CHARTER FOR USING THE WEBSITE HORNWELL.COM

1. PREAMBLE

1.1 PURPOSE OF THE CHARTER OF USE

The purpose of this Charter of use (hereinafter referred to as "the Charter") is to define the conditions of use for the accessible website especially at the address www.hornwell.com (hereinafter referred to as "the Website") that the company Hornwell Limited (hereinafter referred to as "the Company") makes available to Internet users (hereinafter referred to as the "Users").

1.2 IDENTIFICATION OF THE PUBLISHER

The User is informed that the Website is published by the company:

  • HORNWELL LIMITED
  • Customer Services:
  • Registered Office: 42/F, Central Plaza – 18 Harbour Road – Wan Chai – HONG KONG
  • BR certificate no. 59108821

1.3 PUBLICATION MANAGER

The Publication Manager for the website is Mr John Law.

1.4 CONTACT THE COMPANY

The User can contact the Company:

  • by letter to the address indicated in article 1.2 above;
  • by email using the contact form

2. DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of this Charter, terms in upper case refer to the following:

2.1 Members: refers to the estate agents who have signed a publishing contract with the letting and/or sale of property advertising company on the Website.

2.2 Website: refers to the interactive electronic service published and operated by the Company, accessible, in particular at the address www.hornwell.com, which enables access to its Services.

2.3 Server: refers to a computer hosting an application service and which has a large amount of disk space where data are stored in files.

2.4 WebsiteServer: refers to the servers hosting the Website on which the Services made available to the User by the Company are installed and provided.

2.5 Services: refers to the services provided by the Company on its Website and described in article 4 of this Charter.

2.6 User: refers to any person who accesses the website in the context of strictly private use.

3. FIELD OF APPLICATION, ACCEPTANCE AND AMENDMENT OF THE CHARTER

3.1 The purpose of this Charter is to define the conditions under which the User benefits from the Services provided by the Company through its Website.

All of the Services provided by the Company and made available to the User are detailed on the Company's Website.

3.2 The subscription, access to or use of the Services implies the acceptance without restrictions or reservations of this Charter by the User.

3.3 This Charter which may be subject to change, the applicable conditions are those in force and accessible on the Company's Website on the date of accessing the Website by the User.

4. ACCESS AND AVAILABILITY OF SERVICES

4.1 ACCESS TO SERVICES

The Services are freely and exclusively available online on the Company's Website.

4.2 AVAILABILITY OF SERVICES

The Company will do its best to make its Services are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, regardless of maintenance operations on the Services and/or Servers and/or the Website. Accordingly, the Company is bound by a best efforts obligation.

The Company reserves the right to be able to amend or discontinue, at any time, temporarily or permanently all or part of the Services without prior information from the Users and without the right to compensation.

5. GUARANTEES - LIABILITY - FORCE MAJEURE

5.1 USER'S GUARANTEE

By accessing the Company's Website, the User declares, guarantees and undertakes to:

  • access and use the Website and the Services in good faith, in a reasonable manner, not contrary to the terms of this Charter and for strictly personal use and for non-profit purposes;
  • not use devices or software other than those provided by the Company intended to i) affect or try to affect the proper functioning of the Website and/or the Services that it contains ii) or even to extract, edit, view, even in the buffer or temporary memory, or even for individual use, all or part of the Website;
  • not access and/or use the Website and/or the Services provided by the Company on the Website for any unlawful purpose and/or for the purpose of causing injury to the reputation and the image of the Company or more generally to infringe on the rights, including intellectual property, of the Company and/or third parties;
  • not directly or indirectly sell the Services and/or access to the Services and/or access to the Website;
  • not reuse all or part of the Website and the Services that it contains, in particular for commercial and/or collective purposes and/or for personal purposes in a manner and/or using a media that is not authorised by the Company;
  • not to use the Services provided by the Company or the data which the User could have access to via these Services and/or the Website for purposes that are directly or indirectly commercial and/or for personal purposes in a manner and/or a media that is not authorised by the Company;
  • not to reproduce, represent all or part of the Website for private purposes beyond the statutory exceptions provided for, in particular by the French Intellectual Property Code, or with a view to direct or indirect marketing especially to third parties;
  • not to limit access and use of the Website and/or Services;
  • not to change, including in buffer or temporary memory, any notice or element of the Services and/or the content of the Website;
  • not to perform hacking practices;
  • not to use and/or exploit the electronic contact and/or postal details of the other Users of the Website with a view to sending mass email requests and to engage in spamming practices.

In the case of a breach of one or other of these obligations and, without this this list being exhaustive, the User acknowledges and agrees that the company will have the right to refuse the User, unilaterally and without prior notification, access to all or part of the Website.

5.2 COMPANY'S GUARANTEE

The company provides the User, via its Website, with access to a number of Services aimed at supporting the User in the context of its real estate project

The User is fully aware that the Company particularly cannot guarantee the action taken:

  • following the property letting and/or sale ads that the User wants to consult on the Website;
  • following the replies received after the User's requests to be put in touch with Members who have published property letting and/or sale of ads;
  • following property financing offers which will be offered by credit institutions or brokers with whom the User will be put in touch with via the Website;
  • following the replies and actions which are taken after requests to be put in touch with the Professionals present or who have published service offers on the Website;
  • and more generally on the User's specific needs.

The Company waives any liability with regard to the reliability and/or the relevance of the information supplied by the Members and/or the credit institutions on the Website - the information is put online and disseminated under their full liability.

The Company shall do its best to put Users and Members in touch with credit institution partners of the Company which offer their services via the Website.

The Company does not guarantee the conclusion of contractual relations between the User and the Members and/or credit institution partners.

Finally, as it is not a credit institution and limiting its intervention to the simple putting the User in contact with its members and the credit institutions or broker partners of its Website, the company cannot be liable for:

  • the quality of the advice given by the Members and/or credit institutions to the User once in contact through the Services;
  • in the event of a positive or negative, tacit or express response from a credit institution or broker partner to a request for financing from the User;
  • the proper performance of the property loan concluded between a credit institution or broker partner and the User;
  • the absolute legality of the financing solutions proposed by a partner credit institution;
  • the non-respect by the credit institution of the User's choices with respect to the use of their personal data.

5.3 LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

The User is solely responsible for their use of the Website and the Services accessed from the Website.

The Company will in no case be liable in the context of proceedings initiated against a User who is found guilty of a non-compliant use of the Website and/or the Services it provides.

The User recognises and accepts in this respect that s/he will be personally responsible for any claim or proceeding filed against the Company, as a result of the User's non-compliant use of the Services and/or the Website.

The Website may contain hypertext links to third party Websites.

In this regard, given the evanescent nature of the content that can be published, the Company shall not be liable in the case where the content of such third party Websites would contravene the legal provisions and/or regulations in force.

In any event, the Company cannot be liable:

  • in the event of the unavailability of Services for reasons such as failure of the public electricity network, the failure of the cable telecommunications networks, the loss of connectivity to the Internet network due to public or private operators, including the User's, including causes from particularly strikes, storms, earthquakes, or of any other cause having the characteristics of a force majeure;
  • In the case of the use of the Services by a User in conditions which do not conform to the terms of this Charter;
  • within the limits of the legislation in force, for any consequential damage and this includes the loss of data or any other loss of intangible property, and this even if the company has been informed of the potential for such damages, which may occur (i) from the use of or inability to use the Services (ii) following access to those services by an unauthorised user.

The Company cannot be held responsible for any malfunction of any nature that relates to the User's computer hardware and Internet connection, when accessing the Website and more generally the Services.

More particularly, the company cannot guarantee the User of the Services regarding:

  • problems related to the speed of access to Websites and/or the buffering speed of the User's computer for videos accessible via the Services that the User is likely to come across.
  • The quality of the text, information, descriptions, photographs and videograms attached to the property letting and/or sale of ads published by the User and/or the Members and accessible through the use of its Services;

5.4 FORCE MAJEURE

The Company will not be held liable if the execution of one of its obligations is prevented or delayed due to a case of a force majeure as defined in the case law of the Courts of Hong Kong, and in particular natural disasters, fires, malfunction or interruption of the telecommunications network or the electricity network.

6. COMPLAINT - TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

For any information of a technical nature or relating to the operation of the Services accessible via the Website, the User is invited to refer to the section entitled "Contact the technical department" available on the Website and/or lodge a complaint using the details referred to in article 1.3 of this Charter.

7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

7.1 COPYRIGHT ON THE COMPANY'S WEBSITE

The Company is the holder or the licensee of the intellectual property rights for both the general structure of the Website and its contents (text, slogans, graphics, images, videos, photos and other content).

Therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code, any total or partial representation, reproduction, modification, denaturing and/or use of the Website and/or its content and/or Services, by any process whatsoever and on any media, without the prior express authorisation of the Company is prohibited and constitutes breach of copyright acts.

Similarly, any unauthorised use of the Website and/or any of its content and/or Services incurs the criminal and civil liability of the User on the basis of breach of copyright.

The Company intends to disclose the Website and the Services in order to allow access to the Internet network, and this:

  1. from a computer or an equivalent terminal with access to one or several telecommunications networks allowing access to the Internet and browser software on the Internet network (such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, etc.);
  2. A telephone terminal with access to a telecommunications network which allows access to the Internet network (3G, Edge connection, etc.);
  3. The computer application Hornwell.com accessible from a phone such as an iPhone® and subject to specific terms and conditions of use.

Any other use of the Website and/or Services shall be deemed legally reserved for the Company and constitutes a breach of its right of disclosure on the Website and/or the Services.

7.2 DISTINCTIVE SIGNS

The trademarks, logos, company names, acronyms, trade names, brands and/or domain name of the Company and/or its business partners listed on the Website, allowing access to services provided by the Company, which constitute distinctive signs are not permitted to be used without the prior express authorisation of their holder.

Any partial or total representation and/or reproduction and/or exploitation of these distinctive signs is therefore prohibited and constitutes a breach of trademark, in application of the French Intellectual Property Code, on the spoofing of a trade name, business name and domain name rendering the tort liability of its author.

7.3 DATABASES

The User irrevocably recognises that the Website and the Services comprise one or more databases made available by the Company as producer of those databases in accordance with the provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code.

Therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code the User is prohibited from performing the following:

  • extracting via a permanent or temporary transfer of all or a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of the contents of one or several of the databases which can be accessed on the Website and/or the Services on a different media, by any means and in any form, including for the purposes of use or consultation by a media and/or a process(es) not authorised by the Company;
  • reusing, by the provision of public access to all or a qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of the contents of one or several of the databases which can be accessed on the Website and/or the Services, in whatever form, including via a hypertext link, a media and/or a process(es) not authorised by the Company;
  • constituting, publishing, maintaining, updating, importing, exporting, provision to a third party, free of charge or for a fee, and participation in the actions mentioned above, of a competitive database originating from all or part of one or more of the Company's databases;
  • the on-screen display via another process or media than those via which the Company intends to publish the Website and the Services;
  • in general, any extraction, use, storage, reproduction, representation or conservation, direct or indirect, partial or total, including by buffer or temporary memory, qualitatively or quantitatively substantial part of the contents of one or more of the Company's databases, committed by means of one of the processes listed above is strictly prohibited, including by a media not authorised by the Company.

7.4 CONTENT OF THE SERVICES

The User acknowledges and accepts that access to the Website and the Services made available to it by the Company does not prevail over any assignment or licensing of intellectual property rights (including copyrights) and other rights to the benefit of the User.

Access to the Services is exclusively limited to the private, personal use by the User in accordance with the conditions and restrictions defined in this Charter and in accordance with the provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code.

Thus, the User recognises and accepts that the private and personal use to which s/he is licensed by the Company, to access its Services, particularly excludes access to the Services with a view to a collective use of its contents, reproduction, representation, resale, exchange, hire, transfer to a third party, amendment, adaptation, correction, either free of charge or for a fee, of all or part of the Website, Services, and their contents.

7.5 HYPERTEXT LINKS

The Company is not liable for any hyperlinks which can be accessed from the Website, enabling access to services, directed to other Websites and in general to all existing resources on the Internet.

The User will not, in any case insert hypertext links destined for deeper pages of Websites, allowing access to the Services by any technical process intended to go beyond the field of identification of the User or to proceed to remove all or part of the contents of the Services made available by the Company. The technique of framing is prohibited, without prior express authorisation from the Company.

8. DATA PROTECTION

8.1 PERSONAL INFORMATION

8.1.1 Nature of the User's personal information collected by the Company

The User's personal information that the company collects may include:

  • User's last name and first name;
  • User's postal address;
  • User's email address;
  • User's IP address (virtual address of the User's computer);
  • User's unique login and password.

8.1.2 Processing manager

The Processing Manager for the User's personal information is the Company whose details are referred to in article 1.2 of this Charter.

8.1.3 Purpose of the processing

The User's personal information is collected and processed by the Company for the purpose of enabling the Company to:

  • establish general statistics about the traffic on its Website and the various topics it contains;
  • send the User via email replies, various information or advertisements published on the Website by the Company or by its estate agent Partners;
  • send the User via email our newsletters on the Website's developments and the different topics of the Website;
  • forward requests for information issued by the User to third party partners selected by the Company.

8.1.4 Arrangements relating to Computing

In accordance with the provisions of the French Data Privacy Law, the User is informed that:

The Company undertakes to protect all of the User's personal information, the data are collected and processed by the Company with the strictest confidentiality, in accordance with legal provisions.

8.2 THE USER'S RIGHT TO OBJECT, ACCESS, CORRECT AND DELETE

8.2 Right to object, access, correct and delete

In accordance with the provisions relating to data privacy, the User has, at any time, the right to:

  • object to the processing of his/her personal information in the context of the Services provided by the Company;
  • to object to the communication of personal information to third parties;
  • access any personal information related to the User processed in the context of the Services provided by the Company;
  • correct, update and delete personal information related to the User processed in the context of the Services provided by the Company.

8.2.2 How the User can exercise their rights

To exercise their rights, the User just needs to send a simple letter, making sure that they prove their identity (indicate their last names, first names, email address, and attach a copy of their proof of identity) to the company, to the address indicated in article 1.2 of this Charter.

8.3 SECURITY AND ARCHIVING OF THE USER'S PERSONAL INFORMATION

The company collects and processes the User's personal information with the utmost confidentiality, and in compliance with the provisions of the French Data Privacy Law. The Company undertakes to take all reasonable steps necessary regarding the security and protection of the personal information of Users of its Website and Services, collected and processed by it. All of the User's personal information is electronically archived by the Company, for the entire duration of registration of the User to the Website and is deleted, once its registration has been cancelled.

9. NEWSLETTER

The company is likely to approach the User or make contact through its service providers, by post and/or by email, with business information allowing them to find out more about the Services offered and operated by the Company. Unless the User refuses, the Company reserves the right, to use and communicate their personal data to third parties, including market research companies or polling institutes, exclusively for study and analysis purposes or third-party companies in the context of joint marketing offers or not sent by post and/or by email.

10. COOKIES

The Company uses cookies on its Website. Cookies are pieces of information relating to the browsing by the User of the Company's Websites and which are used to determine the pages visited, their date and time of consultation.

These cookies never permit the Company to personally identify the User. The shelf life of these cookies in the User's computer shall not exceed one (1) month. However the User is informed that they have the right to object to the logging of these cookies particularly by configuring their Web browser to do this.

11. MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS

11.1 CORRESPONDENCE - EVIDENCE

Unless specially provided for in this Charter, any correspondence between the Company and the User is exclusively carried out by email. The User acknowledges and agrees that the information issued by the Company via email and on its Website between the User and the Company is valid. Elements such as the time of receipt or issuance, as well as the quality of the data received will be valid by priority as appearing on the Company's Website, or as authenticated by the Company's computerised procedures, unless the Use provides written evidence to the contrary. The scope of the evidence of the information issued by the Company's Website is that granted to an original meaning a written paper document, signed by hand.

11.2 ENTIRETY OF THE CHARTER

This Charter expresses the entirety of the obligations of the Company and the User. The fact of one of the parties not acting on a breach by the other party of any of the obligations referred to herein, cannot be interpreted in the future as a waiver of the obligation in question.

11.3 PARTIAL INVALIDITY

In the assumption where one or several stipulations of this Charter are considered null, deemed to be not written or declared as such through the application of a law or regulation, or the result of a decision by a court with competent jurisdiction having the authority of res judicata, the other stipulations shall remain in full force and their scope will remain fully applicable, except if the invalid stipulation(s) were of a substantial nature and that their disappearance called the contractual balance into question.

11.4 TITLES

In the event of difficulties of interpretation between any of the titles contained in the header of the clauses of this Charter, and one of the clauses, the titles will be declared non-existent.

12. APPLICABLE LAW AND SETTLING OF DISPUTES

This Charter is subject to Hong Kong law. In the event of a dispute relating to the application, interpretation, validity and execution of this Charter, and in the absence of an amicable agreement between the parties, the courts of Hong Kong will have express jurisdiction.