Host Terms

These Host Terms apply when you list rooms on our website and apps (the "platform") and take bookings. They add to the Terms of Service and the Community Standards, which apply to you as well. If you host as a business, they are also our terms for business users under Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on platform-to-business relations (the "P2B Regulation"); we apply them in the same way to hosts who are private individuals. The platform is run by COGITO CODE S.R.L., CUI 48481995 ("we", "us"); our full details are in the Legal Notice.

1. Who can host

• You can host as a business — a company, or a person registered to trade (in Romania, for example, a PFA or II) — or as a private individual. You choose when you set up hosting, and your listings show it to renters: "Business host" or "Private host".
• Choose the type that matches how you actually rent out your rooms, and change it if that changes. A private individual who rents out regularly and for profit may count as a business under the law. You are responsible for choosing the right type and for any registration your activity needs. Hosting privately means: your renters' rights against businesses do not apply to their contract with you; we apply these Host Terms in the same way; you declare and pay your own taxes on your rental income.
• You verify your phone number with a code we send by SMS and give correct details: your legal name (or your company's), a display name, the type of host, your country and, if you have one, your VAT ID. Keep them up to date.
• Before your first payout you also give the details EU tax reporting (DAC7) requires: your tax identification number (and its country), your registration number, your address and, for individuals, your date of birth. We report to ANAF, the Romanian tax authority, which passes the information to the tax authorities of the EU countries concerned. We report once a year, by 31 January for the previous year, what DAC7 requires: your identification details (name, address, tax identification number, VAT ID, date of birth for individuals, registration number for businesses), your payout account, the address of each rented property, the amounts paid out per quarter, the number of bookings, and the commissions we kept. We tell you what we reported.
• You confirm that you may rent out each room (as owner or tenant, with the building's consent where needed), that it is safe to use, and that you hold the permits your activity needs.
• To take card payments, you set up payouts with Stripe (a Stripe Express account) and accept Stripe's terms. Until then, your listings can't take card bookings.

2. Your listings

• Describe each room truthfully: photos, size, gear, capacity, opening hours, prices and house rules. The room must match its listing.
• The prices you set are final prices for renters: VAT and every fee included. You may add one cleaning fee per booking.
• You choose instant booking or requests, the minimum length, the notice you need and the breaks between bookings.
• You choose a cancellation policy: flexible, moderate or strict (the tiers are in the Terms of Service, section 7). Every policy includes the 1-hour change-of-mind rule and the cleaning-fee refund; you can't switch them off.
• A listing can go live once it is complete: verified phone, address and map position, description, activities, size, opening hours, prices and photos. Right now a complete listing goes live straight away; we may review listings before or after they go live.
• Changes go live immediately. Bookings already made keep the price, cancellation policy and house rules they were made with.
• You can pause a listing at any time: it disappears from search and takes no new bookings, while existing bookings go ahead. A room with bookings can't be deleted; pause it instead.
• You keep the rights to your photos and texts. You allow us, free of charge and non-exclusively, to store, show and technically adapt them (for example resize or crop a photo) on the platform for as long as the listing exists. We may also use your listing photos and texts to promote the listing and the platform outside it (social media, newsletters, ads), naming the listing. You can object at any time by email to contact@cogitocode.ro, and we stop for new material.

3. Bookings

• Instant bookings are confirmed automatically, and the renter's card is charged.
• Requests: accept or decline within 24 hours, or before the start if that is sooner. Accepting charges the renter's card. A request you don't answer in time expires, and the hold on the card is released.
• Keep your calendar accurate and block the times you can't offer. The platform never books the same room twice for the same time.
• You may offer your rooms elsewhere as well, at any price and on any conditions. Bookings made through the platform, and paid extras for them, are paid through the platform.
• Cancelling: you can cancel a confirmed booking before it starts, with a reason. The renter gets everything back. Cancel only when you have to. Repeated host cancellations may lead to the measures in section 9 (restricting instant booking, pausing listings, restricting hosting) after a warning. They are not a ranking factor.
• No-shows: if a renter doesn't turn up, you can mark a no-show from 15 minutes after the start until the booking ends, and you keep the payout. You can't mark one if the renter opened their access details from 1 hour before the start onwards, or reported a problem. You can undo the mark.
• Renter details: you see the renter's name, whether their phone is verified, since when they are a member, their earlier bookings with you, their reliability record and hosts' reviews of them. From confirmation until 14 days after the booking you also see their phone number. Use these details only for that booking.

4. Arrival and the First-15 guarantee

• Give working access details for each venue: door code, Wi-Fi, arrival steps and a contact phone. We show them to the renter of a confirmed booking at the time you set, 24 hours before the start unless you choose otherwise.
• At the start of every booking the room must be accessible, ready and as described.
• Renters can report problems in their booking, and we review every report. A report puts the payout for that booking on hold until our team has dealt with it.
• The First-15 guarantee promises renters another room nearby or their money back if they can't get in or the room isn't as described. If the problem was your responsibility, the renter's refund comes from that booking and there is no payout for it. We pay any extra cost of a replacement room. If a report turns out unfounded, the payout is released.

5. Fees and payouts

• Listing is free. We charge a commission only on bookings: 12% of the booking total, or 5% for founding hosts during their founding period, or an individual rate agreed in writing. The rate in force when a booking is made applies to that booking. The rates include any VAT due on the commission.
• Renters pay no fee on top, and Stripe's card processing fees are covered by our commission. If the renter gets everything back, we charge no commission. If the renter gets part of the price back, our commission is calculated on the part that is not refunded.
• The renter pays by card through Stripe. The amount, minus our commission, goes to your Stripe account and stays there until we release it. We release the payout for a booking that took place, or that you marked as a no-show, 24 hours after the session ends, provided the renter made no arrival report (section 4) and no card dispute is open. Stripe then pays it to your bank account.
• If you cancel a booking, the renter gets everything back and there is no payout for it.
• If the renter cancels, they get back what your cancellation policy gives them. The part you keep under your policy stays in your payout balance until it is released to your bank account. It is released automatically 24 hours after the booked session would have ended, under the same conditions as above.
• If a renter's bank reverses a payment (a chargeback) and the dispute is lost, the amount is taken from that booking's payout while it is held. If it was already paid out and the dispute is about the session not being provided as booked, we may ask you to repay it or deduct it from later payouts. Otherwise — for example a stolen card — we bear the loss.
• While the platform is in its preview phase, payments run in Stripe's test mode: no real money moves and nothing is paid out.
• We collect payments as your agent, in your name and on your behalf. The rental is your supply: you are responsible for its VAT and for invoicing the renter where the law requires (in Romania including RO e-Factura). We invoice our commission to you monthly (via e-Factura where it applies).
• You are responsible for your own taxes and for the invoicing duties that we have not taken over in writing.

6. How we rank listings

Search results show rooms that match the renter's filters: activity, place, date, time and group size. The "Recommended" order puts real rooms before sample listings, then orders them by kind of room and by the newest listing. Renters can also sort by price (the total for the chosen time, otherwise the hourly rate) or by newest. No one can pay for a better position. When these parameters change, we update this section.

7. Equal treatment

• We offer no rooms of our own. The sample listings are ours; they are marked as samples, always rank after real rooms, and bookings on them are tests.
• Founding hosts pay a lower commission during their founding period, and individual rates may be agreed in writing. Apart from that, every host gets the same conditions.

8. Data

• You see the data you need for your bookings: the renter details in section 3, and the bookings, messages, reviews and payouts of your listings.
• We see all data about your hosting — listings, bookings, payments, messages, reviews and reports — and use it to run the platform, as the Privacy Policy describes.
• We don't pass your data or your renters' data to other hosts.
• After you stop hosting, we keep past bookings and payments as long as the law requires. You can ask for a copy of your hosting data (listings, bookings, payouts, reviews) at contact@cogitocode.ro for as long as we keep it (see the Privacy Policy).

9. Restricting, suspending and ending

• We may restrict instant booking on your listings, pause or suspend a listing, or restrict your hosting, if you break these terms, the Community Standards or the law, if you give false information, after repeated serious complaints, or to protect renters from fraud or danger. We tell you the reasons at the latest when the measure takes effect, and you can reply and contest it.
• If we end our whole relationship with you, we give you at least 30 days' notice and our reasons, unless the law requires us to act sooner or you have repeatedly and seriously broken these terms.
• You can stop hosting at any time: pause your listings, answer open requests, honour or cancel upcoming bookings, then delete your account or write to us. If you delete your account, open requests are declined and upcoming bookings are cancelled with a full refund to the renter.

10. Changes to these Host Terms

• We announce every change at least 15 days before it takes effect, in the platform and by email, with a summary of what changes and the date. If the change needs technical adjustments from you, the notice is longer.
• During the notice period the current terms still apply. You can accept the new ones early. If you don't agree, you can stop hosting before the date.
• From the date on, until you accept the new terms, you can't publish or resume listings or answer requests, and new requests don't reach you. Instant bookings continue, and you can always pause listings, cancel bookings and delete your account.
• A shorter notice is possible only where a legal obligation requires it, or to deal with imminent danger such as fraud, malware, spam, data breaches or other cybersecurity risks.
• Accepting early does not change the date: the new terms apply to everyone from the announced date.

11. Complaints

Write to contact@cogitocode.ro with any complaint about the platform or a decision we took. Complaints are free of charge. We look into every complaint and reply within 15 days with our reasons. As a small enterprise we are not required to name mediators under Articles 11 and 12 of the P2B Regulation; if both sides agree we will try mediation with a mediator authorised in Romania.

12. Law and language

These Host Terms are governed by Romanian law. Disputes go to the competent Romanian courts; a host who is a private individual may also sue where they live. They exist in Romanian, English, Hungarian and German; the Romanian version is the binding one.