Terms of Use — Intervac Trust Agreement

Last updated: April 22, 2023.

Welcome to Intervac!

By using Intervac’s website as a Member (as defined herein), you agree to be bound by these Terms. PLEASE READ THESE TERMS CAREFULLY. If you do not agree with these Terms or our Privacy Policy, do not use the Website or any of the services provided by Intervac.

Basic Principles

  1. You are only eligible to use the Website if you are at least 18 (eighteen) years of age.

  2. We work constantly to improve our services and develop new features to make our Website better for you and our community. As a result, we may need to update these Terms from time to time to accurately reflect our services and practices. Unless otherwise required by law, such changes will become applicable to you if you continue to use the Website at any time after such changes are posted. We will notify you of any changes made to these Terms by changing the “Last Updated” date at the top of these Terms. Review any changes, and if you do not agree to them, please stop using the Website.

Member Code of Conduct

  1. You must be fair and honest in your dealings with Intervac and other Members. In particular :

    1. You must ensure that the home offered for exchange is fully and accurately described and illustrated on your listing;
    2. You must ensure any Negotiation with other Members is conducted in good faith with an intent of completing a Home Exchange as Paid member
    3. You must be open, truthful, fair and reasonable in all such Negotiations;
    4. You must be courteous and polite in all dealings with other Members and must be responsive to all reasonable requests.
    5. You will not post or send to Members any content, such as text or photos, that might be unlawful, offensive, discriminatory, fraudulent or that breaches someone else's rights (including, but not limited to, intellectual property rights, and rights of privacy and publicity).
    6. You may not upload viruses or malicious code, or do anything that could disable, overburden or impair the proper working or appearance of our Website.
    7. You may not access or collect data from our Website using automated means or attempt to access data that you do not have permission to access.
    8. You must keep confidential at all times all information obtained on the Website and all other information obtained from Members.

  2. You may not act in a manner that brings Intervac into disrepute.

  3. Intervac reserves the right to cancel any membership for any reason, including, but not limited to, violations of these Terms of Use or Privacy Policy. This cancellation will be done at our discretion, without refund.

Your Listing

  1. You must ensure that

    1. the Property is available for exchange
    2. the Property is clean, cleaned and tidy
    3. the Property presents no risk to its occupants
    4. the Property contains all the facilities described in its Listing in perfect working condition.

  2. Your Property should be fully insured for fire, theft, burglary and accidental damage. If this is not the case, you need to inform your Exchange Partner in writing before the exchange agreement is signed.

  3. If a motor vehicle is offered for exchange

    1. You must ensure that the vehicle offered for exchange is in good working order and legally compliant
    2. You must ensure that the vehicle is comprehensively insured, except if otherwise agreed with the Exchange Partner

Respect for Property

  1. Members must ensure that they respect each others' Property at all times and in particular;

    1. You must ensure that you will keep your Exchange Partners’ Property reasonably secure at all times and comply with the terms of any applicable insurance policies and with requests communicated to them by the owner;
    2. You accept responsibility for any uninsured damage caused by you to the exchange Property, even if negligently.

Pets

  1. You must ensure that any Pets are, to the best of your knowledge, free of vermin, worms and fleas, vaccinated and otherwise free of health risks and clean.

  2. You must also ensure that areas of the Property to which pets have access are cleaned.

  3. You must apply high standards of care to Pets.

Responsibility for negotiations

  1. You are solely responsible for all negotiations for Home Exchange with other Members.

  2. Any disagreements arising from the use of the Website must be settled between the Members who directly participated in the Exchange.

  3. Intervac will offer to mediate disagreements between members without assuming any responsibility for subsequent resolution or failure to resolve.

  4. Intervac may terminate or suspend, temporarily or permanently, the memberships of any members involved in an unresolved disagreement. No refunds will be provided in the event of such suspension or termination.

Exchange Guarantee

  1. We are so confident you will find an Exchange Partner that if, within the first year of listing your Property with us, you don't complete a Home Exchange; we will extend your membership for free for another year. This guarantee does not apply in the case of cancellation of an exchange agreement (whatever the reason) and/or in the event of force majeure.

  2. For this guarantee to apply:

    1. You must have posted your Listing, fully completed with photos and descriptive texts, and it must be «open for exchange».
    2. You must have sent at least fifty exchange requests to other members.
    3. You must notify your National Representative of your intent to claim your free extension before the end of your membership.

Exchange Cancellation

  1. To cancel a signed Exchange Agreement you MUST present a valid and serious reason such as death, illness or other unforeseen circumstances beyond the Member's control.

  2. You must inform your National Representative before cancellation of an Exchange Agreement including the reasons for the cancellation. This must be done as soon as the need to cancel the Exchange Agreement arises.

  3. You are responsible for any costs incurred by your Exchange Partner as a result of cancellation without reason considered valid by the National Representative and your membership might be terminated.

Liability limitations

  1. Intervac is only responsible for publishing home listings of its members on the Site.

  2. Intervac Home Exchanges are based on mutual trust. Intervac does not verify the existence or content of any Property and is not responsible for the accuracy of the home listings or the actions of members, and claims no responsibility for the accuracy, content, or availability of information accessed or linked to through use of this service.

  3. Intervac cannot be held responsible for any events that occur as a result of any Exchange.

  4. To the fullest extent permitted by law we and our representatives, hereby disclaim all liability for any loss, cost or damage (direct, indirect, consequential ,or otherwise) suffered by you as a result of your use of our Website

Availability and termination

  1. Members may make their listing “Available” or “Not available” at any time and at no charge by logging in and choosing that option in their dashboard.

  2. Should a member choose to terminate their membership, they may do so by using the Profile Deletion tool available in the "Useful links" section of their dashboard.

  3. Refunds will not be given when members terminate their membership.

Definitions

“Active membership” means the status of a Trial Member, Paid Member or Expired Member that has logged in to the site in the past year or that has not reach its expiry date.

“Exchange” means the act of making your home or other accommodation (as described in your “Listing”) available to your “Exchange Partner”. In return, your “Exchange Partner” will make his home or other accommodation available to you. This may happen at the same time or not.

“Exchange agreement” means the agreement between you and your “Exchange Partner” established using the “Website”

“Exchange Partner” means a “Member” with whom you “Exchange”.

“Host Member” means a “Member” offering the use of his or her property to another “Member” pursuant to an “Exchange” agreed to in accordance with these terms.

“Hosted Member” means a “Member” using the property belonging to a “Host Member” pursuant to an Exchange agreed to in accordance with terms.

“Guest” means a person that uses the Website but that is not a Member.

“Listing” means the presentation of a “Property” in the “Website”. Each “Listing” has a unique identification number on the Website.

“Expired member” is a person who had a membership with Intervac but the expiry date for this membership has been reached.

“Member” is a Paid member or a Trial member.

"Negotiation" means any negotiation conducted orally or in writing, including, but not limited to, using Website messages and e-mail.

“Paid member” is a person who has a paid membership with Intervac that has not reached its expiry date.

"Pet" means a dog, cat or other pet and includes any animal or bird that might occupy a Member's property, garden or surroundings.

“Property” means any property published on the Website by a Member. Properties may include, without limitation, homes, townhomes, flats, condominiums, apartments, boats, recreational vehicles (RV), and any type of property which can reasonably be expected to provide a nightly accommodation and which you have the legal and contractual right to offer.

"Representative" and "National Representative" means an Agent or Organiser of Intervac in a specific country or region.

“Trial member” is a person who has a free membership with Intervac that has not reached its expiry date.

“Website” means the internet website available at www.intervac-homeexchange.com and all connected home exchange services managed by Intervac International.

“We”, “us”, “our,” and the “Club” means Intervac; and

“You”, “your”, “ yourself” means any Member or Guest who uses any of the Website and/or accesses the services of the Club.

References to the plural include references to the singular and vice versa.

References to any gender include references to all other genders.

Headings are for convenience only and do not affect the interpretation of any Rule.