Terms and Conditions

Who we are and what these terms cover

flat.social is operated by Borkowski Consulting Ltd ("we", "us", "our"), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 09958565, with its registered office at 2 Cambridge Mansions, 13 Bromells Road, Clapham, London, SW4 0BN, United Kingdom. Our UK VAT registration number is 307516222. You can contact us at [email protected].

These terms are a legally binding agreement between you and Borkowski Consulting Ltd covering the website at flat.social, the application at app.flat.social, and any related services (together, the "Services"). They apply whether you create an account, create a flat, or join a room as a guest.

By creating an account, creating a flat, or joining a room you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Services.

If you use the Services on behalf of a company or organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind it, and "you" includes that organisation.

Table of contents

1. Who can use flat.social
2. What flat.social is
3. Accounts and guests
4. Hosts and their flats
5. Acceptable use
6. Your content
7. Our content and feedback
8. Plans, payments and refunds
9. Privacy and data protection
10. Reporting abuse
11. Suspension and termination
12. Availability and changes to the Services
13. Disclaimers
14. Limitation of liability
15. Indemnity for business users
16. Changes to these terms
17. Governing law and disputes
18. General
19. Contact us

1. Who can use flat.social

You must be at least 16 years old to use the Services, whether as an account holder or as a guest. By using the Services you confirm that you are 16 or older. If we learn that someone under 16 is using the Services, we will close their account and delete their data.

You must not use the Services if you are barred from doing so under the laws of the country you are in.

2. What flat.social is

flat.social lets you create virtual spaces called flats, with rooms where people meet by audio, video, text chat and shared tools such as whiteboards and slides. Hosts create and configure flats; participants join them with an account or as guests.

The Services are in active development. Features, limits and the look of the product may change, and some features may be labelled as beta or experimental. We will do our best to warn you before removing something you rely on.

The Services are not designed for regulated data. Do not use them to process health records, payment card data, government identification numbers, biometric data or other data that is subject to specific regulatory regimes such as HIPAA or PCI DSS.

3. Accounts and guests

Accounts. You are responsible for keeping your sign-in details confidential and for everything that happens under your account. Tell us at once if you think your account has been compromised. Registration information you give us must be accurate and kept up to date. We may reclaim or change a username that is offensive, impersonates someone, or infringes a trademark.

Guests. A host may allow people to join a flat without an account. Guests choose a display name and are bound by these terms in the same way as account holders.

One person per account. Accounts are personal. You may not share your account or transfer it to someone else.

4. Hosts and their flats

If you create a flat you are its host. As a host:

• You may use your flat commercially. You can run paid events, classes, coworking, conferences, communities and businesses on flat.social. You are responsible for any payments you take from your own attendees and for complying with the laws that apply to your event.
• You are responsible for the people you invite. You must make sure the people in your flat follow these terms, tell them any rules specific to your flat, and obtain any consents that your own use requires. If you invite people from your organisation, you are responsible for their use.
• Invitations. You may send email invitations only to people who would reasonably expect to hear from you. Invitation limits apply to prevent spam. Do not use invitations for marketing to strangers.
• Moderation tools. You can remove, mute and ban participants from your flat. Use these tools responsibly.
• Your own data practices. If you collect information from your attendees through the Services, for example through slides or forms, you are responsible for that data under applicable law. Where you process attendee personal data through the Services in a way that makes you a data controller, we act as your processor under the data processing terms in section 9.

5. Acceptable use

You may not use the Services to do, or to help anyone else do, any of the following.

Hateful conduct. Hateful conduct is prohibited. This includes antisemitism, racism, and any content or behaviour that attacks, dehumanises, or harasses people on the basis of religion, ethnicity, national origin, race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age. Holocaust denial and the glorification of genocide are hateful conduct. We may remove content, end sessions, and ban accounts or flats that engage in it.

Harassment and harm. Harass, threaten, intimidate, stalk or bully anyone. Post or share content that is violent, sexually explicit, or that sexualises minors in any way. Encourage self-harm.

Illegal activity. Break any law, infringe anyone's intellectual property or privacy, or share content you do not have the right to share.

Deception. Impersonate any person or organisation, mislead people about who you are, or run scams, phishing or fraud.

Spam and abuse of the platform. Send unsolicited messages or invitations, scrape or harvest data about other users, create accounts by automated means, or interfere with the operation or security of the Services. This includes attempting to bypass capacity limits, access controls, rate limits or bot protection.

Technical misuse. Reverse engineer, decompile or copy the Services except where the law allows it, upload malicious code, or place an unreasonable load on our infrastructure.

Recording without consent. Record other participants' audio or video without their knowledge and consent, or in breach of applicable law.

Sensitive data. Share health, financial, biometric or government identification data about yourself or others through the Services.

We may investigate suspected breaches and take any action we consider appropriate, including removing content, suspending or closing accounts or flats, and reporting unlawful activity to the authorities.

6. Your content

You own your content. Anything you create, upload or share through the Services, including messages, notes, slides, images, and your audio and video, is yours. We do not claim ownership of it.

The licence you give us. So that we can run the Services, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, transmit, display and reproduce your content, solely to the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and to the people you share it with, and to keep the Services secure. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except that copies may remain in backups for a short time and content you shared with other people may remain visible to them. We will not use your content for advertising, sell it, or use it to train artificial intelligence models.

Confidentiality. We treat the content of your rooms as confidential. We access it only when needed to operate the Services, to investigate a report of abuse, to comply with the law, or with your permission. One exception: images you upload, such as avatars, logos and whiteboard images, are served from a public content network and can be viewed by anyone who has their address, as described in the Privacy Policy.

Your responsibility. You are responsible for your content and must have the rights you need to share it. Content shared in a room is visible to the other people in that room, and content on public pages such as a flat's landing page is visible to anyone, so share accordingly.

Removal. We may remove or restrict content that we reasonably believe breaks these terms or the law. Where practical we will tell you and explain why.

Copyright complaints. If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, email [email protected] with a description of the work, the location of the content, your contact details, and a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised. We will remove content that is infringing and may pass your complaint to the person who posted it.

7. Our content and feedback

The Services, including the software, designs, 3D environments, elements, artwork, text and trademarks, belong to us or our licensors and are protected by intellectual property law. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the Services in line with these terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute or create derivative works from the Services except as these terms allow.

If you send us feedback, ideas or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use them without any obligation to you. We will not claim that your feedback is confidential.

8. Plans, payments and refunds

Plans. flat.social offers a Free plan, a Monthly plan priced per concurrent seat, and Day Passes for one-off events. Current prices and limits are shown on our pricing page and in the app. All prices are in US dollars. Prices exclude VAT and other taxes, which will be added where applicable.

Payment. Payments are processed by Stripe. By paying you agree to Stripe's terms. You must provide accurate billing information and keep it up to date.

Monthly plan. The Monthly plan is billed monthly in advance and renews automatically until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from your flat's settings; your plan then stays active until the end of the current billing period and is not renewed. You can change the number of seats at any time. Increases are charged immediately for the remainder of the billing period; decreases are credited against your next invoice.

Day Pass. A Day Pass raises your flat's capacity for 24 hours from the start time you choose. You can reschedule a Day Pass from your flat's settings until 5 minutes before it starts. To cancel a Day Pass, contact us before it starts.

Refunds. We want you to be happy with flat.social, so this is our refund policy:

• Day Passes are refunded in full if you cancel before the pass starts. After it has started, no refund is due unless the Services failed during the pass because of a problem on our side.
• Monthly plans. If you cancel within 14 days of a monthly charge, we refund that charge in full. Earlier charges are not refunded. After 14 days a charge is not refundable, except where the Services failed because of a problem on our side. This applies to consumers and business customers alike, and for consumers it is more generous than the statutory minimum.
• Where we owe you a refund we will make it to your original payment method within 14 days.

Nothing in this section limits your statutory rights. If you are a consumer and the Services are not provided with reasonable care and skill, you keep your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, including the right to have the service put right or to a price reduction.

Price changes. We may change our prices. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email before a price change affects an existing subscription, and you can cancel before it takes effect.

Failed payments. If a payment fails we will retry it and tell you. If it continues to fail, your flat returns to the Free plan and its limits.

Complimentary plans. We may grant a free or discounted plan at our discretion, for example for education or community projects. We may end such a grant with 30 days' notice.

9. Privacy and data protection

Our Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect and how we use it as a controller. It forms part of these terms.

Data processing terms for hosts

These terms apply where you, as a host, are the controller of personal data that we process on your behalf ("Host Data"). Host Data means the personal data of your attendees that you collect through the Services, such as their answers to interactive slides or forms you set up, and the content of rooms you host to the extent that you determine why it is processed. It does not include data we process for our own purposes as described in the Privacy Policy, such as account, billing, security and product analytics data.

• Subject matter and duration. We process Host Data to provide the Services to you for as long as you use them.
• Nature and purpose. Hosting, storing, transmitting and displaying Host Data to the people you choose, and the related security, support and backup activities.
• Types of data and data subjects. Names, display names, avatars, messages, slide answers, uploads and session activity of your attendees and members.
• Your instructions. We process Host Data only on your documented instructions, which are these terms and the settings you choose in the Services, unless the law requires otherwise, in which case we will tell you first where we are allowed to.
• Confidentiality. People who have access to Host Data on our side are bound by confidentiality obligations.
• Security. We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encryption in transit, access controls, and the monitoring described in the Privacy Policy.
• Sub-processors. You authorise us to use the providers listed in the Privacy Policy. We will update that list before adding a provider that processes Host Data, and you may object on reasonable grounds within 30 days, in which case you may end your use of the Services.
• Assistance. We will help you respond to requests from your attendees about their data, and to meet your security, breach notification and impact assessment obligations, taking into account the nature of the processing.
• Breaches. We will tell you without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting Host Data.
• Deletion. When you delete a flat or your account, we delete the Host Data in it as described in the Privacy Policy, except where the law requires us to keep it.
• Audit. We will provide the information you reasonably need to show that we meet these obligations, and will allow audits by you or an auditor you appoint, on reasonable notice and no more than once a year unless required by a regulator.
• Transfers. Transfers of Host Data outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area are made under the mechanisms described in the Privacy Policy.

If you need a signed copy of these terms or additional provisions for your organisation, email [email protected].

10. Reporting abuse

If you experience or witness behaviour that breaks these terms, tell the host of the flat, who can remove or ban the person, and email us at [email protected] with the flat name, the time, and what happened. We review reports and act on breaches, including by banning people from the platform.

11. Suspension and termination

By you. You can stop using the Services at any time. You can delete your account, including the flats you own alone, from your profile settings. If a flat you own has other owners or administrators, you must transfer or remove them first.

By us. We may suspend or close your account or flat:

• immediately, if you seriously or repeatedly breach these terms, if your use creates a legal or security risk, or if we are required to by law;
• otherwise, with at least 30 days' notice by email.

If we close your account for reasons other than a serious breach, you can ask us for a copy of your content within 30 days of the notice, and we will provide it in a reasonable format before deleting it.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination, including 6, 7, 13, 14, 15 and 17, continue to apply.

12. Availability and changes to the Services

We work hard to keep flat.social available but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may need to take the Services down for maintenance, and outages can happen. We may add, change or remove features. If we discontinue a paid feature you rely on, we will tell you in advance and, where appropriate, refund any prepaid amount for the period you cannot use it.

Capacity limits apply to each plan. When a flat reaches its limit, additional people cannot join until someone leaves or the host increases capacity.

13. Disclaimers

The Services are provided as they are and as available. To the extent the law allows, we do not make any promises about the Services beyond those stated in these terms, including that they will be error-free, secure, or fit for a particular purpose. Content shared by other users is their responsibility, not ours.

Nothing in these terms affects the statutory rights of consumers, including the right under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to services performed with reasonable care and skill.

14. Limitation of liability

What we never exclude. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that the law does not allow us to exclude or limit.

If you are a consumer. We are responsible for foreseeable loss and damage caused by our breach of these terms or our failure to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable when you agreed to these terms, or for loss caused by your own breach of these terms. We are not liable for business losses if you use the Services for a business, trade or profession. Your statutory rights are not affected.

If you are a business. We are not liable for any loss of profit, revenue, business or goodwill, for any loss of data caused by events outside our reasonable control, or for any indirect or consequential loss. Our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or in connection with the Services in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose and £100.

15. Indemnity for business users

If you use the Services on behalf of a business or organisation, you agree to compensate us for any losses, liabilities and reasonable costs we incur arising from your organisation's or your attendees' breach of these terms, your content, or any claim that your use of the Services infringes someone's rights. This section does not apply to consumers.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The date at the top shows when they were last changed. If a change is material, we will email account holders and show a notice in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless the change is required by law or is needed to address a security issue, in which case it may take effect sooner. If you do not agree to a change, you can close your account before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Services after a change takes effect means you accept it.

17. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

If you have a problem, please contact us first at [email protected]. We will try to resolve it with you within 30 days.

Any dispute that we cannot resolve together may be brought in the courts of England and Wales. If you are a consumer living in the European Union, you may also bring a claim in the courts of your home country, and you keep the protection of any mandatory consumer laws there. If you are a consumer living in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may bring a claim in your local courts.

18. General

These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Services. If any part of these terms is found to be invalid, the rest continues to apply. If we do not enforce a right, that does not mean we have waived it. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another business, for example if flat.social is sold, and we will tell you if we do. You may not transfer yours without our consent. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, employment or agency relationship between you and us. We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.

19. Contact us

Borkowski Consulting Ltd
2 Cambridge Mansions, 13 Bromells Road
Clapham, London, SW4 0BN
United Kingdom

Company number 09958565, registered in England and Wales
VAT registration number GB 307516222

Email: [email protected]