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HOUSESTAFF

Legal

Terms of Service

These terms are the agreement between you and HouseStaff Ltd covering the HOUSESTAFF app, website and services. They also serve as the end user licence agreement (EULA) for the app.

Last updated 12 August 2026

1. Who we are and how to reach us

The HOUSESTAFF app and website are operated by HouseStaff Ltd, with its registered office at 5, 35 Bush Lane, London, EC4R 0AW, United Kingdom (“HOUSESTAFF”, “we”, “us”).

You can reach us at [email protected] — for support, for legal matters, and to report a safety concern. Please say in the subject line which it is, so we can prioritise it.

By creating an account, downloading the app or booking through it, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use HOUSESTAFF.

2. Definitions

  • Platform — the HOUSESTAFF mobile app, website and related services.
  • Customer — a user who books cleaning or home services through the Platform.
  • Cleaner — an independent service provider who offers services through the Platform.
  • Booking — a confirmed request by a Customer for a Cleaner to perform services at a stated time, place and price.
  • Services — the cleaning or home services a Cleaner performs for a Customer.
  • Content — anything you submit to the Platform: profile details, photos, property notes, messages, reviews and reports.

3. Our role — we are a marketplace

HOUSESTAFF is an introduction and booking platform. We do not provide cleaning services ourselves. Cleaners are independent self-employed professionals or businesses. They are not our employees, workers, agents or subcontractors.

When a Booking is confirmed, a contract for the Services is formed directly between the Customer and the Cleaner. Our contract with you is limited to providing the Platform, taking payment and the other services described in these terms.

This means the Cleaner — not HOUSESTAFF — is responsible for how the Services are performed, for their own tax and National Insurance, for holding appropriate insurance, and for complying with the law that applies to their work. We verify identity and require a DBS check before a Cleaner can accept Bookings, and we operate reviews and reporting tools, but we do not supervise, direct or control how any Cleaner works.

4. Your account

  • You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter contracts.
  • You must give accurate information and keep it up to date. Impersonating another person or business is not allowed.
  • One account per person. Keep your login details secure and tell us immediately if you think someone else has access to your account.
  • You are responsible for everything that happens under your account, unless it is the result of our failure.
  • You may browse anonymously, but you must complete a full account before you can book, message or offer services.

5. Bookings, pricing and payment

How pricing works

Cleaners set their own hourly rate. Before you confirm a Booking you will see the rate, the estimated duration, any extras, our booking fee of £1 and the total. We take a commission of 10% of the cleaning value from the Cleaner’s earnings. There is no subscription and no other charge unless we tell you first.

Payment

  • Payments are taken in the app by card through our payment provider. We do not store your full card details.
  • Payment is authorised or collected when you book, and the Cleaner’s share is released to them after the Booking is marked complete.
  • If the Services take materially longer or shorter than estimated, the amount may be adjusted in line with the agreed hourly rate. We will not adjust a Booking without showing you the change.
  • Paying a Cleaner outside the Platform for work arranged on it is a breach of these terms and removes the protections that go with an in-app Booking.

Cancellation, rescheduling and refunds

  • Each Booking shows a cancellation window. Cancel or reschedule inside that window and you are not charged a cancellation fee.
  • Cancel outside the window, or fail to provide access at the agreed time, and a cancellation charge may be payable to the Cleaner.
  • If a Cleaner cancels or does not attend, you are not charged and we will help you find a replacement.
  • If the Services were not performed to a reasonable standard, raise it in the app within 48 hours of the Booking. We will look at the evidence from both sides and may arrange a re-clean, a partial refund or a full refund.
  • Your legal rights are not affected. Nothing here limits your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or other UK consumer law.

6. Additional terms for Cleaners

If you offer Services through the Platform, you also agree that:

  • You are self-employed or trading through your own company, and you are solely responsible for your income tax, National Insurance and any VAT.
  • You have the right to work in the UK, and you will complete identity verification and a DBS check before accepting Bookings.
  • You hold, and will keep in force, public liability insurance appropriate to the work you accept, and will show evidence of it on request.
  • You choose which Bookings to accept, when you work and what to charge. You may send a suitably qualified substitute only where the Customer agrees in advance through the app.
  • You will attend on time, perform the Services with reasonable care and skill, treat each home and its contents with respect, and follow the access and key instructions given to you.
  • You will not solicit Customers introduced through the Platform to take work off it. Repeated circumvention may result in removal from the Platform.
  • Payouts are made to the bank details on your profile after Bookings are completed. You are responsible for keeping those details accurate.

7. Acceptable use and zero tolerance for abuse

We operate a zero-tolerance policy for objectionable content and abusive behaviour. You must not use HOUSESTAFF to post, send or do anything that:

  • harasses, bullies, threatens, defames, stalks or intimidates another person, or incites others to do so;
  • is hateful or discriminatory on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other protected characteristic;
  • is sexually explicit, solicits sexual services, or sexualises a minor in any way;
  • is violent, graphic, or promotes self-harm or illegal activity;
  • is fraudulent or deceptive, including fake profiles, fake reviews, stolen photos or misrepresenting your identity, checks or qualifications;
  • infringes anyone’s intellectual property, privacy or other rights, or shares another person’s personal information without their consent;
  • contains malware, attempts to breach our security, scrapes the Platform, or interferes with its normal operation;
  • advertises unrelated goods or services, or spams other users; or
  • breaks any applicable law.

Reporting, blocking and what we do about it

Every profile, message thread and review in the app has a report option, and you can block any user at any time. You can also email [email protected].

We review every report and act on objectionable content and abusive users within 24 hours. Depending on what we find, we may remove the content, restrict features, suspend the account or remove the user permanently, and we may report serious matters to the police or other authorities. Where the law requires it, we will preserve and disclose relevant records.

8. Your Content and reviews

You keep ownership of your Content. By posting it you give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce and display it solely to operate, promote and improve the Platform, for as long as you keep it on the Platform. That licence ends when you delete the Content or your account, except where we must keep a copy for legal or dispute-handling reasons.

Reviews must be honest and based on a real Booking. We do not remove reviews for being unflattering, but we will remove reviews that breach section 7, that are traded for payment, or that discuss something other than the Services. We may display aggregate ratings and completed-job counts on public profiles.

We do not pre-screen Content, but we may remove or restrict any Content at our discretion where we believe it breaches these terms.

9. Access to your home, keys and safety

  • You decide how a Cleaner gets in and record it in your property notes. Never share alarm codes or key locations outside the app.
  • Tell your Cleaner about anything in the home that affects safety — pets, hazards, faulty equipment, fragile or high-value items.
  • Cleaners must not bring anyone else into a home without the Customer’s agreement.
  • If something is damaged, raise it in the app within 48 hours with photos. Claims are between the Customer and the Cleaner, and the Cleaner’s insurance; we will help both sides exchange the information they need.

10. Suspension and ending your account

You may stop using HOUSESTAFF at any time and delete your account from within the app, or by following the steps at /delete-account. Deleting your account does not cancel Bookings you have already made or amounts you already owe.

We may suspend or end your access, with notice where it is reasonable to give it and immediately where it is not, if you breach these terms, if we reasonably suspect fraud or a risk to another user’s safety, or if we are required to by law. If you think we have got it wrong, email [email protected] and a person will review the decision.

11. The Platform itself

We work to keep HOUSESTAFF available and secure, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may change, suspend or withdraw features, and we may release updates that you need to install to keep using the app.

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use the app on devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial use (or, for Cleaners, to offer Services through it). You must not copy, modify, reverse engineer, resell or sublicense the app or any part of the Platform, except where the law says you may.

12. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.

Subject to that, and because we are a marketplace rather than the provider of the Services:

  • we are not liable for the acts, omissions, standard of work or conduct of any Cleaner or Customer;
  • we are not liable for loss or damage that was not foreseeable, for business losses, or for loss of profit, goodwill or opportunity; and
  • where we are liable to you in connection with a Booking, our total liability is limited to the greater of the total fees you paid us for that Booking or £250.

If you are a consumer, you get the benefit of any mandatory legal rights that these terms cannot exclude.

13. Your responsibility to us

If you use the Platform for business purposes, you agree to cover our reasonable losses, costs and legal fees arising from your breach of these terms, your Content, or the Services you provide or receive.

14. Intellectual property

The HOUSESTAFF name, logo, app, website, designs and content are owned by HouseStaff Ltd or our licensors and are protected by intellectual property law. These terms do not transfer any of those rights to you.

15. Additional terms for app store downloads

If you downloaded the app from the Apple App Store, the following also applies:

  • This agreement is between you and HouseStaff Ltd only, and not with Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content.
  • Your licence to use the app is limited to a non-transferable licence to use it on any Apple-branded device you own or control, as permitted by the App Store Terms of Service.
  • Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app. Any questions go to [email protected].
  • If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any). To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation.
  • HouseStaff Ltd, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claim relating to the app, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to a legal requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection or privacy law.
  • HouseStaff Ltd, not Apple, is responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of any third-party claim that the app infringes that party’s intellectual property rights.
  • You confirm you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as “terrorist supporting”, and that you are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
  • Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

If you downloaded the app from Google Play, your use is also subject to the Google Play Terms of Service, and Google is not a party to this agreement.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the service develops or the law changes. If a change materially affects you, we will give reasonable notice in the app or by email before it takes effect. Continuing to use HOUSESTAFF after that means you accept the updated terms. The version in force is always the one published here.

17. Complaints, governing law and disputes

Please come to us first — email [email protected] and we will acknowledge your complaint within 24 hours and aim to resolve it within 14 days.

These terms and any dispute arising from them are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you live elsewhere in the UK, you may also bring proceedings in the courts where you live.

18. General

  • If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
  • Not enforcing a term straight away does not mean we give up the right to enforce it later.
  • You may not transfer your rights under these terms. We may transfer ours to a group company or a buyer of the business, and will tell you if we do.
  • Except as stated in section 15 for Apple, no one other than you and us has rights under these terms.