Terms of use

Please read these terms and conditions carefully before using this site as they are a legally binding agreement between you and us.
Terms of use last updated: 5th Apr 2024

Firefly Homes use www.hipla.co.uk to power this website (and any page ending in hipla.co.uk), which is provided by Hipla Ltd.

These terms tell you the rules for using this website or any variation of it which is powered by www.hipla.co.uk (referred to as the "Site"). Throughout this document we refer to them as the "Terms". A reference to "you" or "your" is a reference to the user of this Site.

  1. Who we are and how to contact us
    1. We are Hipla Ltd (company number 10399931) (referred to as "we" or "us" or "our") and we are the providers of the Site.
    2. To contact us, please use the contact form here.
  2. By using our site you accept these terms
    1. These Terms set out all of the rules and obligations that apply to your use of the Site.
    2. By using our Site, you confirm that you accept these Terms and that you agree to comply with them. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use our Site.
    3. We recommend that you print and keep a copy of these Terms for future reference. They are a legally binding agreement between you and us.
    4. These Terms may also make reference to other terms that apply when using our Site, such as our Privacy Policy. By using our Site, you consent to the processing of your data in accordance with these policies.
  3. We may make changes to our terms
    1. We amend these Terms from time to time by updating them on the Site. Every time you wish to use our Site, please check these Terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time.
  4. We may make changes to our Site
    1. We may from time to time change the content of this Site or suspend or discontinue any aspect of this Site, which may include your access to it. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any major changes.
  5. Your obligations and acceptable use
    1. You accept that you are solely responsible for ensuring that your computer system meets all relevant technical specification necessary to use this Site and that your computer system is compatible with this Site.
    2. You must not misuse our system or this Site. In particular, you must not hack into, circumvent security or otherwise disrupt the operation of our system and this Site, or attempt to carry out any of the foregoing. This includes introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is or could be malicious or technologically harmful. You must not misuse any forms on the Site and any information you submit must not be knowingly false.
    3. You must not use or attempt to use any automated program (including, without limitation, any spider or other web crawler) to access our system or this Site, or to fill in and/or send forms on our Site, or to search, display or obtain links to any part of this Site, other than the home page at www.hipla.co.uk, unless the automated program identifies itself uniquely in the User Agent field and is fully compliant with the Robots Exclusion Protocol (a "Permitted Program"). You must not use any scraping technology on the Site. Any such use or attempted use of an automated program (other than a Permitted Program) shall be a misuse of our system and this Site. Obtaining access to any part of our system or this Site by means of any such automated programs (other than a Permitted Program) is strictly prohibited.
    4. You must not upload or use inappropriate or offensive language or content or solicit any commercial services in any communication, form or email you send or submit, from or to the Site.
    5. Whenever you make use of features that allow you to upload content to our Site, or to make contact with other users via our Site, you must comply with the content standards set out in these Terms. Please see clause 6 below. You warrant that any such contribution does comply with the standards mentioned in clause 6 and you will be liable to us and indemnify us against any breach of this warranty.
    6. If you are a business user:
      1. If you are an estate agent:
        1. For any property valuation request that you receive via Hipla, you agree to:
          1. Respond to the client within 3 business days of receiving the valuation request.
          2. Input the property valuation details into Hipla within 3 business days of conducting the valuation.
        2. For any new buyer wishing to register their details with you via Hipla, you agree to:
          1. Respond to the client within 3 business days of receiving their request to confirm that you have received their details.
  6. Interactive services and content
    1. By using our Site you consent for your data to be processed and shared as per our Privacy Policy.
    2. By using our Site users are also bound by Google's Terms of Service.
    3. We reserve the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such content necessary to facilitate the functionality of the Site. When doing so, this will be done in accordance with our Privacy Policy. We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who claims or alleges that content posted or uploaded by you to our Site breaches that third parties legal rights.
    4. The views expressed by users on our Site do not represent our views or values.
    5. All content that you upload to our Site must:
      1. Be accurate (where you state facts); and
      2. Be genuinely held (where you state opinions); and
      3. Comply with the applicable law of the country from which they were posted.
    6. Your content must not:
      1. Contain any material which is defamatory of any person; or
      2. Contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful, discriminatory, unethical, immoral or inflammatory; or
      3. Contain any material which does or could potentially infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party.
    7. We will determine in our discretion whether there has been a breach of this clause 6. Where a breach of this policy has occurred we may take such action as we deem appropriate. This action may include the following:
      1. immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our Site;
      2. immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to our Site;
      3. further legal action against you; and
      4. disclosure of such information to law enforcement or authorities as we reasonably feel necessary.
    8. In addition to all of our rights set out above, we reserve the right to take down any content that you upload to our Site at any time without notice and without having to give a reason.
  7. Registration
    1. To gain access to certain details and services on our Site you will need to register (free of charge) as a Hipla user. You must be at least 18 years of age to register. At our discretion, we may refuse your application for registration. If we accept your application for registration, you will be given access at the point of application.
    2. Each registration is for a single user only. You must not share your username and password with any other person or with multiple users on a network.
    3. You undertake that all information provided by you for the purposes of registering with us is accurate and complete.
    4. You accept sole responsibility for all use of and for keeping secret any password that may have been given to you or chosen by you for use on this Site. You will notify us immediately of any unauthorised use of them or any other breach of security of this Site of which you become aware.
    5. We have the right to disable any account or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these Terms.
  8. Intellectual property
    1. The copyright and all other intellectual property rights in this Site (including all database rights, trade marks, service marks, trading names, text, graphics, code, files, links and other materials published on it) belong to us or our licensor(s). All rights are reserved.
    2. Subject to clause 5, you may download material from this Site for the sole purpose of using this Site where we provide an option for you to do so. However, you must not copy, transmit, modify, republish, store (in whole or in part), frame, pass-off or link to any material or information on or downloaded from this Site without our prior written consent.
    3. The devices and word marks:"HIPLA", "HOME BUYER PASSPORT" and "PROPERTY HANDSHAKE" are our registered trade marks. You must not use or copy them without our prior written consent.
  9. Conveyancing & mortgage referral services
    1. Our site provides the ability for you to receive conveyancing and mortgage quote estimates from partnered conveyancers and mortgage brokers.
    2. We reserve the right to remove or limit this service at any point.
    3. The availability of partnered conveyancers and mortgage brokers to provide a quote estimates depends on their availability and if applicable their relationship with your estate agent and whether your estate agent has turned this service on.
    4. If you use our site to get a quote estimate, you are entirely responsible for ensuring that the data you provide is accurate.
    5. Where a quote estimate is generated, it will have been generated based on the data you (or someone on your behalf) has provided. Should this data be inaccurate then it is likely that the resulting quote estimate will be inaccurate.
    6. Please note whilst every effort has been made to ensure that a quote estimate provided is accurate, some cases however can be substantially more complex or have unexpected issues. In those instances additional fees may be payable to your conveyancer or mortgage broker.
    7. Please read any ancillary notes provided with your quote estimate as this may include important information with regards to how the quote estimate has been calculated and any disclaimers or additional fees which may be applicable.
    8. Automated quote estimates are only valid the the moment in time they are created and are subjected to change.
    9. If you accept an automated quote estimate on our site, then we will pass your details onto the conveyancer or mortgage broker so that they can contact you separately in order to agree a final quote.
    10. Where an automated quote estimate cannot be immediately calculated, then you will be able to request a quote estimate. In this case we will pass your details onto the conveyancer or mortgage broker so that they can contact you and provide an accurate quote.
    11. By utilising our conveyancer or mortgage broker referral services you explicitly give permission for HIPLA to pass any and all personal information to the chosen conveyancer or mortgage broker in order to facilitate the service itself while at the same time being subject to the conditions outlined in our Privacy Policy.
    12. We do not accept any liability for the accuracy of quote estimates, or supporting notes and disclaimers provided with these quote estimates. It is the responsibility of the individual conveyancer or mortgage broker to ensure that their fee schedule used to calculate quote estimates is up to date.
    13. Referral Fees: The conveyancers and mortgage brokers who provide quote estimates through our site reserve the right to pay a referral fee to us and or your estate agent. Where this happens this will be paid directly by the conveyancer or mortgage broker from their own fees and there will be no additional charge to yourself. If you have been referred by an estate agent and would like to know the size of the referral fee then please contact the estate agent directly, as it is determined on a case by case basis.
    14. You are not under any obligation to use the services of the conveyancers or mortgage brokers on our site and are free at all times to instruct your own conveyancer or mortgage broker to represent your property purchase or sale.
  10. Warranty
    1. Whilst we endeavour to ensure that any material available for downloading from this Site is not contaminated in any way, we do not warrant that such material will be free from infection, viruses and/or similar code.
    2. Due to the nature of software and the internet, we do not warrant that your access to, or the running of, this Site will be uninterrupted or error free. We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any part of our Site without notice. We shall not be liable if we cannot process your details due to circumstances beyond our reasonable control.
    3. The information provided on this Site is for general interest only and does not constitute specific advice. Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our Site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our Site is accurate, complete or up to date.
    4. We give no warranties or representations that property information or information about a buyer or seller on this Site is correct, accurate or up-to-date.
    5. We give no warranty or guarantee that the Site or information available on it complies with laws other than those of England.
    6. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to our Site or any content on it, whether express or implied.
    7. We are not an estate agency. The details of the properties, buyers and sellers available on this Site are provided by users themselves and/or by third party estate agents for your information only. We do not verify their details provided to us (although the third party estate agents can independently verify some of the details provided by the users themselves) and therefore we give no warranties or representations as to their accuracy or completeness. If you rely on these details, you do so at your own risk. We recommend that you check all details with the estate agency or property lawyer concerned before making any decisions or taking any action in regards to details available on our Site.
    8. Where necessary, we provide a service to reformat data provided by users into the format required by the Law Society Transaction Protocol Forms (also known as the TA6, TA7 and TA10). To remove any technical risk of data being reformatted incorrectly, these forms should always be read in conjunction with the original data provided by the original user directly within their Hipla Digital Legal Pack.
    9. We do not control, endorse or adopt any content provided from the Sites third party due diligence process and makes no representation or warranties of any kind regarding without limitation its accuracy or completeness. Any acceptance of content by the User is done so solely at their own risk.
  11. Barring from the site
    1. We reserve the right to bar users from this Site and/or restrict or disable their access or use of any or all elements of our services, on a permanent or temporary basis at our sole discretion.
    2. If you have been barred from the Site you must not attempt to use or access it under any other name.
  12. We may suspend or withdraw our site
    1. We do not guarantee that our Site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our Site for business and operational reasons.
    2. You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these Terms and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.
  13. Our site is only for users in the UK
    1. Our Site is directed to people residing in the United Kingdom. We do not represent that content available on or through our site is appropriate for use or available in other locations.
  14. We are not responsible for websites we link to
    1. This Site may contain links to websites operated by third parties. We have no control over their individual content. We give no warranties or representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any of the information appearing in relation to any linked websites. The links are for your convenience only. We do not recommend any products or services advertised on those websites. If you decide to access any third party website linked from this Site, you do so at your own risk.
  15. Rules about linking to our site
    1. You must not include links to this Site in any other Site without our prior written consent. In particular (but without limiting the foregoing) you must not include in any other Site any "deep link" to any page on this Site. You may link to our home page at www.hipla.co.uk, to a Hipla estate agent registration URL (in the format https://www.hipla.co.uk/agent/{agent-ID}) or to a Digital Legal pack (in the format https://www.hipla.co.uk/digital-legal-pack?property={ID}) provided that you give credit and reference to HIPLA, do not frame (or iframe) it and do so in a way that does not (in our reasonable opinion) damage our reputation or expose us to risk. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice and without giving a reason.
    2. Our Site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our Site other than those listed above, with the above provisions and with prior written consent.
    3. You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
  16. Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you
    1. Whether you are a consumer or a business user we do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
    2. Subject to clause 15.1, we will not be liable for any failures due to software or Internet errors or unavailability, or any other circumstances beyond our reasonable control.
    3. Subject to clause 15.1, we do not accept any liability for loss of your password, account ID, personal or property data caused by a breakdown, error, loss of power or otherwise caused by or to your computer system.
    4. We may put in place such systems as we from time to time see fit to prevent automated programs being used to obtain unauthorised access to our system and this Site. You are not permitted to use automated programs for such purposes. Subject to clause 15.1, we shall not be liable to you for any consequences arising out of or in connection with any such use or attempted use of automated programs to obtain unauthorised access to our system or this Site.
    5. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a virus, distributed denial of service attack or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of our Site or to your downloading of any content on it, or any website linked to it.
    6. When you use the features on this Site to contact a 3rd party business or consent to a 3rd party business either contacting you or performing a service for you, we do not accept any liability for any subsequent communications that you receive directly from that 3rd party business.
    7. If you are a consumer user:
      1. Please note that we only provide our Site for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our Site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
      2. We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
      3. We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
        1. use of, or inability to use, our Site; or
        2. use of or reliance on any content displayed on or generated by our Site.
      4. In particular, we will not be liable for:
        1. loss of profits, sales or income;
        2. loss of anticipated savings;
        3. loss of opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
        4. any indirect or consequential loss or damage
      5. If you apply for and obtain any product or service through our site from a 3rd party, you will be contracting with a third party who will be providing that product or service to you on their own terms and conditions. We are not responsible or liable for any loss or damage you may suffer or incur in connection with any product or service you obtain from them or for any acts, omissions, errors or defaults of any third party in connection with that product or service.
    8. If you are a business user, subject to clause 15.1:
      1. We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
      2. We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
        1. use of, or inability to use, our Site; or
        2. use of or reliance on any content displayed on or generated by our Site.
      3. In particular, we will not be liable for:
        1. loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
        2. business interruption;
        3. loss of anticipated savings;
        4. loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
        5. any indirect or consequential loss or damage
  17. Business/Professional Users Only
    1. Company and personal profiles
      1. If you are a business, you agree to ensure your business related information within your personal and company profiles is/are correct.
    2. Invoice payments
      1. If you are a business, all invoices must be paid within 14 calendar days of issuance. Failure to pay within 14 calendar days of issuance will result in a fine of 5% being applied to the original invoice amount. Subsequent failure to pay within 1 calendar month may result in the removal of your company (and associated professional user accounts) from Hipla.
      2. We reserve the right to change penalties for late payment of invoices.
      3. If there is disagreement between our professional users as to the validity of a specific invoice, we will collect information from both parties and provide a decision with regards to the validity of the invoice. Our decision is final and subsequent use of Hipla requires acceptance of our decision.
    3. Mortgage & financial advisors
      1. Your services are promoted to Hipla users on the basis of the data in your profile being accurate. Where Hipla provides you a customer lead, you agree to arrange them an 'Agreement in Principle' and to provide services on the basis of the data provided in your profile.
    4. Conveyancer referral services
      1. Hipla requires all conveyancers to respond to any quote request within 3 days of receipt and failure to do so may result in the conveyancer being suspended from supplying services to users via the website.
      2. Hipla requires all conveyancers to ensure that Hipla has accurate, honest and up to date information with regards to their service offering, for the purposes of representing their service offering and if applicable providing accurate automated quote estimates.
    5. Barring from the site
      1. We reserve the right to bar, restrict, disable or remove company (and associated professional users) accounts from Hipla, on a permanent or temporary basis at our sole discretion. Any such user shall be notified and must not then attempt to use this Site under any other name or through any other user.
  18. Which country's laws apply to any disputes?
    1. If you are a consumer, please note that these Terms, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.
    2. If you are a business, these Terms, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
  19. Customer feedback and quality
    1. We try to ensure that all customer feedback is dealt with fairly and consistently, and is properly recorded. We welcome any suggestions that you make about how we may improve our service. Please contact us here. We aim to acknowledge all customer feedback.
    2. All phone calls may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes.
  20. General
    1. We reserve the right to change the pricing for access to or for use of specific features of this Site.
    2. If a court decides that any part of these Terms cannot be enforced, that particular part of these Terms will not apply, but the rest of these Terms will. A waiver by a party of a breach of any provision shall not be deemed a continuing waiver or a waiver of any subsequent breach of the same or any other provisions. Failure or delay in exercising any right under these Terms shall not prevent the exercise of that or any other right. You may not assign or transfer any benefit, interest or obligation under these Terms. The provisions of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 shall not apply to these Terms.