. The foregoing under Articles 5.1 and 5.2 above constitutes a best-efforts obligation on the part of HELLO KOT.

Article 6 – Use of the Platform and the Services

1. The User is solely and exclusively responsible for the content they use, make public, upload, share or otherwise make available on or through the Platform and the Services. The User is thus solely and exclusively responsible for all potential rights, including copyright and trademarks, in the content they communicate or make available on or in connection with the Platform and the Services. Consequently, the User holds HELLO KOT harmless from all claims concerning a potential or alleged infringement or violation of the intellectual property rights of a third party in connection with the content made available on or in connection with the Platform or the Services.

2. By using the Platform and the Services, the User grants HELLO KOT a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, irrevocable, royalty-free, perpetual and worldwide licence to use any content they make available on or in connection with the Platform and the Services, including but not limited to images, texts, quotations, drawings or any combination thereof.

3. The User is responsible for providing, at their own expense, all the equipment required to use the Services, including a computer, a modem and internet access (including payment of the costs related to such access). The User undertakes to provide HELLO KOT with accurate information about their identity.

4. On the Platform, an accommodation listing is understood to refer to a single accommodation or a limited number of identical accommodations. Listings that refer to numerous housing units, in order to avoid publishing an adequate number of listings or subscribing to an adequate offer, are considered abusive.

5. HELLO KOT retains the right to exclude the User without notice from any access to or any form of participation in the Platform and/or the Services, without compensation for the publication fees.

   This applies in particular to any User

   • whose behaviour harms or could harm, physically, morally or financially, another user, the Platform or HELLO KOT;
   • using a false identity, or incomplete or inaccurate identity data;
   • using the personal data they may have access to through the site to offer paid products or services, to send unsolicited messages to the email inboxes of other internet users (“spamming”), for any other commercial purpose, to promote a competing service, for fraudulent purposes or in any other unauthorised way;
   • collecting or attempting to collect the content of the Platform by automated means, or otherwise breaching Article 4;
   • posting abusive or inappropriate content on the Platform.

   Abusive or inappropriate messages or content include in particular listings, messages, comments, photos and data:

   • that are hurtful, racist, hateful, extremist, insulting or pornographic;
   • that could constitute harassment;
   • that could infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party;
   • that could constitute a risk of defamation;
   • that could be considered a form of hacking or attempted hacking of the Platform and/or the Services;
   • that refer to a property other than the one being rented out;
   • that refer to numerous housing units, in order to avoid publishing an adequate number of listings or subscribing to an adequate offer;
   • whose content is unlawful, inaccurate, inadequate or of an advertising nature, constitutes a duplicate listing, refers to a competing site, or is published on behalf of a third-party commercial service;
   • that are likely to constitute commercial canvassing or a misuse of the site on behalf of a third-party commercial service or a competing service;
   • that are contrary to the purpose of the site or contrary to the various applicable regulations and laws, to public order or to public decency;
   • that breach the Terms of Use;
   • that could in any way infringe the rights of HELLO KOT, including damaging its reputation.

   HELLO KOT reserves the right to take any action it deems appropriate in its sole discretion with regard to breaches or the enforcement of the Terms of Use, and expressly reserves all rights and remedies available to HELLO KOT at law or in equity.

6. The User is solely responsible for the information they provide when creating their account for the use of the Platform and/or the Services, including in particular the confidentiality of their login details.

7. Users qualifying as Advertisers may be private owners, institutional or not, provided that they are indeed the owners of the property or properties they offer, as well as professionals. Students who use the Platform in the context of a flatshare, a sublet or a lease transfer may also be Users qualifying as Advertisers. They may publish on the Platform their listings for properties to rent.

   The Advertiser undertakes to provide accurate information about the property being rented out, and undertakes not to publish several listings for the same property being rented out. The Advertiser undertakes to ensure that any property that is the subject of a listing on the Platform complies with the municipal and legal obligations relating to it, such as, among others, the regulations on the quality of life and the sanitary condition of student rooms. The Advertiser undertakes to update their listing as soon as the property is rented. The Advertiser authorises HELLO KOT to make use of the photographs provided on any page of the Platform. This use is not limited to the description of the listing to which the image relates, and is not limited in time. The Advertiser also authorises HELLO KOT to act, in their name and on their behalf, against any unauthorised reproduction of their listing or of their photographs on a third-party website or service, and in particular to request their removal. HELLO KOT is not liable for any delay in publication due to force majeure, nor for the poor reproduction quality of photographs provided by the Advertiser.

   Receipt by HELLO KOT of the payment for the placement of the listing on the site constitutes the conclusion of the contract for that service, without any other formality being required. These Terms of Use form, together with the Privacy Policy, an integral part of the contract concluded.

   The Advertiser has a right of withdrawal of 14 days from the date of payment. When the Advertiser publishes their listing, they expressly authorise HELLO KOT to provide this service to them immediately and waive any right of withdrawal and any full or partial refund of the cost of this publication. The rental of any property before the expiry of the listing's publication period does not give rise to a refund of any part of the sums paid by the Advertiser. Should the Advertiser find a tenant on their own or decide no longer to rent out, they are not entitled to any refund of the sums paid.

   An Advertiser may modify their published listings at any time, but only if the modification does not make them refer to another property.

8. Users qualifying as Applicants may be students, as well as interns, researchers or young professionals looking for a property to rent. HELLO KOT does not, however, exclude that the Advertiser may require the Applicant to meet certain specific conditions in order to conclude the rental contract. Any Applicant may view the descriptive listing of the property and has the possibility of contacting the Advertiser. The requirements of the services sought by the Applicant and the quality of their application do not engage the liability of HELLO KOT.

9. The Advertiser has the possibility either to buy credits online or to take out a subscription allowing them to publish listings and, where applicable, to access other services of HELLO KOT as stated when buying the credits or when taking out the subscription.

10. HELLO KOT has the sole and exclusive right to determine and change the Services offered to the User as well as their characteristics. HELLO KOT will inform the User of any changes, without the User being able to oppose, contest or refuse the modifications of the Services offered or of their characteristics. Nevertheless, where the Advertiser has taken out a subscription as mentioned in Article 6.8, they retain the right to terminate their subscription in accordance with the specific conditions of the subscription. Modifications made by HELLO KOT in no way affect the scope of the subscription taken out by the User for the Services during its term.

11. Any User may create a personal area on the Platform. This personal area differs depending on whether the User qualifies as an Advertiser or an Applicant. Each User is responsible for safeguarding the password giving access to their area. It is up to the User to implement the precautionary and security measures required to protect their password. HELLO KOT cannot be held liable for its fraudulent use. At any time, a User may unsubscribe from the Services of HELLO KOT by sending a request through the contact form or via the contact email address mentioned in the personal area.

12. Searching for and viewing listings is free of charge. Registration for the services of HELLO KOT and access to the personal account are free of charge. During the launch period, publishing a listing is free of charge. Outside the launch period or promotional offers, publishing a listing is subject to a fee and is done by buying credits online. HELLO KOT reserves the right to determine the length of the launch period. The Advertiser's registration does not oblige them to publish a listing on the Platform. The publication rates are available in the “advertiser area”.

Article 7 – Data management

1. In order to access the Services on the Platform, the User may be required to use an account and a password, which can be obtained by completing the online registration form of HELLO KOT, which requires certain information and data (“Registration Data”), and to keep this Registration Data up to date. By registering, the User warrants that all the information provided in their Registration Data is correct and accurate, and undertakes to maintain and update this information in order to keep it current, complete and accurate.

2. The User also grants HELLO KOT the right to disclose to third parties certain Registration Data concerning them. The information that HELLO KOT obtains through the User's use of the Platform, including their Registration Data, is subject to the Privacy Policy, which is specifically incorporated by reference into these Terms of Use.

3. Given the evolution of legislation on the protection of personal data, HELLO KOT reserves the right to modify its Privacy Policy at any time. Consequently, HELLO KOT advises the User to check regularly whether changes have been made to the Privacy Policy.

Article 8 – Warranty

1. HELLO KOT expressly warrants to the User that the Platform and the Services, provided they are used in accordance with the Terms of Use, will operate substantially in accordance with the description given by HELLO KOT. HELLO KOT will make commercially reasonable efforts to perform the Services in accordance with the conditions and specifications agreed between the User and HELLO KOT. The sole obligation of HELLO KOT and the User's sole remedy in the event of a breach of the aforementioned obligations is to make all reasonable efforts to remedy that breach. HELLO KOT has no obligation in the event of a breach resulting from (i) content provided or transmitted by the User or a third party in connection with the Services, (ii) the use or combination of the Platform or the Services with any other software or hardware not compatible with HELLO KOT, (iii) causes external to the Platform or the Services, such as problems with the hardware, the network or other infrastructure with which the Platform or the Services are used, (iv) unauthorised or improper use of the Platform or the Services.

2. Except as expressly stated below, the Platform and the Services are provided “as is” without any warranty whatsoever. HELLO KOT hereby disclaims all warranties other than those expressly provided for in the Terms of Use, whether express or implied, including in particular all implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, of title or of non-infringement. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, HELLO KOT does not warrant that the Platform and the Services will meet the requirements of the User or will be available without interruption or downtime or free of any error.

3. The User warrants that they have all the rights, powers, authority and capacity (corporate or otherwise) required to sign, perform and comply with these Terms of Use, as well as every other contract, instrument and document signed and performed by HELLO KOT, and to carry out the contemplated transactions. The signing, performance and compliance by the User with these Terms of Use and with any other legal document, as well as the carrying out by the User of the contemplated transactions, have been duly and validly authorised (by corporate action or otherwise) on the User's side.

4. The User warrants that the company or organisation they represent is duly represented, validly exists and is in good standing under the laws of the State in which it is established. Furthermore, the User warrants that they comply at all times with all laws, regulations, directives and specifications applicable and relevant to their business.

Article 9 – Liability

1. HELLO KOT takes care to provide information that is as accurate as possible but cannot guarantee the complete accuracy, completeness and relevance of the information on the Platform and in the Services, nor be held liable for it. This applies to any information that has been made available on the Platform or through the Services provided by HELLO KOT. “Information” means anything that can be found on the Platform and in the Services, including texts, images, sounds, data, etc.

2. HELLO KOT is not liable for any decision or action taken by the User on the basis of the information provided on the Platform or through the Services, nor is it liable for errors or mistakes of the User based on the information provided on the Platform or through the Services. HELLO KOT is not liable for the (non-)compliance of the accommodations with the applicable legislation.

3. Subject to the foregoing, HELLO KOT shall not be liable, under the contract, for any loss of actual or anticipated revenue or profits, loss of contracts or any indirect loss or damage of any kind whatsoever, whether such loss or damage is caused by a non-contractual fault (including negligence), a breach of a contractual obligation or any other cause, and regardless of whether such damage or loss was foreseeable, foreseen or known.

4. HELLO KOT is not liable for any permanent or temporary damage to, or any defects in, the User's computer equipment or data during or after the use of the Platform and/or the Services. In particular, HELLO KOT cannot be held liable for any transmission of viruses, Trojan horses or other malware through the Platform and/or the Services.

5. HELLO KOT is not liable for links to websites, platforms or applications operated by others, or for damage caused during a visit to such websites, platforms or applications. HELLO KOT has no control over these websites, platforms or applications and cannot be held liable for the content displayed on them.

6. For the operation of the Platform and the Services, HELLO KOT uses, to the fullest extent possible, the most modern techniques available. However, HELLO KOT cannot be held liable for the (temporary) failure of, or any malfunction or maintenance work on, the Platform and/or the Services. HELLO KOT therefore accepts no liability for the unavailability of the Platform and/or the Services, or for any difficulty or inability to download or access content, or any other failure of the communication system that may lead to the unavailability of the Platform and/or the Services. HELLO KOT shall likewise not be liable in respect of the support or maintenance of the Platform.

7. HELLO KOT, through its Platform, acts as an intermediary bringing Applicants and Advertisers into contact. Nevertheless, any contract concerning the rental of a property is concluded directly between the Applicants and the Advertisers. HELLO KOT does not intervene in any way in the conclusion of the contract, and can therefore not be held liable in that respect.

8. The total liability of HELLO KOT shall in no event exceed the fees paid by the User for the Service(s) during the last twelve (12) months.

Article 10 – Support

HELLO KOT provides a support service to the User through the contact form, on working days (from 9 am to 5 pm) (excluding weekends and public holidays).

Article 11 – Waiver

Any failure by HELLO KOT to enforce any provision of these Terms of Use, or to take action against a User of the Platform or the Services in the event of a possible breach of a provision, shall not be construed as a waiver of any claim or right with respect to any provision in the context of a possible future breach by the User.

Article 12 – Severability

Should any provision of these Terms of Use be held to be wholly or partly unlawful, invalid or unenforceable under the applicable law, that provision shall be removed from these Terms of Use. The lawfulness, validity and binding nature of the other provisions of these Terms of Use shall not be affected.

Article 13 – Applicable law and competent court

These Terms of Use are governed by and construed in accordance with Belgian law.
Any dispute relating to the contractual relationship between the parties, in particular as to the performance and interpretation of the Terms of Use, as well as to any acts of the parties, and more generally any dispute between the parties, shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the judicial district of Liège, unless mandatory legal provisions provide otherwise.
Before bringing legal proceedings, both Parties shall take all reasonable steps to reach an amicable settlement of the dispute in question.