Terms And Conditions

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEBSITE.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ANY PART OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORISED TO ACCESS OR USE THE INFORMATION AND SERVICES CONTAINED IN THE REALFACT WEBSITE AND YOU MUST LEAVE THIS WEBSITE IMMEDIATELY. ALSO REMOVE FROM YOUR SYSTEM OR DESTROY ANY FULL OR PARTIAL COPIES OF PAGES, CONTENT, PRODUCTS, SERVICES, CODE SCRIPTS AND ANY OTHER DATA WHICH YOU HAVE ALREADY OBTAINED FROM THE REALFACT WEBSITE. ANY FURTHER ATTEMPT TO USE ANY PART OF THE REALFACT WEBSITE WILL AUTOMATICALLY BIND YOU TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND IMPLY YOUR UNCONDITIONAL AGREEMENT AND COMPLIANCE THERETO.

The Terms and Conditions contain a variety of provisions that are generally applicable to the RealFact website and some provisions that may apply to particular products and services. The headings contained in these Terms And Conditions are intended solely for your convenience and hold no legal importance. The headings may help you locate particular provisions, but you should understand that you will be bound by these Terms and Conditions in its entirety.

Welcome to the RealFact website, currently consisting of various web pages at, or linked to the URL www.realfact.net.

"RealFact website" means the RealFact website, located at http://www.realfact.net, owned and operated by Johannes Stephanus Coetzee, and produced by himself, his subsidiary and affiliate corporations, successors and assigns (collectively referred to as "RealFact").

The RealFact website provides information, answers, news and articles about aspects, developments, questions and topics relating to real estate and immovable property in the South African context. The RealFact website content is aimed at informing the South African public, including property owners, prospective buyers, tenants, landlords and real estate agents about the rights, responsibilities and implications of their interaction with real estate and the laws that govern real estate in South Africa.

The full name and legal status of the web site owner:
Johannes Stephanus Coetzee.

Street address:
2 Strauss Street, Bloemfontein, 9301, South Africa;

Postal address:
2 Strauss Street, Bloemfontein, 9301, South Africa;

Physical address for receipt of legal service:
2 Strauss Street, Bloemfontein, 9301, South Africa;

Main Business:
Website owner.

The web site address of the RealFact website is:
http://www.realfact.net

The official email address of the RealFact website is:
inforealfact.net

The costs associated with the access and use of the RealFact website are as follows:

1.   Web site access and use: Free;
2.   RealFact newsletter subscription: Free;
3.   Assistance request: Free;
4.   Submitting an article, question, comment or request: Free;

You may download a copy of the ECT Act from http://www.polity.org.za/pdf/ElectronicCommunications.pdf.

"You", "Your", "User" and "Member" refers to you and any person who enters and uses the RealFact website even if such a person only visits the home page of the RealFact website. RealFact considers you a valued cyber-client.

"Member" is further qualified to specifically mean any person who registers as a RealFact website member and receives full access to the RealFact website, products and services.

"Author" refers to the member responsible for originating a content contribution, also known as an article or comment, to the RealFact website. Each content contribution is accompanied by a credit identifying the author.

These Terms And Conditions constitute a binding agreement and will bind you to various legal obligations, please read them carefully.

The RealFact website is controlled and operated from the Republic of South Africa and the User agrees that the South African law therefore applies.

The User agrees to be bound to these Terms and Conditions.

The User agrees that these Terms and Conditions constitute the entire agreement between RealFact and the User. These Terms and Conditions take precedent over any legal notices attached to any communications from the User.

The User agrees that this agreement is concluded in Bloemfontein, South Africa at the time the User enters the RealFact website for the first time.

The User agrees that any term or condition that proves unenforceable or invalid for any reason shall be severable from the remaining terms and conditions. The remaining terms and conditions shall remain enforceable and applicable.

If RealFact fails to exercise or enforce any right or provision herein, such failure shall not be construed as a waiver of such right or provision.

The RealFact website is supplied on a "voetstoots" or "as is" and "as available" basis. It is the your responsibility to satisfy yourself of the suitability of the website before entering into this agreement with RealFact.

RealFact does not provide legal or any estate agency services and does not represent itself to be a law firm or real estate agency. No advice or content available from the RealFact website shall be construed as being legal advice, and the distribution of such content to any user or member does not create an attorney-client relationship between RealFact and such user or member.

You acknowledge and agree that you and RealFact are independent contractors under these Terms and Conditions, and that nothing in these Terms And Conditions shall be construed to create an employment relationship, partnership, joint venture, or agency. Neither party grants the other any rights or authority to enter into agreements of any nature on behalf of the other party through these Terms and Conditions.

You agree not to sell, rent, assign, sublicense, otherwise transfer, or delegate your rights or obligations under these Terms and Conditions without the prior written authorization of RealFact.

By using the RealFact website, you signify your agreement, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by, and to comply with these Terms and Conditions and any other posted guidelines or rules applicable to any portion, product or service of the RealFact website. All such guidelines and rules are hereby incorporated by reference into these Terms and Conditions.

In terms of section 11 of The South African Electronic Communications And Transactions (ECT) Act 25 of 2002 these Terms And Conditions are binding and enforceable against all persons that access the RealFact web site or any part thereof.

RealFact reserves the right to add, change, modify, or remove portions of these Terms And Conditions at its discretion at any time and without prior notice or justification. Your continued use of the RealFact website following the posting of changes to these Terms And Conditions will be construed as your acceptance of any such changes.

You are solely responsible for keeping up to date with the Terms And Conditions of this agreement, which will be accessible through a clear and conspicuous link near the bottom of most pages of the RealFact website.

Please check these Terms And Conditions regularly for changes.

RealFact reserves the right, at any time without prior notice or justification, to edit, change or remove any part of the RealFact website and its contents.

You may use the Realfact Website subject to compliance with these Terms and Conditions.

Users acknowledge that the RealFact website may be unavailable at times, for whatever reason.

RealFact, its owners, managers, employees, suppliers, Internet service providers, partners, affiliates, representatives and agents shall not be held liable for any damages or losses caused by access to, or inability to access the RealFact website, or any part thereof.

Access to the RealFact website and the use of any information contained therein, as well as the use of any product or service offered therein is at the user's sole risk.

The RealFact website is intended for general audiences. There are no areas on the RealFact website that should contain adult or mature content. The RealFact website is a dynamic website containing contributions from members and users. The RealFact website has various measures in place to ensure the suitability of user and member contributions to general audiences, but these measures are admittedly not fool-proof.

Where offensive, mature or adult content does appear on the RealFact website, users who are under age, or are not permitted to access such content under the laws of any applicable jurisdiction, may not access such content. There may also be other (mainly commerce-related) websites linked to from the RealFact website, not open to persons under 18 years of age. RealFact will require verified parental consent for anyone under the age of 13 that wants to access the RealFact website, products and services. Even with parental consent, certain areas of the RealFact website may, however, not be available to children under the age of 13 under any circumstances.

General read only access to the RealFact website and its contents are open to everyone who accepts and commits to these Terms And Conditions. Full access to the RealFact website as a RealFact member requires registration procedures and acceptance and compliance to these same Terms And Conditions, as well as any guidelines and rules that may be posted from time to time. The RealFact website may also offer other products or services from time to time that are governed by the terms of service of the respective service partners.

In order to use the RealFact website and its products an services, users must have access to the World Wide Web and must navigate the Internet to http://www.realfact.net or another of the URLs associated with the RealFact website.

You acknowledge and agree that RealFact may terminate your access to the RealFact website or to any part of the RealFact website, Products or Services,

1. should you fail to comply with the Terms And Conditions or any other guidelines and rules published by RealFact.
2. for any conduct that RealFact, in its sole discretion believes, is or may be directly or indirectly harmful to other users, the RealFact website or its subsidiaries, affiliates, business contractors, or to other third parties.
3. for any conduct that RealFact, in its sole discretion believes, is, or may be directly or indirectly in violation of any local, or foreign laws or regulations.
4. for any reason, or for no reason at all, in RealFact's sole discretion.

Terminations in terms of these provisions shall be in RealFact's sole discretion and may occur without prior notice, or any notice whatsoever.

RealFact does not discriminate on the basis of age, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or any personal status. In fact, RealFact would prefer not being informed of any such status.

RealFact makes the RealFact website available for access by users.

It is every user’s responsibility to acquire and maintain the necessary computer hardware, software, communication lines, Internet access accounts and any other infrastructure or services required to access the internet, the RealFact website, an email account or any other service needed to use the RealFact website at his/her own expense.

Full access to the RealFact website, as a RealFact member, will require the user to register and provide certain data. In consideration for the use of the RealFact website, in registering and providing such data, you represent and warrant that:

1. the information about yourself is true, accurate, current, and complete (apart from optional items) as required by RealFact registration forms and
2. you will maintain and update the registration data to keep it true, accurate, current and complete.

If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or RealFact has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, RealFact has the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any current or future use of the RealFact website.

All RealFact website registration data become the exclusive property of RealFact, its affiliates and subsidiaries. RealFact reserves the right to use and reuse all registration and other personally identifiable user information subject to the Privacy Policy. Users may edit, update, alter or obscure their personally identifiable information at any time by following the instructions located in the Privacy Policy.

RealFact does not make any warranties regarding the security of private information you submit through the RealFact website.

If you have authorized a minor to use the RealFact website, you accept full responsibility for:

1. the online conduct of such minor;
2. the minor's access to and use of the RealFact products and services; and
3. the consequences of any misuse of the RealFact website by the minor.

YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT SOME AREAS OF THE REALFACT WEBSITE MAY CONTAIN MATERIAL THAT IS INAPPROPRIATE FOR MINORS.

Certain material available on the Internet is not appropriate for minors. A number of parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available, to allow you to prevent or limit your children's access to such inappropriate materials. RealFact urges you to implement such parental control protections.

RealFact aims to safeguard and protect children who use the Internet by restricting our online collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. Because of these restrictions, children under 13 are not able to access or use all areas of the RealFact website, its products and services. Parents of children under 13 who authorize their children to use some areas of the RealFact website, its products or services, accept full responsibility for such child's safety.

Upon registering, you will choose a password and username that will allow you access to the RealFact website. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the password and username combination, and are fully responsible for all conduct that occur and content contributions made under your username. You agree to

1. immediately notify RealFact of any unauthorized use of your username or any other breach of security, and
2. ensure that you logout from the RealFact website at the end of each session, if using an unsecured computer.
3. refrain from including personal information in your user contributions, whether your own, or any third party's.

The RealFact website will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with these requirements.

You agree to cunduct yourself according to the Website Rules, as part of these Terms And Conditions

You declare and certify that the posts and content contributions you make to the RealFact website

1. is your original work and intellectual property
2. does not infringe on any other person's copyright or intellectual property rights, and that you have the right to bind such content to these Terms And Conditions.
3. are made at your sole risk, that you accept full responsibility for it, and that you hold RealFact blameless and without liability for any damage to any third party as a result of such content contributions.
4. becomes the sole property of the RealFact website and that RealFact has the right to edit, change, destroy, publish, distribute, sell, trade or give away such posts or content.
5. are in consideration for your access and use of the RealFact website and that RealFact does not have any further consideration obligation towards you, whether monetary or otherwise, in regard to the content contributions you make.

The RealFact community encourages active discussion and participation by members. As such, content may not be regulated.

Opinions, advice and all other information expressed by users and members in discussions or elsewhere are those of the author. You rely on such information at your own risk. You are urged to seek professional advice for specific, individual situations and not to rely on advice or opinions given in the content of the RealFact website.

You acknowledge and agree that you grant RealFact, in relation to any member and user content contributions, a world-wide, perpetual, royalty free license to use, copy, transmit, publish, distribute, promote, publicly display, publicly perform, create compilations, create derivative works, and grant any licenses to any third party to do the same, at RealFact's sole discretion.

Such license shall apply with respect to any media, form, or technology currently known or later developed.

Such license is granted in consideration for your use of, and access to the RealFact website.

The RealFact website does not control the user and member contributions posted via the RealFact website. RealFact will attempt to review all user and member contributions, and to take reasonable steps to ensure the quality and accuracy of such contributions to the RealFact website. However, RealFact does not make any warranties regarding the integrity, quality, suitability for any purpose or non-infringement of intellectual property rights of content available from the RealFact website, nor that content from the RealFact website is accurate or free from any errors.

No oral advice or written information given by RealFact, nor its officials, employees, affiliates, service providers, sponsors, licensers, users, or members, or anyone else, shall create a warranty; nor shall you rely on any such information or advice.

You acknowledge and agree that you must evaluate the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content available from the RealFact website, and bear all risks associated with the use of, or reliance on any content available from the RealFact website.

You acknowledge and agree that by using the products and services, you may be exposed to content that is untrue, offensive, indecent or objectionable. Under no circumstances will the RealFact website be liable in any way for any user or member contributed content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any such content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any such content posted, emailed or otherwise transmitted via the RealFact website.

Users are advised to obtain advice from legal, financial, and other professionals before acting on any information available from the RealFact website. You take full responsibility for your use of RealFact web content, and do so at your own risk.

You acknowledge and agree that all information, data, software, sound, pictures, video, messages, files, or other materials ("content"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, are the sole responsibility of the person from which such content originated. This means that you, and not the RealFact website, are entirely responsible for all content that gets uploaded, posted, emailed or otherwise transmitted via the RealFact website by you, or under your username.

RealFact does not pre-screen user or member contributions to the RealFact website, except for certain areas where RealFact may employ certain automated screening software, although RealFact reserves the right to do so. RealFact is not responsible in any way whatsoever for, nor does RealFact guarantee that any screening policing, editing, or monitoring of user and member contributed content will be done to your satisfaction, or that any will be done at all.

RealFact reserves the right to monitor some, all, or no areas of the RealFact website for adherence to these Terms and Conditions or any other rules or guidelines posted by RealFact.

The RealFact website, products and services may only be used for their intended purpose. The intended purpose of contribution editing areas, scripts or software on the RealFact website is to maintain, publish and produce contributions to the RealFact website that are consistent with these Terms And Conditions.

The RealFact website may also contain hyperlinks to related or unrelated web pages not under the control of RealFact. A link to a third party website does not mean that RealFact accepts responsibility for, endorses or warrants the use or content of such web site in any way whatsoever.

Under no circumstances shall RealFact or any other party involved in creating, producing, or distributing the RealFact website be liable for any damages that result from

1. mistakes, errors, defects or omissions in any RealFact website content,
2. use of the RealFact website,
3. inability to use the RealFact website, including, but not limited to your reliance on any information contributed to, or obtained from the RealFact website,
4. interruptions, delays, performance failure, file deletion, email or viruses, whether caused by acts of God, infrastructure failure, malicious acts, or not.

Users are encouraged to report erroneous or harmful content available from the RealFact website. RealFact will gladly correct any content if such report is accompanied by reasonable proof of such error or harm.

The User agrees that no legal action will be taken in this regard without reporting such content to RealFact and allowing reasonable time for corrections to be made.

If notified of allegedly infringing, defamatory, damaging, illegal, or offensive content, RealFact may investigate the allegation and determine in its sole discretion whether to remove or request the removal of such content from the RealFact website.

RealFact reserves the right to prohibit conduct, communication, or content that it deems in its sole discretion to be harmful to individual users or the RealFact website, infringe on any rights of RealFact or any third party, or violate any local or international law.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, neither RealFact nor its service providers, sponsors, or licensers can ensure prompt editing or removal of questionable content after member posting. Accordingly, neither RealFact, nor its affiliates, nor any of its officials or employees, nor its service providers, sponsors, or licensers shall be held liable for any action or inaction with respect to such conduct or content on the RealFact website.

You expressly acknowledge and agree that the RealFact website has the right (but not the obligation) to preserve and disclose content, if RealFact, in its own discretion believes that it is necessary for

1. compliance with legal process,
2. enforcing the Terms and Conditions,
3. responding to complaints, or
4. protecting the rights, property, or personal safety of RealFact, its users and/or the public.

RealFact hereby grants the user a non-exclusive and non-transferable license, which RealFact may terminate or cancel at any time, without prior notice or any communication, allowing you to:

1. access, browse and use the RealFact website for lawful purposes.
2. quote reasonable amounts of content available from the RealFact website, provided such quotes are placed in inverted commas and acknowledged, or accompanied by a HTML hyperlink to http://www.realfact.net if quoted in electronic format.
3. view, download and print the content of the RealFact website for private, personal, educational and/or non-commercial purposes. Content from the RealFact website may only be used for commercial or non-private purposes after obtaining written consent thereto from RealFact.
4. use the content for information purposes only.

Should you want to publish any part of the RealFact website or its contents in a publicly available format or publication, we require that you request permission to do so, and accept and abide by the provisions of the Limited Public License.

The RealFact website may under no circumstances be framed in any manner.

The RealFact web site and its contents may under no circumstances be electronically indexed, searched, copied, analyzed or cached using robots, spiders or similar scripts or mechanisms, except by bona fide search engine operators, without RealFact's prior written consent.

Contact and personal information available from the RealFact website may under no circumstances be used to target unsolicited communications at RealFact, its owners, managers, employees, suppliers, Internet service providers, partners, affiliates, representatives, agents, users, members or any other person.

Contact and personal information available from the RealFact web site may under no circumstances be incorporated into any database used for electronic marketing or similar purposes.

Hyperlinks to the RealFact website may under no circumstances be directed at files and components that are not bona fide web pages. In other words, link only to a RealFact webpage. Links to pictures, non-html pages and page components are not allowed. Examples of acceptable hyperlink formats are available from the Link To Us page. If you are unsure, direct your hyperlink to http://www.realfact.net (the home page of the RealFact web site).

You agree that you will not misuse the RealFact website, products and/or services. Any use of the RealFact website and its content that breach these Terms And Conditions shall be deemed to constitute misuse.

The Website Rules contain specific provisions regarding misuse of the RealFact Website and forms part of these Terms And Conditions

RealFact shall not be liable, in any way or form, for damages or losses resulting from any misuse by the user or any third party who obtained any misused content from the user. The user indemnifies RealFact against any damage, loss or liability that may result from the use of such content.

In the event of misuse of the RealFact website or its content, RealFact reserves the right to:

1. claim damages from the User and any third party who obtained any misused content from the User;
2. bring criminal proceedings against the User and any third party who obtained any misused content from the User.

RealFact is always looking to improve the RealFact website, products and services. If you have ideas regarding improvements or additions to the RealFact website, we would like to hear them.

Under no circumstances shall any suggestion or idea submitted to RealFact be subject to any obligation of confidentiality, or expectation of compensation.

By submitting the suggestion or idea to RealFact, you waive any rights you may have in the suggestion or idea, and represent and warrant that the suggestion or idea your own original suggestion or idea, that no one else has any rights in the idea, and that RealFact is free to implement the suggestion or idea if it so desires, in a fashion RealFact chooses, without obtaining permission or license from you or any third party.

All intellectual property on the RealFact website are protected from infringement by domestic and international legislation and treaties. No intellectual property on the RealFact website may be copied, distributed, displayed, reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, whether electronically, mechanically, otherwise, without prior written permission from RealFact.

Intellectual property on the RealFact website includes, but is not limited to, domain names, content, information, text, hyperlinks, meta tags, source code, software, databases, sounds, recordings, design elements, graphics, icons, trademarks and patents. These are the property of, or licensed to RealFact or a third party.

All intellectual property rights are expressly reserved.

You consent to receive electronic communications from RealFact concerning your use of the RealFact website, its products and services. RealFact may address such communications to the email address you provided in connection with your account or by posting the communication on the RealFact website.

You may change the email address to which RealFact sends communications by visiting your My Settings page and following the instructions included in the Privacy Policy.

The User shall be deemed to have received any data messages RealFact sends to the address available to RealFact.

Data messages sent to RealFact shall be deemed to have been sent and/or authorized by the User personally, and originate from within South Africa, and therefore fall under South African jurisdiction.

Although RealFact does not implement a communications intercept policy, the user agrees that RealFact has the right to intercept, block, filter, read, delete, disclose and use any communications sent or posted to the RealFact website, RealFact, it's staff and employees. The user agrees that the aforementioned consent satisfies the "writing" requirement as detailed in the ECT Act and the RIC Act.

Users may return goods or services within 7 (seven) days as detailed in section 44 of the ECT Act and only if such goods or services are not detailed in section 42(2) of the ECT Act; and

Users may lodge complaints concerning the RealFact website with RealFact by addressing an email to infoRealFact.net.

Please note that users who choose to send Internet email messages to RealFact do so entirely at their own risk.

All disputes regarding access to the RealFact website, the services and content available from the RealFact website and these Terms And Conditions shall be resolved in arbitration in terms of the expedited rules of the Arbitration Foundation of South Africa (http://www.arbitration.co.za). Such arbitration shall be conducted in Bloemfontein in English and/or Afrikaans. The arbitration ruling shall be binding and final. The unsuccessful party shall pay the costs of the successful party on a scale as between attorney and own client.

RealFact advises users to seek professional advice relating to these Terms and Conditions, but shall not be liable for such costs.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS PLEASE LEAVE THE REALFACT WEBSITE IMMEDIATELY.