Terms of Use

These Terms of Use are the agreement between you and FILTERATY Ltd. ("Filteraty", "we", "us"), an Ontario company based in Toronto, for your use of the Filteraty website, mobile apps, and related services (together, the "Service").

You accept these Terms by checking the acceptance box when you create an account, or — for contractors — as described in the Contractor Terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the Service. You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract.

Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy and our Reviews & Content Policy, and — if you are a contractor — the Contractor Terms, each of which forms part of this agreement.

Filteraty is a referral and credential-transparency service. We do three things:

• We give homeowners tools to describe a renovation project (a guided form, or an optional AI-assisted photo assessment).
• We match described projects to independent contractors who have applied to be listed and passed our screening, and we publish a verification record stating exactly what we checked about each listed contractor, when, and from which source.
• We host the messaging between homeowner and contractor up to the point of introduction.

Filteraty is not a contractor and does not perform, supervise, inspect, or approve renovation work. We are not a general contractor, construction manager, architect, engineer, home inspector, permit authority, or employer or agent of any contractor on the platform. Contractors on Filteraty are independent businesses. Nothing in these Terms, and nothing in how the Service works, creates an employment, agency, partnership, or joint-venture relationship between Filteraty and any homeowner or contractor.

Any contract for renovation work is directly between the homeowner and the contractor. Filteraty is not a party to it. You negotiate scope, price, schedule, and payment directly with each other and pay each other directly. Filteraty does not process, hold, escrow, or release payment for renovation work, takes no commission on your project, and does not adjudicate disputes about the work or the money.

• Keep your account information accurate and your password confidential. You are responsible for activity under your account.
• One person or business, one account.
• Tell us promptly at info@filteraty.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
• We record the version of these Terms you accepted and when, so both of us can prove what was agreed.

Use of the Service is currently free for homeowners and contractors. We do not charge for posting a project, being matched, messaging, or being listed.

We reserve the right to introduce fees for parts of the Service in the future. If we do:

• if a fee would apply to a feature you are already using, we will give you at least 30 days’ advance notice before it can affect you (a brand-new, optional paid offering may launch without a pre-announcement — it simply cannot touch you unless you opt in);
• no existing free feature you are using will start charging you without your express, affirmative opt-in — you would have to actively agree to the fee (for example, by subscribing) before being charged. We will never treat silence, inaction, or continued use of a free account as agreement to pay;
• any paid offering will state its price, billing period, renewal terms, and how to cancel before you agree to it, and will include a review-and-confirm step before any charge.

If you use Filteraty as a homeowner, you agree that:

• You will describe your project honestly and completely. Matching quality depends on it, and false postings are an abuse of the contractors’ time.
• You will only upload photos and documents you have the right to share, and you will avoid including other people in photos where you can.
• You choose which contractor to hire, and on what terms. Our verification record tells you what we checked and when — it is information to support your own decision, not a recommendation, endorsement, or guarantee. Satisfy yourself about a contractor’s licence, insurance, references, and suitability before hiring. Where a public registry exists, we link to it so you can check the credential yourself.
• You contract and pay the contractor directly. Put the scope, price, schedule, and payment terms in writing between you before work starts. Ontario consumer-protection law gives you rights in your contract with the contractor — including rules about written contracts, estimates, and cancellation for agreements negotiated in your home — and those rights exist between you and the contractor, not between you and Filteraty.
• Building permits are the property owner’s legal responsibility under Ontario’s Building Code Act, even where a contractor is authorized to apply for them on the owner’s behalf. Filteraty does not determine whether your project needs a permit and does not verify permit status. Determining and obtaining any required permits is between you, your contractor, and your municipality.
• Telling us when you hire someone (the "hire report") is voluntary. It is how reviews get anchored to real work, and a review from a confirmed hire is worth more to the next homeowner.

The verification record on a contractor’s profile states specific, point-in-time facts: what credential we checked, the public registry number where one exists, the status and expiry we saw, and the date we checked it.

It means exactly that, and no more:

• A verification is a statement that a specific check was completed on a specific date against a specific source. It is not a statement that the credential is still valid today, and not a guarantee, endorsement, or certification of the contractor, their skills, or their work.
• Credentials lapse, and circumstances change after our check. Where a credential we display has expired, we say so rather than hiding it.
• A credential marked "not required" or "exempt" is a neutral fact with a stated reason (for example, Ontario’s WSIB home-renovator exemption for contractors working directly for occupants with no employees). It is not a red flag — and it is also not an assurance. In particular, WSIB exemption does not reduce the value of asking your contractor about their coverage.
• We never publish insurance policy numbers, identity documents, criminal-record contents, or dates of birth.
• Filteraty is not a licensing body. The issuing regulator or registry is always the authority on a credential’s current status, and we link to public registries so you can verify directly.

We take reasonable care to record verification facts accurately. If you find an error in a verification record, tell us at info@filteraty.com and we will investigate and correct it.

The optional AI assessment feature produces a preliminary, automated suggestion: a likely trade category, a rough sense of urgency, and an indicative price range based on regional GTA data.

• The output is informational triage to help you describe your project and get matched. It is not a professional inspection, engineering assessment, architectural evaluation, code-compliance opinion, or quote, and it is not professional advice of any kind. Only a qualified professional who has seen your property can assess it, and only your contractor can quote it.
• Do not rely on the AI assessment for decisions affecting safety or habitability — structural concerns, electrical hazards, gas, fire, or water damage that could worsen. If you think a situation may be dangerous, contact a licensed professional or your utility’s emergency line directly.
• Any price range shown is an indicative estimate, not an offer or a quote. Actual prices are set by contractors after seeing the work.
• The feature sends what you submit — photos, video, voice recordings, and your description — to a third-party AI provider for processing, as described in our Privacy Policy. Using the feature is optional — the standard posting form does the same job without AI analysis.

Reviews are governed by our Reviews & Content Policy, which forms part of these Terms. The short version: reviews must reflect a genuine experience of real work by the reviewed contractor, only homeowners who have told us they hired the contractor can review that contractor, and we remove content that breaks the policy — but we do not remove or suppress a review merely because it is negative, and nothing in these Terms restricts your right to honestly review a business.

You keep ownership of the content you post (project descriptions, photos, messages, reviews). You grant Filteraty a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, and display that content as needed to operate and provide the Service — for example, showing your project to matched contractors, or displaying your review on a contractor’s profile. This licence does not extend to using homeowner content in marketing; any future marketing use would need its own consent. The licence ends for content you delete, except where the content has already been shared with another user as part of the Service (for example, messages you sent, or content another user has already received), or where we must retain it by law. We do not sell your content. How AI-assessment submissions are handled is described in our Privacy Policy.

You agree not to:

• post false, misleading, or fraudulent projects, credentials, or reviews;
• misrepresent who you are, or use the Service on someone else’s behalf without authority;
• harass, threaten, or discriminate against another user;
• contact users for purposes unrelated to a genuine project, including recruiting, marketing, or soliciting them off-platform for services other than the posted project;
• scrape, crawl, or bulk-extract data from the Service, or use it to build a competing database or to train a machine-learning model;
• probe, attack, overload, or interfere with the security or integrity of the Service, or attempt to access another user’s account or data;
• use automated systems to create accounts or submit projects, messages, or reviews;
• use the Service for anything unlawful.

We have no tolerance for abusive, threatening, hateful or sexual content, or for harassment, in messages or anywhere else on the Service. In any conversation you can report the other person to us, and you can block them so they can no longer message you. We review every report, normally within one business day, and we remove content and suspend or close accounts that break this section.

You may close your account at any time from Settings.

We may suspend or terminate an account, remove a listing, or restrict access if: these Terms or an incorporated policy is breached; an account presents a safety, fraud, or legal risk to users or to Filteraty; a contractor’s required credentials have lapsed and not been reinstated; or the account has been used to manipulate reviews or matching. Where practicable we will tell you the reason and give you an opportunity to respond; where the risk is immediate we may act first and explain afterwards.

Closing or losing your Filteraty account does not affect any contract you have already made with another user — that agreement is between the two of you and continues on its own terms. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 6, 8, 11–14, and 16) survive it.

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent permitted by applicable law, we disclaim implied warranties and conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, and we do not warrant that:

• matching will find you a suitable contractor, or any contractor;
• any contractor will respond, quote, show up, or perform work to any standard — the contractor’s work, workmanship, timeliness, and pricing are entirely between you and the contractor;
• indicative estimates (AI-generated or otherwise) will match actual prices;
• the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components.

Informational content on the Service — guides, articles, pricing references, and similar material — is general information for the GTA market, not legal, financial, engineering, architectural, or other professional advice.

Nothing in this section (or these Terms) excludes or limits rights you have under Ontario consumer-protection law that cannot be excluded or limited, and nothing in these Terms limits our responsibility for our own statements in a way the law does not allow.

To the extent permitted by applicable law:

• Filteraty is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for loss of profit, data, or goodwill, arising from use of the Service or from any dealing between you and another user;
• Filteraty is not liable for the acts, omissions, work, or conduct of any contractor or homeowner — they are independent parties you contract with directly;
• our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the amounts you paid Filteraty in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) CAD $500.

These limitations do not apply to: liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence; or any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including Ontario consumer-protection law. Nothing in these Terms excludes remedies you have under the Consumer Protection Act for unfair practices.

You will indemnify FILTERATY Ltd. against third-party claims, losses, and reasonable legal costs to the extent caused by: your breach of these Terms; your content, where you did not have the right to post it; or your unlawful use of the Service. For contractors, the broader indemnity in the Contractor Terms applies instead of this section.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable in Ontario.

Disputes arising from these Terms or the Service are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Ontario, and you and we each agree to that jurisdiction — including Small Claims Court where the claim qualifies.

There is no mandatory arbitration in these Terms, and nothing in these Terms prevents you from starting or joining a class proceeding, or limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act. Nothing in these Terms shortens any limitation period that applies to your claims.

If you have a problem, we would genuinely like to fix it before anyone files anything: info@filteraty.com. Contacting us first is an invitation, not a precondition to any legal right you have.

Disputes about renovation work, its price, its quality, or its completion are between the homeowner and the contractor, under their own contract and applicable law. Filteraty does not adjudicate them and cannot reverse payments it never handled.

We may update these Terms. Each version carries a version number and effective date, and we keep prior versions available on request.

• For material changes — anything that reduces your rights or expands your obligations — we will notify signed-in users (by email or in-app notice) at least 30 days before the change takes effect, and continuing to use the Service after that date means you accept the updated Terms.
• A change that introduces a new fee never applies to you through notice alone — see Section 4: fees always require your express opt-in.
• For non-material changes (clarifications, typo fixes, feature renames), the updated version applies when posted.

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect, and the unenforceable provision is limited to the minimum extent necessary. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign this agreement; we may assign it as part of a reorganization or sale of the business, on notice to you and subject to these Terms continuing to apply. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Reviews & Content Policy, and (for contractors) the Contractor Terms are the entire agreement between you and Filteraty about the Service.

FILTERATY Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada — info@filteraty.com