Terms of use

1. About Zany

Zany is an online property marketplace for Ireland. You can use it to search for homes to rent or buy, save properties and searches, apply for a property and book a viewing. After a confirmed viewing, you can also message the other person. Owners, and people acting for them, can advertise properties.

Zany is trading as Zany Homes (business name registered with the Companies Registration Office).

2. Accepting these terms

By creating an account or using Zany, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use Zany.

Our Privacy policy explains how we use personal data. It is a separate document, and we recommend reading it too.

3. Your account

You must be 18 or older to create an account.
Give accurate details and keep them up to date. Each person may have one account.
Your name must be your own. It must not include "Zany", pretend to be someone else, or be offensive.
Keep your password secret, and never enter it on a site that only looks like Zany. You are responsible for what happens on your account, unless it results from our failure to keep Zany secure. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has used it.
You can sign in with Google instead of a password. Google's own terms apply to your Google account.
Confirming your email address shows that you can receive email there. It does not verify your identity.

4. What Zany does and does not do

Zany provides the platform. We are not an estate agent, letting agent or property manager. We are not a party to any tenancy, licence or sale between users.

Advertisers decide who they let or sell to. Zany does not approve, reject, score or rank anyone.

We do not verify who users are, who owns a property or whether an advertiser is entitled to let or sell it, and we do not inspect properties. The information in a listing comes from the advertiser, and the advertiser alone is responsible for it.

Any dealings between users, including payments, deposits and agreements, are between those users. We may help when something goes wrong, but we do not have to.

Before you pay or sign anything, view the property in person and check who you are dealing with. Our Staying safe guide explains how.

Searching, saving properties and searches, applying and booking viewings are free. Advertising a property needs a paid listing plan (section 7), unless we tell you that publishing is free during the pilot.

5. Searching, saving and applying

Saved properties and saved searches are private to your account.
When you apply, the advertiser sees your name and email address, your profession if you agreed to share it in Account settings, your mobile number if you give it, and your answers and message in your application. An application is a request. It is not a tenancy, an offer or a guarantee of a viewing.
If the advertiser accepts your application, you can choose one of the viewing times they have made available. You have 48 hours from acceptance to book one; if you do not, your application is withdrawn automatically. A booking is an arrangement between you and the advertiser. If you cannot attend, cancel it or ask for another time through Zany.
Messaging opens only after a viewing is confirmed, and only between the people involved in it.

6. Advertising a property

If you advertise a property, you confirm that:

you own it, or the owner has authorised you to advertise it, and it is available on the terms you describe;
your listing is accurate and not misleading, including the price, location, size, Building Energy Rating (BER) and availability, and you will update or withdraw it when anything changes;
your listing and your decisions comply with the law. This includes the Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2018, which prohibit discrimination in accommodation on nine grounds (gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community) and on the housing assistance ground. Wording such as "professionals only" or "no HAP" is not allowed. It also includes the rules on showing a BER in property advertisements, and residential tenancies law, including registering tenancies with the Residential Tenancies Board where required;
your listing follows the code of standards of the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI);
you have the right to publish every photo you upload, and your photos do not show people, documents or other personal information.

One listing is for one property, and each property may have only one live listing. Use the property's real address and county, and the right listing type: to rent or for sale. We may remove duplicate listings, listings that cover more than one property, and listings placed in the wrong county or listing type.

Listings stay private until you publish them, and you can withdraw a published listing at any time. Do not ask anyone for a deposit, holding fee or other payment before they have viewed the property.

Applicants' details are shared with you only so that you can consider their application. Do not use them for anything else, do not share them, and do not keep them longer than you need them.

7. Listing plans and payment

To publish a listing, you choose a plan and pay for it, unless we tell you that publishing is free during the pilot.

There are three plans: Standard, Premium and Featured. Every plan keeps your listing live for 60 days from the day it is first published. Premium and Featured listings are promoted for the whole 60 days, as section 9 explains.
You pay once, by card, on a payment page run by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. Nothing renews and no card is kept on file.
Our agreement to publish your listing is made when Stripe confirms your payment. If your listing is complete, it goes live straight away. If something is missing, it stays a private draft until you complete it and publish it, and your 60 days start then.
A plan covers one listing and the listing type you paid for (to rent or for sale). It cannot be moved to another property. To advertise for longer than 60 days, you need a new plan.
A plan buys position and visibility. We do not promise a number of views or applications, or that you will find a tenant or buyer.

8. Cancellation and refunds

Payments for listing plans are final. We do not give refunds.

When you pay, you ask us to publish your listing as soon as your payment is confirmed, and you agree that our service is fully provided once your listing is live and that from then on you can no longer cancel it. You confirm this by ticking a box before you pay. This means that:

you cannot cancel a plan you have paid for, and the payment is not refunded;
this applies even if you change your mind, find a tenant or buyer, withdraw the listing, or delete your account before the 60 days end;
it also applies if we remove your listing or close your account because you broke the law or these terms (section 12).

Check your listing, the listing type and the plan before you pay. If you see a charge you do not recognise, contact us. If you dispute a payment with your bank or card issuer, we withdraw the listing while the dispute is open. If the dispute is closed in our favour, you can publish the listing again for the rest of its 60 days.

9. How listings are ordered

Search results show the listings that match your search and filters. Unless you choose another order:

Featured listings come first, then Premium, then Standard, while their promotion is active;
within each group, the newest listings come first.

On the home page, the highlighted rows show Featured listings first, then Premium and then Standard. Featured and Premium listings are labelled as promoted, because their advertisers paid for a higher position. Changing your filters or the sort order changes what you see. Zany does not rank applicants.

10. Content you add

You keep ownership of the text and photos you add to Zany. You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, resize and display that content. The licence covers what we need to run Zany and to show your listing to its users. It ends when your content is deleted, except for copies we must keep for legal reasons and backups that are overwritten in the normal cycle.

You are responsible for what you add. Do not add content that:

is unlawful, false or misleading;
is discriminatory, abusive or sexually explicit;
infringes someone else's rights;
contains personal information about other people.

11. Acceptable use

Do not:

post fake or misleading listings, or advertise a property you are not entitled to let or sell;
use Zany to commit fraud, including asking for payments or personal documents under false pretences;
harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone;
send spam, or use contact details found on Zany for marketing;
copy listings or data from Zany in bulk, including by scraping, or use them to build another database;
try to get around our security, access accounts or data that are not yours, or interfere with how Zany works;
create an account for someone else without their permission, or open a new account after we have suspended yours;
send reports that you know to be false.

12. Reports and moderation

If you see a listing or behaviour that is illegal or breaks these terms, report it to us. Include a link to the listing or account and say what is wrong. We review reports and act on them promptly. If a report does not give us enough to go on, we may not be able to act on it.

Our moderation is done by people. We do not use automated tools to remove content or restrict accounts.

If we reasonably believe that content or an account breaks the law or these terms, or puts users at risk, we may take action in proportion to the problem. We may:

remove or hide content;
suspend a listing;
restrict or close an account;
tell the authorities, where the law allows or requires it.

Payments are not refunded when a listing is removed for breaking the law or these terms (section 8). Removing a listing does not, by itself, mean that its advertiser did anything wrong: we also remove listings when the advertiser asks or when there is a technical problem.

13. Advertising as a business

This section applies if you advertise in the course of a business, for example as a letting agent, an estate agent or a property company. It adds to the rest of these terms.

You are responsible for meeting the laws that apply to your business, including consumer protection, advertising and data protection law. Applicants' details you receive must be handled under data protection law.
We tell you about changes to these terms at least 15 days before they take effect, unless the law requires us to change them sooner.
If we restrict or suspend your listings or account, we tell you why when we do it. If we decide to stop providing Zany to you altogether, we give you at least 30 days' notice and our reasons, unless you seriously or repeatedly broke these terms, or the law requires us to act sooner.
When your account closes, the information in it, such as applications and messages, is no longer available to you. We keep data as our Privacy policy explains.
You will reimburse us for losses, costs and reasonable legal fees we incur because of a claim that your listing or your conduct broke the law or these terms.

14. Our content

Zany's name, logo, design, text and software belong to us or to the people who licensed them to us. You may use Zany for its intended purpose, but you may not copy or reuse these without our permission.

15. Availability and changes

We try to keep Zany available and accurate. As a pilot, it may be interrupted, changed or withdrawn, and we may update its features at any time.

We may update these terms. If a change is significant, we will tell you by email or on the site before it takes effect. If you keep using Zany after that, you accept the updated terms. A change does not affect a plan you have already paid for.

16. Contact

Zany is trading as Zany Homes (business name registered with the Companies Registration Office). Email: [email protected].

17. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited under Irish law. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and for fraud. Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer.

Subject to that, we are not responsible for:

what other users say or do, including their listings, applications, viewings and messages;
any agreement between users, including a tenancy or a sale;
losses that were not reasonably foreseeable.

If you use Zany in the course of a business, we are not liable to you for loss of profit, revenue, business or opportunity.

18. Closing your account

You can stop using Zany at any time, and you can delete your account yourself in Account settings. Deleting it removes your drafts, listings, applications, viewings, saved homes and searches. Payments for listing plans are not refunded (section 8). We keep payment records as our Privacy policy explains.

We may suspend or close your account as described in section 12, or if Zany closes. Where we can, we will give you notice first. Sections 8, 10, 13, 17 and 19 continue to apply after your account closes.

19. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of Ireland, and the courts of Ireland have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer living elsewhere in the European Union, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of your country, and you may bring proceedings there.

If a court decides that part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term straight away, we can still enforce it later.

If something goes wrong, please contact us first. Most problems can be resolved quickly.