Pro Terms

Draft. This policy is under legal review and may change.

Last updated: [EFFECTIVE_DATE] Version 1.0

In short: You join CSI as an independent business, not as CSI's employee or agent. You must hold every licence, registration and insurance your trade needs wherever you work, and you are responsible for your work, your prices, your taxes and your conduct. Your bids are your own offers and your contracts are with homeowners, not CSI. CSI checks some documents and shows badges, but only for the check made on the date shown. You may deal with homeowners off the platform; we do not require you to keep work on CSI. Use homeowners' details only for their job. Before you can upload documents, you pay a one-time, non-refundable US$85 registration fee, separate from Pro Elite; this summary is not part of the binding terms below.

1. These terms

1.1. These Pro Terms apply when you use the Platform with a Pro account. They are part of the Terms of Service. Words defined in the Terms of Service have the same meaning here. You use the Platform for your trade or business, so you are not a Consumer when acting as a Pro.

1.2. If you also open a shop, the Seller Terms apply as well.

2. You are an independent business

2.1. You operate your own independent business. You are not CSI's employee, worker, agent, partner, joint venturer or franchisee, and you have no authority to bind CSI.

2.2. You decide whether to bid, what to charge, which Jobs and Bookings to accept, when and how you work, what tools and materials you use, and whether to use employees or subcontractors. CSI does not supervise or control your work.

2.3. CSI does not pay you for services. Homeowners pay you directly. CSI does not withhold taxes, provide benefits, workers' compensation or insurance, or issue tax forms for income you receive from Homeowners.

2.4. You are responsible for your employees, subcontractors and helpers, including their pay, licensing, insurance, safety, conduct and compliance with law.

3. Eligibility and account

3.1. You must be at least 18, and legally able to operate your business and to perform the services you offer in each place you offer them.

3.2. You must give accurate information about yourself and your business, including your legal or business name, contact details, years in business, the categories you work in and your service area, and keep it up to date.

3.3. Your profile must not claim licences, insurance, certifications, awards, affiliations or experience you do not have.

4. Licences, registrations and permits

4.1. You must hold, and keep current, every licence, registration, certification and permit required for the services you offer, in each country, state, county and city where you offer them. For example, in Florida many construction trades must be licensed by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation or registered locally.

4.2. You must not offer, bid for or perform any work you are not licensed to perform.

4.3. Where the law requires a licence number or other details to appear in your advertising (which includes your profile, comments and Bids), you must include them.

4.4. Unless you agree otherwise with the Homeowner in writing, and the law allows it, you are responsible for obtaining permits and arranging inspections for your work.

5. Insurance

5.1. You must carry, at your own cost, the insurance required by law for your trade and location, and insurance that is commercially reasonable for the work you take on, which normally includes general liability insurance and, where you have employees, workers' compensation insurance.

5.2. If CSI states minimum insurance requirements in your Pro dashboard, you must meet them to keep an "Insured" badge.

5.3. You must give Homeowners proof of insurance on request.

6. Documents, verification and badges

6.1. You may upload your licence, insurance, identity documents and evidence of a background check. You confirm that every document you upload is genuine, current, belongs to you or your business, and has not been altered.

6.2. CSI staff may review your documents, compare them with public records, ask for more information, and approve or reject them. Approved items appear as Verification Badges with the date of the check. Section 8 of the Terms of Service explains what badges mean.

6.3. You must update your documents when they change or expire. CSI removes "Licensed" and "Insured" badges when the expiry date you entered passes, and we will try to remind you about 30 days before. You must tell us within 5 days if any licence or insurance is suspended, cancelled, restricted or not renewed.

6.4. CSI may remove a badge, suspend your profile or close your account if a document appears false or expired, or if you do not respond to a request for information.

6.5. Background checks. CSI does not currently order background checks. A "Background checked" badge is based on evidence you provide of a check that a third-party screening company carried out. By submitting that evidence, you authorise CSI to review it and to contact the screening company to confirm that the report is genuine. If CSI ever orders a background check about you itself through a consumer reporting agency, it will first give you a separate, stand-alone written disclosure and ask for your separate written authorisation as required by the US Fair Credit Reporting Act and similar state laws, and it will give you the notices and rights those laws require before taking any action based on the report.

7. Jobs, comments and Bids

7.1. With the Pro Elite plan, you can see Jobs that match your categories and service area, post comments, send Bids and chat with Homeowners. Matching depends on the information you set and on Homeowners' choices. CSI does not promise any number or quality of Jobs, leads, Bookings or income.

7.2. Your Bid is your own offer. You are solely responsible for its price, scope, accuracy and terms, and for performing any Project Contract you make. Bids must be honest and complete enough not to mislead. Do not quote a low price you do not intend to honour.

7.3. Your comments on a Job are visible to the Homeowner and to other matching Pros. Do not disclose private information in comments.

7.4. Your Project Contract. Any Project Contract is between you and the Homeowner. You must give the Homeowner a written contract where the law requires one, and include all disclosures, cancellation notices and other notices the law requires, such as home-solicitation cancellation rights for contracts signed in the Homeowner's home, construction lien notices, homeowner recovery fund notices, and limits on deposits.

7.5. You must perform work safely, competently, in a workmanlike manner and in line with building codes, manufacturer instructions and the law.

8. You may deal off the Platform

8.1. CSI does not require you to keep your dealings with Homeowners on the Platform and does not charge you a commission or fee for work you win. You may contract and be paid outside the Platform.

8.2. CSI has no responsibility for anything that happens off the Platform. Reviews are available only for Jobs marked done and Bookings held on the Platform.

9. Bookings and availability

9.1. You set your availability, meeting types (video, phone, on-site estimate), notice and booking window. You must keep your calendar accurate and attend Bookings you accept.

9.2. You and the Homeowner can cancel or reschedule through the Platform until 24 hours before the start. Repeated no-shows or late cancellations may lead to action on your account.

9.3. Do not record a meeting without the consent of everyone in it.

10. Homeowner information

10.1. When a Homeowner shares contact details, an address, photos or other information with you, you may use it only to respond to, quote for, schedule, perform and follow up on that Homeowner's Job or Booking, and to meet your legal obligations.

10.2. You must not sell or share it, add it to marketing lists, send marketing messages (including texts or automated calls) without the Homeowner's prior consent where the law requires consent, or use it after the Job ends except to provide warranty service or keep records the law requires.

10.3. You are an independent controller (or the equivalent under local law) of personal data you receive, and you must protect it and comply with data protection laws.

11. Rating Homeowners and replying to reviews

11.1. You may rate a Homeowner you worked with or met through a Booking. Ratings are visible to Pros only. They must be honest, based on your own experience, and must not mention or be based on race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, familial status or any other protected characteristic.

11.2. You may reply once to each review. Replies must follow the Community Guidelines. You must not threaten, pressure or pay a Homeowner to change or remove a review, and must not threaten legal action over an honest review.

12. Conduct

You must:

(a) treat Homeowners and other Users with respect and not discriminate; (b) behave lawfully and safely at Homeowners' properties, and identify yourself on arrival; (c) not ask for or accept payment for work you do not intend to perform; (d) not misrepresent the need for work, its cost or its urgency; and (e) follow the Community Guidelines.

13. Plans and perks

13.1. Pro Basic is free and includes a profile, Verification Badges and Bookings. Pro Elite is a Paid Plan that adds the features described on the Pro Membership page, which currently include seeing and bidding on matching Jobs, a shop, and an advertising credit. New subscribers get a 6-month free trial. The Pro Membership and Auto-Renewal Terms apply.

13.2. The advertising credit is a promotional balance only. It has no cash value, cannot be transferred or refunded, and can be used only in the way and at the time CSI makes available. At launch it is shown as a balance only.

14. Registration fee

14.1. Before you can upload verification documents, you must pay a one-time registration fee of US$85 (the "Registration Fee"), whether you apply for Pro Basic or Pro Elite. CSI may change this amount; the amount shown to you when you pay is the amount that applies to you.

14.2. The Registration Fee is fully earned by CSI as soon as it is paid, as payment for reviewing your application and documents, and it is non-refundable. This applies in every circumstance, including if: (a) CSI rejects your application or any document; (b) you withdraw your application; (c) CSI suspends or closes your account for any reason; or (d) you never finish verification or never publish a profile.

14.3. The Registration Fee is separate from Pro Elite. It is not part of the Pro Elite price, and no part of it is credited, applied or offset against Pro Elite or any other Paid Plan.

14.4. How you accept this fee. Before you pay, you must tick an unticked checkbox stating that you understand the Registration Fee is non-refundable as described in Section 14.2, and you must type your full legal name as your signature. CSI records, and keeps permanently, the exact text shown to you, the document version, the date and time, your IP address and your typed name.

14.5. Chargebacks and disputes. You agree not to dispute, reverse or request a chargeback of the Registration Fee through your bank or PayPal for any reason covered by Section 14.2. This is a promise you make to CSI; it does not take away any right your bank, your card network or PayPal may give you under their own rules, or any right Mandatory Law gives you, to ask them to review a charge. If you do dispute, reverse or request a chargeback of the Registration Fee, CSI may suspend your account while the dispute is open, and may give your bank or PayPal the records described in Section 14.4, together with your application, your documents and your account activity, to respond to the dispute.

14.6. You pay this fee as a business, not as a consumer. You pay the Registration Fee to apply to operate your trade or business on the Platform, not for a personal, family or household purpose. Cooling-off, withdrawal or cancellation rights that the law gives to consumer purchases do not apply to the Registration Fee, except to the extent a Mandatory Law gives you such a right despite your business purpose (for example, some European Union consumer-protection rules); where that happens, this Section does not take that right away.

14.7. Waiver. CSI may waive the Registration Fee for a Pro, a group of Pros, a specific promo code or a promotional period, at CSI's sole discretion, including for a Pro that CSI or an authorised salesperson imports or invites. A waiver for one Pro, code or period does not give any other Pro a right to the same waiver, and does not give a Pro who already paid the Registration Fee a right to a refund or credit of it.

15. Taxes

You are solely responsible for all taxes on your income, sales and services, including registering for, charging, collecting and paying any sales tax, VAT or other tax that applies to your services or products.

16. Indemnity

In addition to Section 20 of the Terms of Service, you will defend, indemnify and hold harmless the CSI Parties from all claims, losses, damages, fines, penalties, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or connected with: your services, work, Bids, Project Contracts or products; any injury, death or property damage connected with your work; your employees, subcontractors or helpers; any claim that you are or were CSI's employee or agent, or that CSI is liable for your taxes, wages, benefits or insurance; any lack of licence, permit or insurance; and your use of Homeowners' information.

17. Suspension and termination

17.1. CSI may suspend or close your Pro account, remove your profile, Bids or comments, or remove badges, as described in Section 16 of the Terms of Service.

17.2. Pros in the European Union. If your business is established in the European Union and you offer services to Consumers there, the following also apply to the extent required by EU law on platform-to-business relations: (a) we will give you at least 15 days' notice of changes to these Pro Terms, unless a shorter period is required by law or needed to address a security or fraud risk; (b) if we restrict or suspend your account, we will give you a statement of reasons at or before the time it takes effect; (c) if we close your account, we will give you at least 30 days' notice and a statement of reasons, unless the law allows immediate closure (for example, for repeated breaches or illegal content); and (d) you can complain about our decisions by emailing info@csieliteservices.com, and we will consider your complaint and reply.

18. Disputes

Sections 19 to 26 of the Terms of Service apply. If you are in the United States, disputes between you and CSI are subject to arbitration under the AAA Commercial Arbitration Rules, as Section 25 of the Terms of Service explains.