Terms of Service

About These Terms

[Operator to supply: the full legal name, registered number and registered address of the operating company, and the contact address for legal notices. This section must be completed before the platform is offered commercially.]

These terms govern your use of YachtListings.app (the "platform"). By creating an account, publishing a listing, sending a message, or otherwise using the platform, you agree to them. If you are agreeing on behalf of a company or a brokerage, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it, and "you" then means that organisation.

We may change these terms. Material changes will be published on this page and, where the change affects a brokerage's use of the platform, notified in advance. Continuing to use the platform after a change takes effect is acceptance of it.

What the Platform Is

YachtListings.app is software. It publishes yacht listings, carries messages between the people using it, and provides tools for brokerages to manage their clients, their pipeline and their documents, including the preparation and electronic signing of contracts.

The operator is not a yacht broker, a yacht dealer, an agent for any party, a surveyor, a lender, an insurer, or an escrow holder. It does not own, inspect, value, or take possession of any vessel listed, does not hold deposits or purchase funds, and is not a party to any sale.

Where the platform makes a contract template available, that template is a document format, not legal advice, and its suitability for a particular transaction, vessel or jurisdiction is for the parties and their own advisers to determine.

Accounts

You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter into a contract. You must give accurate account information and keep it current. You are responsible for everything that happens under your account, including anything done by members of your organisation, and you must tell us promptly if you believe an account has been compromised.

Sign-in is by email link or by a linked Google account; we do not store account passwords. Accounts are personal. Do not share credentials, and do not create an account on behalf of somebody else without their authority.

You may close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, that is used unlawfully, or that presents a security or fraud risk — with notice where it is reasonable to give it, and without prior notice where the risk requires immediate action.

Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Publish anything false, misleading, unlawful, defamatory, or infringing somebody else's rights.
• List a vessel you have no right to offer, or advertise a vessel that is not genuinely for sale.
• Use the platform to defraud anybody, to launder money, or to evade sanctions or export controls.
• Harvest personal data, scrape the site systematically, or use automated means to extract listings or contact details.
• Send unsolicited commercial messages through the platform's messaging, or contact users for any purpose other than the enquiry they raised.
• Interfere with the platform's operation, probe or test its security, or attempt to gain access to data that is not yours.
• Impersonate another person, brokerage, or the operator.
• Reverse engineer, resell, or provide the platform as a service to a third party without written agreement.

Listings and Their Accuracy

Whoever publishes a listing is responsible for it. That means the specification, the photographs, the price, the availability, the tax and import status stated, and the disclosure of known material defects.

If you publish a listing you warrant that you have the right to offer the vessel, that the information is accurate to the best of your knowledge, that the photographs are of the vessel described, and that you have the right to use every image and document you upload. You must correct or withdraw a listing that becomes inaccurate, including one that is sold or withdrawn from sale.

Listings are reviewed before publication. That review is a check on completeness and presentation. It is not an inspection of the vessel, a verification of title, a valuation, or a confirmation of anything stated in the listing, and no buyer should treat it as one.

Obligations of Brokerages

If you use the platform as a brokerage or a professional intermediary, you additionally agree that:

• You hold, and will maintain, whatever licence, registration, professional accreditation or insurance the law of your jurisdiction requires for your activity.
• You are solely responsible for compliance with anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing law, sanctions screening, client due diligence, and any obligation to report a suspicion. The platform provides places to store the documents you gather; it does not perform, verify, or discharge any of these duties for you.
• You are solely responsible for the handling of client money. The operator never holds deposits, purchase funds, or commission.
• You have the authority of your client to publish their vessel and to act on their behalf, on terms agreed between you and them.
• You are a data controller in respect of your own clients' personal data, and you will process it lawfully. The operator processes that data on your instructions as part of providing the platform.
• Any commission, fee or split is a matter between you, your client and any co-broker. The operator is not entitled to it and takes no part in it.

Messaging

Messages sent through the platform are delivered to the recipient and stored so that both sides, and the recipient's organisation, can refer to them. Where a brokerage connects an outside channel — a WhatsApp Business account, an SMS provider, a Telegram bot, a Discord application — those messages also pass through that provider under that provider's own terms, and the brokerage is responsible for its account with them and for anything that provider charges.

Do not send anything through the platform's messaging that you would not want stored, and do not use it to send payment instructions without confirming them by another means. Fraudulent alteration of bank details in an intercepted conversation is a known risk in this industry, on every medium.

Contracts Signed Through the Platform

This section matters, so it is stated plainly: a contract prepared or signed through the platform is between the parties who sign it. The operator is not a party to it, is not a witness to it, and gives no assurance that it is valid, enforceable, complete, or suitable for the transaction.

The parties are responsible for the contents of what they sign, for taking their own legal advice, and for satisfying any formality their jurisdiction imposes — including any requirement for a particular form, a notarisation, a witness, or a registration. The legal effect of an electronic signature varies by jurisdiction and by document type, and it is for the parties to establish that it is sufficient for theirs.

The platform records who signed, when, and what document version they signed, and produces a PDF of the executed document. That record is evidence of what happened on the platform. It is not an adjudication of anything.

Your Content, and What We Do With It

You keep ownership of everything you upload — listings, photographs, documents, messages. You grant the operator a non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt for display, translate and publish that content to the extent necessary to operate the platform and, for published listings, to distribute them and allow search engines to index them. That licence ends when the content is removed, except for copies retained in backups for a limited period or where the law requires retention.

The platform's own software, design, text and structured data remain the operator's property. Nothing here transfers any right in it.

If you believe content on the platform infringes your rights, write to the contact address given at the top of this page with enough detail to identify the content and the right claimed.

Fees

The platform is currently free for brokerages. There is no charge for creating an account, publishing listings, or using any feature described on the features page. If and when charges are introduced, they will be published on the pricing page and will take effect no sooner than 90 days after they are announced. No account will be converted from free to paid without your active agreement.

Charges levied by a third party you connect to the platform — a messaging provider, for example — are yours, and are not affected by this.

Availability

The platform is provided as it is and as it is available. We aim to keep it running and to protect the data in it, but we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free service. We may change, suspend or discontinue features, and will give reasonable notice where a change materially reduces functionality a brokerage relies on.

Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the operator makes no warranty, express or implied, about the platform or about anything published on it, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement.

In particular, the operator does not warrant the accuracy, completeness or legality of any listing; the condition, ownership, title, tax status or value of any vessel; the identity, solvency, authority or good faith of any user; or the outcome of any transaction. Buyers should commission their own survey, verify title and tax status independently, and take their own legal and financial advice. Our guides on marine surveys and scam awareness explain why.

Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the operator is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, nor for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill, data, or anticipated savings, however caused.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the operator's total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the platform, in any period of twelve months, is limited to the greater of the amounts you paid to the operator in that period and one hundred United States dollars.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Where you deal as a consumer, your statutory rights are unaffected by anything here.

Indemnity

You will indemnify the operator against claims, losses and reasonable costs arising from your content, your use of the platform, your breach of these terms, or your breach of any law or of the rights of another — including any claim brought by your own client or by a counterparty to a transaction you conducted through the platform.

Third-Party Services

The platform uses third-party services to function, including cloud storage, email delivery, mapping, and bot protection, and a brokerage may connect further services of its own. Those services operate under their own terms. Links to external sites are not endorsements, and the operator is not responsible for their content.

Suspension and Termination

You may stop using the platform and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these terms, for unlawful use, on the instruction of a competent authority, or where continued access presents a security, legal or fraud risk.

On termination: your right to use the platform ends; published listings may be unpublished; and content may be deleted after a reasonable period, subject to any retention the law requires. Provisions that by their nature should survive — content licence for retained copies, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity, governing law — survive termination.

Privacy

What personal data the platform collects, why, on what legal basis, and what rights you have over it is set out in the privacy policy, which forms part of these terms.

Governing Law and Disputes

[Operator to supply: the governing law and the exclusive forum for disputes, matching the operating company's jurisdiction of incorporation. This clause must be settled with counsel in that jurisdiction before launch, including whether arbitration is specified, and must preserve any non-waivable right of a consumer to bring proceedings in their own place of residence.]

Where you deal as a consumer, mandatory consumer protection law in your country of residence applies regardless of the governing law chosen, and nothing in this section removes a right you have under it.

General

If a provision is held unenforceable, the rest stands. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign your rights under these terms without our consent; we may assign ours as part of a transfer of the business. These terms, together with the privacy policy and any written agreement between us, are the whole agreement about the platform, and replace any earlier understanding about it.

These terms are published in English and German. [Operator to supply: which language version prevails in the event of a discrepancy.]