Terms of use

1. The service

SokoEstate is a marketplace where people can search for homes, land and commercial property in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and where owners, developers and agents can advertise that property. Afro Digital Innovations Ltd operates the marketplace. In these terms, “we” and “SokoEstate” mean that company.

We provide the place where a listing is published and where a buyer can send an enquiry. We are not the seller, the landlord, the buyer, the tenant, the agent, or the advocate. We do not collect the purchase price, the rent, a booking deposit, or any other sum that belongs to the property transaction. That money, if any is paid, is a matter between you and the advertiser.

Browsing, saving a home and creating a buyer account are free. Publishing a listing is a paid advertising service, described in the Billing terms. A fee paid to SokoEstate is a fee for advertising on the marketplace. It is not a payment toward the property.

2. Accepting the terms

You accept these terms when you create an account, send an enquiry, publish a listing, pay an advertising fee, or otherwise use SokoEstate after this page has been made available to you. If you use SokoEstate for a company or another organisation, you confirm that you are allowed to bind that organisation, and “you” includes it.

If you do not agree, do not create an account and do not send an enquiry. You may still read public pages.

3. Who can use SokoEstate

You must be able to enter a contract for the activity you use SokoEstate for. An account is for one person. Do not share a sign-in code, and do not create an account for someone else without their authority.

We may refuse an account, or close one, where the phone number cannot be verified, the account is being used to mislead, or these terms have been broken.

4. Accounts

You sign in with a one-time code sent to your phone number. Creating an account asks whether you are a buyer or a seller. A buyer can save homes, save searches and message advertisers. A seller chooses individual property owner or agent, and the seller tools open after the relevant advertising fee is confirmed.

You are responsible for the phone number on the account and for activity that happens after a code sent to that number is confirmed. Tell us through Help if you lose the number, and we will explain what we can recover. We cannot give the account to a different person on an unverified request.

You can delete the account from settings on the website or in the app. Deletion ends your sessions. Records we must keep for tax, and messages already delivered to an advertiser, are handled as the Privacy notice describes.

5. Listings

The advertiser is responsible for the listing: the description, the price, the availability, the photographs, the location and the authority to advertise that property. A listing must be for property in Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda. Rent and sale are separate. A listing must not pretend that an agent is the owner, or that a project is complete when it is not.

You must not publish a listing that is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory, or copied from someone who did not allow it. You must not publish a listing for a property you have no authority to offer. We may refuse, unpublish or remove a listing, or ask for evidence of authority, without becoming responsible for the contents that remain.

A published listing is an invitation to enquire. It is not an offer that SokoEstate can accept on the advertiser’s behalf, and sending an enquiry does not reserve the property.

6. Enquiries and viewings

When you enquire, you write to the advertiser of that listing. Keep the conversation on SokoEstate until you have decided who you are dealing with. We may store the messages as the Privacy notice describes so that a later dispute about what was said can be checked.

A viewing is arranged with the advertiser. We do not attend, and we do not promise that the person who meets you is the owner. Take the same care you would take meeting any stranger about a valuable asset. Do not pay a “viewing fee”, a deposit, or the full price to someone you have not identified, and do not treat a SokoEstate message as proof of title.

7. Trust marks

Where a listing shows a role, that role is the role the advertiser selected and that our records support. “Identity checked” means an identity review was completed. It is not a guarantee of title. “Verified broker” or “Verified agency” means a super admin approved a current practising credential and permission to advertise. Paying for a plan does not create that mark. The Estate Agents Registration Board does not endorse SokoEstate.

A mark can be removed if the credential expires, the evidence was wrong, or the advertiser breaks these terms. Removal of a mark does not by itself unwind a contract you made with the advertiser.

8. Advertising fees

Prices for listing terms and agency plans are shown inside a seller account before you pay. They are not a public tariff. Payment is collected by our payment provider. The seller tools covered by a fee stay closed until the payment is confirmed by that provider. A browser receipt, a screenshot, or a redirect back to SokoEstate is not confirmation.

The Billing terms explain who pays, the terms on offer, tax, and what a fee does not include. If those terms and these terms both speak about a payment, the Billing terms govern the payment and these terms govern the rest of the service.

9. Acceptable use

You will not:

• scrape, harvest or resell the marketplace in bulk, or bypass a technical limit;
• probe, disrupt or overload the service, or attempt to access an account, a licence file, or an admin tool that is not yours;
• send malware, or use SokoEstate to phish, to impersonate an advertiser, or to collect payment for a property you cannot lawfully offer;
• post another person’s contact details, photographs or documents without a proper basis;
• use an enquiry thread to advertise an unrelated product or to harass someone.

We may suspend access, remove content, and keep the records we need to investigate. We may also report a suspected crime to the relevant authority.

10. Your content and ours

You keep ownership of the text, photographs and documents you submit. You give Afro Digital Innovations Ltd a non-exclusive licence to host, reproduce, adapt for display, and show that content for as long as it needs to operate SokoEstate, including in backups and in a listing that was lawfully published. This licence ends for a listing when the listing is removed, except for copies we must keep as a record of what was advertised.

You confirm that you have the rights you need for anything you upload, including photographs of a property and a licence document. You will cover us for a claim that comes from content you submitted and that you did not have the right to submit, or from a listing that was misleading in a way you were responsible for.

The SokoEstate name, the brand, the software and the selection and arrangement of the marketplace belong to Afro Digital Innovations Ltd or its licensors. You may not copy the brand or the software except as needed to use the service, or to share a link to a public listing.

11. Third parties

Listings, maps, payment pages and links may involve other companies. Their terms and privacy notices apply to their own services. A payment page operated by the payment provider is not a page on which we see your full card number. An advertiser’s promise, brochure or viewing arrangement is not our promise.

12. Availability and changes

We work to keep SokoEstate available, accurate in its own records, and safe. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, that every listing is still available, or that search results are complete. Property changes quickly. Confirm the current position with the advertiser.

We may change features, limits and these terms. We will put the updated terms on this page with a new date. If you keep using SokoEstate after the update, the new terms apply to use from that point. A change does not alter an advertising fee you have already paid for a term that is underway, except where the law requires it or where we say so in the Billing terms.

13. Disclaimers

Property information on SokoEstate is supplied by advertisers. We do not survey land, we do not check every title at the registry for every listing, and we do not insure a transaction. A listing, a badge, or a message from SokoEstate staff about how the product works is not legal, valuation, tax or investment advice. Instruct your own advocate and, where it matters, your own surveyor and valuer before you pay money or sign a transfer.

To the extent the law allows, the marketplace is provided as it is available. We exclude implied warranties that the law lets a business exclude, including an implied warranty that a listing will lead to a completed transaction.

14. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for any other liability that the law of Kenya does not allow us to limit.

Subject to that, Afro Digital Innovations Ltd is not liable for loss of profit, loss of a bargain, loss of data that you did not export, or indirect or consequential loss arising from use of SokoEstate or from a transaction with an advertiser. Our total liability arising out of the marketplace in any twelve-month period is limited to the advertising fees you paid to us in that period, or, if you paid no advertising fees, to zero beyond the remedies the law still requires. This limit does not apply to a refund of an advertising fee that the Billing terms expressly require.

You are responsible for the transaction you make with an advertiser. If a dispute arises about a property, you will look first to that advertiser. You may still write to us, and we may remove a listing, but removing a listing is not compensation for money you paid to someone else.

15. Suspension and ending

You may stop using SokoEstate at any time and you may delete your account. We reserve the right to suspend or close an account, to remove one listing, or to hide every listing on an advertising account, if these terms are broken, if a report about a listing is upheld, if an advertiser does not comply with a request we make about a listing, if a payment is reversed, if we are required to by law, or if continuing the account would put other people at risk. Where we can do it without adding to the risk, we will tell you the reason through the contact details on the account.

An advertising fee is not refunded when a listing or an account is suspended or removed for a breach, for an upheld report, or because the advertiser did not comply. The Billing terms say the same. Removing a listing is not compensation for money you paid to an advertiser.

Sections that by their nature should continue — including content responsibility, disclaimers, liability, and governing law — continue after the account ends.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Kenya. The courts of Kenya have jurisdiction, without removing any right you have as a consumer that the law of your country of residence does not allow a contract to remove. If you operate an advertising account for a business, you and we both accept the courts of Kenya as a convenient forum.

17. Contact

Write to Afro Digital Innovations Ltd through the Help page on SokoEstate. Include your name, the phone number on the account if you have one, and enough detail for us to find the listing or the payment. Help messages are read by the SokoEstate super admin.