Cancellations & Refunds

The short version

Put the other way round, because it is the part people are surprised by: NearbyRents has no cancellation policy for rentals and pays no refunds on them. There is no booking held by us to cancel, no payment taken by us to return, and no compensation scheme of any kind. If a rental falls through — whoever cancelled, for whatever reason, however unfairly — the money is where you sent it, and getting it back is a matter between you and the other person.

We are a notice board that introduced you. We are not a party to your rental, we take no commission from it, and we accept no responsibility for what happens to it. See Terms & Conditions for the full position.

1. Renting an item

NearbyRents introduces you to the owner. The rate, the deposit, the dates and the handover are agreed between you, and the payment goes straight to the owner — in cash, by UPI, or however you arrange it. We never hold it, and we cannot reverse it.

If you are the renter

• Agree the cancellation terms before you pay anything. Ask, in the chat, what happens if you cancel — the written message is your record.
• Cancel by telling the owner as early as you can. A costume released two days before a wedding can usually be re-let; two hours before, it cannot.
• A security deposit is the owner’s to return once the item comes back in the condition it went out. If it is withheld unfairly, that is a dispute with the owner — see disputes.

If you are the owner

• State your cancellation and deposit terms in the listing, plainly.
• Honour what you agreed in writing. We will act on a pattern of not doing so.
• If you cancel on a renter at short notice, return what they paid. Taking money for a rental you do not provide is fraud, and we treat it that way.

2. Booking a ground or venue slot

Slot payments go directly to the venue, usually by UPI to the venue’s own account. NearbyRents is not in that payment path and cannot recall it.

• Cancellation terms are set by the venue and shown on its page. Read them before you pay — they vary a great deal between venues.
• To cancel, contact the venue. If they agree a refund, they make it directly.
• If a venue takes payment and then cannot honour the slot, tell us. We cannot return the money, but we can act on the venue’s listing and account, and a venue that does this repeatedly is removed.

3. NearbyRents subscriptions (businesses)

A business listing a venue pays NearbyRents for a subscription period. This is the one payment we receive, and these are its terms.

• Charged in advance for the period shown at checkout. An invoice is issued for every payment we recognise.
• Cancel at any time. The venue stays live to the end of the period already paid for, and nothing further is taken.
• No pro-rata refund for a period already running. Once a venue is live and taking enquiries, the service for that period has been delivered.
• Full refund where we are at fault — a payment taken in error, a duplicate charge, a period we never made live, or a period during which the venue was unavailable because of a failure on our side.
• No refund where an account is suspended for breaking the Community Guidelines or the Terms.

Approved refunds are returned to the account the payment came from, normally within 7 working days of approval; how quickly it then appears depends on the bank. Ask through the contact page, writing from the address on the account and quoting the invoice number.

4. Advertising placements

Advertising is sold by agreement and the terms are in that agreement. Where a campaign has not started, it can be cancelled and refunded in full. Where it is running, we refund the unserved remainder of the booked period. Ask through the contact page, choosing Advertisement as the subject.

If something goes wrong between you and another user

Talk to them first, in the NearbyRents chat rather than on a call — a written record is what makes anything afterwards possible.

If that fails, report the listing or the account and tell us what happened. Be clear about what we can and cannot do: we cannot move money we never held. What we can do is investigate, take a listing down, suspend an account, and give you the account information the law allows us to for a police complaint or a consumer forum.

For anything involving theft or fraud, file a police complaint. We will co-operate with a lawful request.

Related

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