Terms of Service

These Terms apply to property management businesses and landlords who subscribe to Sakenora. If you are a resident using the portal or the mobile app, these are not your agreement — please read the Resident Terms instead.

1. The agreement

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a contract between Sakenora, incorporated in Kenya, registered office Nairobi, Kenya ("Sakenora", "we", "us"), and you, the business or individual subscribing to the platform ("Client", "you").

They govern your access to and use of the Sakenora property management platform, including the web application, resident portal, mobile app and related services (the "Service").

The agreement comprises these Terms, your Order Form (recording plan, pricing, currency and billing cycle), the Privacy Policy, the Acceptable Use Policy, and the Data Processing Terms in section 9. Where a signed Order Form conflicts with these Terms, the Order Form prevails for that Client.

By signing an Order Form, or by using the Service, you accept these Terms. If accepting on behalf of a company, you confirm you have authority to bind it.

2. Onboarding and accounts

2.1 No self-service signup. Accounts are created and configured by our team as part of a personal onboarding process. Your account begins on the date we confirm it is live (the "Start Date").

2.2 Your account. We create an initial administrator account. You are responsible for creating, managing and removing your own staff and Resident accounts.

2.3 Account security. You are responsible for all activity under your account and those you create. You must keep credentials confidential and not share logins; enable two-factor authentication for administrative accounts where offered; remove accounts promptly when a staff member leaves or a tenancy ends; and tell us at support@sakenora.com without delay if you suspect unauthorised access.

2.4 Accuracy. You must give accurate account, billing and contact information and keep it current. Notices sent to the email on your account are treated as received.

3. The Service

3.1 We will provide the Service using reasonable skill and care, substantially as described in our documentation and your Order Form.

3.2 Changes. We develop the Service continuously and may add, change or remove features. We will not materially reduce core functionality without at least 30 days notice. If such a change materially and adversely affects you, you may terminate under 12.3.

3.3 Availability. We aim to keep the Service available at all times but do not guarantee uninterrupted availability. We may suspend access for scheduled maintenance with reasonable notice where possible. Emergency maintenance and security action may occur without notice.

3.4 Support. By email at support@sakenora.com during Monday to Friday, 8:00am–6:00pm East Africa Time. Service levels beyond this apply only if stated in your Order Form.

3.5 Third-party integrations. The Service integrates with Safaricom M-Pesa (Daraja API) for rent collection and a third-party payment processor for subscription billing. These are independent third parties. We are not responsible for their availability, fees, decisions, or for delays or failures in their systems. Your use of M-Pesa is subject to Safaricom's terms, and you are responsible for holding any paybill, till or shortcode arrangements required.

4. Fees, unit counts and billing

4.1 Pricing model. The Service is priced per unit, per month, on a volume ladder — the rate per unit varies with the number of units on your account. Your rates, currency and billing cycle are recorded in your Order Form.

4.2 Currency. Kenyan Shillings (KES) or United States Dollars (USD), as recorded in your Order Form.

4.3 Billing cycle. Monthly or annually. Annual billing is charged at the equivalent of ten (10) months — two months free compared with paying monthly for a year.

4.4 How the charge is calculated. At each charge, your fee is recalculated from the live number of units on your account at that time. It is not fixed at signup.

• Add units and your next charge goes up; remove units and it goes down.
• Charges are not prorated within a billing period. Adding units mid-period does not generate an extra charge for the remainder; removing them does not generate a refund or credit. The change is reflected at the next charge.
• If your unit count crosses a volume-ladder threshold, the new rate applies from the next charge.

4.5 Taxes. Fees exclude VAT and other applicable taxes, which will be added where they apply. Where you must withhold tax, you must gross up so we receive the full invoiced amount, and provide the withholding certificate.

4.6 Payment. Collected through our payment processor. Card details are entered on their systems and never stored by us. Payment is due on the invoice date unless your Order Form says otherwise. Where an alternative method is agreed in writing, invoices are payable within monthly in advance.

4.7 Late payment. We may charge interest on overdue amounts at 1.5% per month, or the maximum permitted by law if lower, from the due date until paid in full.

4.8 Price changes. We will give at least 30 days written notice. A change will not take effect during a period already paid in advance. If you do not accept an increase you may terminate with effect from the date it would take effect, on written notice before that date.

4.9 No refunds. Except where these Terms or the law say otherwise, fees already paid are non-refundable.

5. Suspension for non-payment

5.1 Warning. If an invoice is unpaid 7 days after its due date, we may give written notice of suspension.

5.2 Suspension and its effect. If still unpaid 14 days past due after the due date, we may suspend your account.

Understand what suspension means. It locks out your staff and your Residents. Your Residents will not be able to log in, view invoices, submit maintenance requests, or make payments through the Service while it lasts.

You accept that this consequence falls on your Residents, and you accept responsibility for it. You are responsible for keeping your account in good standing and for communicating with your Residents. We are not liable to you or to your Residents for loss or disruption arising from a suspension properly triggered by your non-payment.

5.3 During suspension. Your data is retained and not deleted. Fees continue to accrue.

5.4 Restoration. Access is restored promptly once all outstanding amounts, including interest, are paid.

5.5 Other grounds. We may suspend immediately, with notice as soon as practicable, where we reasonably believe there is a serious security risk, unlawful activity, or material breach of the Acceptable Use Policy. We will limit suspension to what is necessary.

6. Acceptable use

Your use is subject to the Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these Terms. You are responsible for your staff's conduct and for making your Residents aware of the rules that apply to them.

7. Your data and your content

7.1 Ownership. As between you and us, you own your Client Data — all data, documents, images and content you, your staff or your Residents put into the Service or that is generated in your account.

7.2 Licence to us. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, transmit, display and process Client Data only as necessary to provide, secure, support and bill for the Service, and as otherwise instructed by you. It ends when the data is deleted under section 12.

7.3 Your responsibility. You are responsible for the accuracy, quality, legality and appropriateness of Client Data, and for having the right to put it into the Service.

7.4 Aggregated data. We may produce aggregated, statistical and de-identified information from use of the Service and use it to operate and improve it. It will never identify you, your staff, your Residents or any individual, and we will not disclose your Client Data to any other Client.

8. Your obligations regarding Residents

8.1 You control Resident data. You are the data controller for Resident personal data. We are your data processor. This carries real obligations, and they are yours.

8.2 What you must do. You warrant and undertake that:

• (a) Lawful basis. You have a lawful basis under the DPA (or applicable local law) for every category of Resident data you enter — names, phone numbers, email addresses, national ID numbers, photographs, identity documents and emergency contacts.
• (b) Notice. You have given your Residents a privacy notice covering what you collect, why, how long you keep it, who you share it with (including that you use a software provider), and their rights.
• (c) Registration. You have completed any registration with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner required of you as a data controller, and keep it current. This is your obligation, not ours. Our registration does not cover you.
• (d) Data minimisation. You collect only what you need, and do not use the Service to hold Resident data for purposes unconnected with property management.
• (e) Sensitive data. You take particular care with national ID numbers, identity documents and photographs.
• (f) Rights requests. You respond to your Residents' requests within the time the law allows. You have direct access to your records and can act on most requests yourself.
• (g) Accuracy and retention. You keep data accurate and delete or archive it when you no longer have a lawful reason to keep it.
• (h) Instructions. Your instructions to us will not put us in breach of applicable data protection law.

8.3 Requests that reach us. If a Resident contacts us directly we will normally redirect them to you and tell you. We will not correct, disclose or delete Resident data on our own initiative; we act on your documented instruction.

8.4 Indemnity. You will indemnify us against all claims, losses, fines, penalties and reasonable costs arising from your breach of 8.2, or from a claim by a Resident or regulator relating to your acts or omissions as controller.

9. Data processing terms

• 9.1 Roles. You are the controller; we are the processor.
• 9.2 Duration. The term of the agreement and the wind-down in section 12.
• 9.3 Nature and purpose. Hosting, storage, retrieval, organisation, transmission and deletion as required to operate the Service.
• 9.4 Data subjects. Your staff and your Residents.
• 9.5 Categories. As set out in the Privacy Policy, sections 4.2 to 4.7.
• 9.6 Our undertakings. We will: process only on your documented instructions unless required otherwise by law (and tell you where we can); ensure personnel are bound by confidentiality; implement appropriate security as described in the Privacy Policy section 11; assist you, so far as reasonably practicable, with data subject requests and your security, breach and impact assessment obligations; notify you without undue delay of a personal data breach affecting your data; make available information reasonably necessary to demonstrate compliance and allow audits on reasonable notice, no more than once in twelve months unless a regulator requires it, at your cost and subject to confidentiality; and on termination delete or return data per section 12.
• 9.7 Sub-processors. You authorise those identified in the Privacy Policy section 7. We impose obligations no less protective and remain responsible for their performance. We will give at least 30 days before adding or replacing one. If you reasonably object on data protection grounds we will work in good faith to find an alternative; if none is available either party may terminate the affected part without penalty.
• 9.8 Transfers. Only in accordance with sections 48 and 49 of the DPA and the Privacy Policy section 8. You instruct and authorise those transfers.

10. Intellectual property

10.1 Ours. We and our licensors own all intellectual property rights in the Service — software, source code, databases, interfaces, designs, documentation, the name and logo, and all improvements. Nothing transfers those rights to you.

10.2 Your licence. A non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to access and use the Service during the term for your internal business purposes.

10.3 What you must not do. Copy, modify, translate or create derivative works; reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble except as applicable law expressly permits; access the Service to build a competing product; resell, sublicense or rent the Service as a service bureau (using it to manage properties for your own landlord clients is permitted and expected); remove proprietary notices; or use automated means to scrape or extract data beyond any API we provide.

10.4 Feedback. We may use suggestions freely and without obligation. We will not identify you as the source without agreement.

10.5 Publicity. We may not name you or use your logo as a customer reference without your prior written consent.

11. Warranties and disclaimers

11.1 What we warrant. That we will provide the Service with reasonable skill and care; that we have the right to grant the licence in 10.2; and that the Service will perform substantially in accordance with our documentation. If we breach this, your remedy is correction within a reasonable time, or termination with a refund of fees paid in advance for the unused term.

11.2 What we do not warrant. Except as stated in 11.1, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law we exclude all other warranties, conditions and terms, express or implied.

In particular, we do not warrant that: the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free; it will meet your specific requirements; data transmitted will always be delivered or delivered on time; third-party services including M-Pesa and our payment processor will be available, accurate or free from delay; the Service will detect every error in data you enter; or that the Service on its own makes you compliant with any law applicable to your business.

11.3 The Service is a tool, not advice. It is software. It is not legal, tax, accounting, valuation or regulatory advice. Lease templates, invoice formats, tax fields, rent calculations and reports are tools to use with your own professional judgment. You are responsible for the legality and accuracy of what you produce, including compliance with tenancy, rent, tax and land law wherever you operate.

11.4 Electronic signatures. The Service records electronic signatures together with the typed name, an optional signature image, a hash of the signed document, a timestamp and the signer's IP address. We provide the mechanism and the evidential record. We do not warrant that any particular document, in any particular jurisdiction, is validly executed or legally enforceable. Take your own advice.

11.5 Payment data accuracy. M-Pesa and payment processor records are stored as received. We do not verify the underlying transaction and are not responsible for reconciliation errors caused by incorrect references, amounts, or provider-side data.

12. Term, termination and exit

12.1 Term. Starts on the Start Date and continues for the term in your Order Form, renewing automatically for successive periods equal to your billing cycle unless terminated.

12.2 Termination for convenience. Either party may terminate at the end of the current billing period on at least 30 days written notice. This does not entitle you to a refund except as provided in 3.2, 4.8 or 11.1.

12.3 Termination for cause. Either party may terminate immediately if the other commits a material breach capable of remedy and fails to remedy it within 30 days of notice; commits a material breach not capable of remedy; or becomes insolvent. We may also terminate immediately where your account has been suspended for non-payment for more than 7 years.

12.4 Effect. Access ends; all accrued fees become immediately due; each party returns or destroys the other's confidential information subject to legal retention.

12.5 Data export. For 30 days after termination we will make your Client Data available for export in a structured, machine-readable format. Request at support@sakenora.com. We may charge a reasonable fee for a bespoke export beyond our standard formats. Export your data before the window closes.

12.6 Deletion. After the window we delete or irreversibly anonymise Client Data within 90 days, except where required by law, where reasonably needed to defend a legal claim, and residual backup copies overwritten on our cycle of 30 days. We will confirm deletion in writing on request.

12.7 Survival. Sections 4 (accrued fees), 7.1, 8.4, 10, 11, 12.4–12.7, 13, 14, 15 and 16 survive.

13. Limitation of liability

13.1 Never excluded. Nothing limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

13.2 Excluded losses. Subject to 13.1, neither party is liable for loss of profit, revenue, business, contracts or anticipated savings; loss of goodwill or reputation; loss or corruption of data except to the extent caused by our breach of section 9.6; loss arising from the acts or omissions of Safaricom, our payment processor or any other third-party provider; or indirect or consequential loss — whether or not foreseeable and whether in contract, tort, breach of statutory duty or otherwise.

13.3 Cap. Subject to 13.1 and 13.4, each party's total aggregate liability in any twelve-month period is limited to the total fees paid or payable by you in the twelve months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

13.4 Carve-outs. The cap does not limit your obligation to pay fees properly due, your liability under the indemnity in 8.4, or either party's liability for breach of section 10.

13.5 Allocation of risk. You acknowledge the fees reflect this allocation of risk and that we would not provide the Service on these terms without it.

14. Confidentiality

Each party will keep the other's confidential information confidential, use it only for the agreement's purposes, and disclose it only to personnel and advisers who need it and are bound by equivalent obligations. This excludes information that is public through no fault of the receiver, already lawfully known, independently developed, or required to be disclosed by law (with notice first where lawful). Obligations continue for three (3) years after termination, and indefinitely for personal data and source code.

15. General

• 15.1 Force majeure. Neither party is liable for failure caused by events beyond reasonable control, including internet or telecommunications failure, failure of M-Pesa or our payment processor, power failure, natural disaster, epidemic, civil unrest, government action or armed conflict. This does not excuse payment of money already due.
• 15.2 Assignment. You may not assign without our prior written consent, not unreasonably withheld. We may assign to an affiliate or in connection with a merger or sale of substantially all assets, on notice.
• 15.3 Subcontracting. We may subcontract but remain responsible.
• 15.4 Notices. To us: support@sakenora.com and Nairobi, Kenya. To you: the email on your account. Email notices are treated as received the next business day.
• 15.5 Changes to these Terms. We may amend on at least 30 days notice of a material change. If you do not accept it you may terminate with effect from the date it would take effect. Continuing to use the Service after that date means you accept it.
• 15.6 No partnership. Nothing creates a partnership, joint venture, agency or employment relationship.
• 15.7 Third parties. No one other than the parties may enforce the agreement.
• 15.8 Entire agreement. This is the whole agreement on its subject matter and replaces prior discussions. Neither party relies on any statement not set out in it. This does not limit liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.
• 15.9 Severability. An invalid provision is modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed; the rest remains in force.
• 15.10 Waiver. Delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver.
• 15.11 Language. Made in English; if translated, the English version prevails.
• 15.12 Counterparts. An Order Form may be signed in counterparts and by electronic signature.

16. Governing law and disputes

• 16.1 Governed by the laws of Kenya, including non-contractual disputes.
• 16.2 Escalation. Before formal proceedings the parties will try in good faith to resolve the dispute between senior representatives for thirty (30) days from written notice.
• 16.3 Jurisdiction. Unresolved disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Kenya.
• 16.4 Injunctive relief. Either party may apply to any court for urgent interim relief, particularly to protect confidential information or intellectual property.

17. Contact

Sakenora, Nairobi, Kenya Support: support@sakenora.com · Data protection: support@sakenora.com