Terms of use

Effective Date:April 15, 2024

1. Welcome to Realstarter!
This page contains our Terms of Use. When you use Realstarter, you’re agreeing to all the rules below.
By using this website (the “Site”) and any of the services (together with the Site, the “Services”) offered by Realstarter, (together with Canadian E Market, and their parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, representatives, consultants, employees, officers, and directors—collectively, “Realstarter,” “we,” or “us”), you’re agreeing to these legally binding rules (the “Terms” or “Terms of Use”). You’re also agreeing to our Privacy Policy and agreeing to follow any other rules on the Site, including rules for starting projects, which are incorporated in these Terms by reference. In addition to the Site, Services means services offered by Realstarter from time to time including, but not limited to, crowdfunding services and associated services made available to project owners.
We may update these Terms from time to time as laws, our Services and practices change. We encourage you to review these Terms periodically. If you keep using Realstarter after a change, we will assume you accept the current version. These Terms may be translated into another language for your convenience; in the event of a conflict between the English version and any translations, the English version shall control.
Realstarter is for your personal, non-commercial use, except as explained in section 4 and section 5 below.

2. About Creating an Account
You must be 18 years old or over to sign up for a Realstarter account. You’re responsible for your account and all the activity on it.
You can browse Realstarter without registering for an account. But to use some of Realstarter’s functions, you’ll need to register, which includes choosing a username and setting a password. When you do that, all of the information you give us has to be accurate and complete. Don’t impersonate anyone else or choose names that are offensive or that violate anyone’s rights. If you don’t follow these rules, we may cancel your account.
You’re responsible for all the activity on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you find out that someone has used your account without your permission, you should report it to info@real-starter.ca.

3. Things You Definitely Shouldn’t Do
This section is a list of things you probably already know you shouldn’t do—lie, break laws, abuse people, steal data, hack other people’s computers, and so on. Please behave yourself. Don’t do this stuff.
Millions of people use Realstarter. We expect all of them to behave responsibly and help keep this a nice place. Whether you are a visitor, project owner or backer, don’t do any of these things on the Site. We reserve the right to take any action we think appropriate if you do so, including suspending or terminating your account
• Don’t break the law. Don’t take any action that infringes or violates other people’s rights, violates the law, or breaches any contract or legal duty you have toward anyone.
• Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent.
• Don’t victimize anyone. Don’t do anything threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, tortious, obscene, profane, or invasive of another person’s privacy.
• Don’t spam. Don’t distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, marketing or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Don’t run mail lists, listservs, or any kind of auto-responder or spam on or through the Site, including in comments you post to projects you back.
• Don’t harm anyone’s computer. Don’t distribute software viruses, or anything else (code, films, programs) designed to interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or equipment on the Site (whether it belongs to Realstarter or another party).
• Don’t abuse other users’ personal information. When you use Realstarter — and especially if your project is successfully funded — you may receive information about other users including backers of your project. This information is provided for the sole purpose of participating in a Realstarter project: don’t use it for other purposes, and don’t abuse it. If you share this information with authorized collaborators, you are responsible for ensuring they understand and adhere to the restrictions and conditions imposed in these Terms including the Privacy Policy.
We also need to make sure that the Site is secure and our systems function properly. So don’t do any of these things—most of which boil down to “don’t mess with our system.”
• Don’t try to interfere with the proper workings of the Services.
• Don’t bypass any measures we’ve put in place to secure the Services.
• Don’t try to damage or get unauthorized access to any system, data, password, or other information, whether it belongs to Realstarter or another party.
• Don’t take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or on our third-party providers. (We reserve the right to determine what’s reasonable.)
• Don’t use any kind of software or device (whether it’s manual or automated) to “crawl” or “spider” any part of the Site.
• Don’t take apart or reverse engineer any aspect of Realstarter in an effort to access things like source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms.

4. How Projects Work
Most of our Terms of Use explain your relationship with Realstarter. This section is different—it explains the relationship between project owners, backers of Realstarter projects and Realstarter, and who’s responsible for what. This is what you’re agreeing to when you create or back a Realstarter project.
Realstarter provides a funding platform for creative real estate projects that have yet to come to life or active. When a project owner posts a project on Realstarter, they’re inviting other people to form a contract with them. Anyone who backs a project is accepting the project owner’s offer, and forming that contract.
Realstarter is not a part of this contract—the contract is a direct agreement between project owners and their backers through realstarter. To the extent these Terms conflict with any supplemental or additional terms that are applied by a project owner to their project, these Terms prevail. Here are the terms that govern the agreement between a project owner and their backers:
1. During a campaign, and especially when a project is successfully funded, project owners owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, backers agree and acknowledge they’re not direct owners of any real asset associated with the project.—they’re helping to create something new and getting rewarded for their support, not buying into the real property. Every project is different. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the project owner from being able to finish the project, which is not guaranteed.
2. If a project owner is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they must make a reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers and Realstarter. A project owner in this position will notify realstarter of issues and Realstarter will execute the pre-existing lien agreement in place on the associated real property to recoup backers funds to the best outcome possible. Real Starter will not be liable for any losses to backers funds or unfulfilled rewards in any way shape or form.
It is important for backer to know that Real starter only acts as an intermediary and helps to protects the interest of backers and projects owners in a fair manner, to the best of their ability. However, in using the realstarter platform, you agree to never take any legal action against realstarter for any losses of any kind as a result you using the realstarter platform.

5. How Funding Works
This section goes over the details of backing and creating projects—things like how money gets collected, whether pledges can be changed or canceled, and how realstarter can contact backers to provide rewards.

These are the terms that apply when you back a project during a live campaign before the funding deadline:
• Your fund is only put into the project if the project reaches its fundraising goal. If after 3 rounds the project is not fully funded, every backer gets a full refund. Operating with this model helps backers to avoid backing underfunded projects, which can help to increase the success rate of any backed project.

• Your card is charged immediately.

Realstarter and its payment processors puts a charge on your credit card (or whatever payment method you use) for any amount up to the full amount of the pledge plus transaction fee, immediately you make a pledge. Backer using cheque/draft method are required to send their cheque/draft within 72 hours of starting a pladge or pledge will be canceled.
• You can cancel your pledge at any time before the project’s funding deadline (with one exception). You can cancel your pledge at any time during the campaign, with one exception. During the last 24 hours of a campaign, you can’t cancel your pledge without contacting Realstarter customer support first if doing so would drop the project below its funding goal. Once the project has been funded, you can only cancel or change your pledge by making special arrangements directly with Realstarter.

These are the terms that apply to all pledges, whether made during the live campaign:
• The estimated fulfillment date is the project owner’s estimate. If the project owner has offered rewards, any month and year given for each reward is only the project owner’s estimate and not a guarantee they will fulfill by that time. The schedule may change as the project owner works on the project. We ask project owners to plan carefully, set estimated delivery dates they feel confident they can work toward, and communicate with backers about any changes. Realstarter also assist project owners with this planning and carry out proper evaluation of a project before allowing it on the platform. However even though realstarter evaluate every project to the best of its ability using expert services, realstarter cannot guarantee that a project will be successful. So, realstarter will never be directly liable for any unsuccessful project or losses.
• Realstarter doesn’t offer refunds once a project funding deadline is exceeded.
Responsibility for finishing a project lies entirely with the project owner. Realstarter advances the funds to project owners’ in stages behalf, cannot and does not guarantee project owners’ work, and does not offer refunds.

These are the terms that apply when you’re creating and running a project:
• We’ll charge our fees before sending funds to your bank account.
Realstarter and its payment processors will deduct applicable fees before transmitting the proceeds of a campaign. • Some pledges can’t be collected, which might reduce the amount of funding you get. Because some payments can’t be collected—for instance, when a backer’s credit card declines just before a campaign ends or we encounter an issue with processing cheque/draft for a pledge, and updated information isn’t provided—the amount of funding you receive may not be equal to the full amount pledged (less fees).
• We'll try to help resolve payment disputes. If a backer of your project disputes the charge with their issuer, we will re-present the charge to settle the dispute with the issuer. You’ll be notified that a dispute has been filed, and you may be asked to provide evidence to help us resolve it in your favor.
• Prepare for potential delays. Don’t assume you’ll be able to launch your project when you want; there could be a reason we’re not able to approve it immediately upon submission, or a problem may arise that takes time to resolve. Don’t assume you’ll be able to immediately collect your funding; there may be a delay between the end of a successful campaign and your access to the funds. Don’t take any actions in reliance on collecting any of the money pledged by a certain time. We encourage you to wait until you actually have the ability to withdraw it from your account and spend it.

6. Stuff We Don’t Do and Aren’t Responsible For
Realstarter isn’t liable for any damages or losses related to your use of the Services. We don’t gaurantee the performance or punctuality of projects, and we don’t endorse any content users submit to the Site. When you use the Services, you release Realstarter from claims, damages, and demands of every kind—known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed—arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and the Services. All content you access through the Services is at your own risk. You’re solely responsible for any resulting damage or loss to any party.

7. Our Fees
We currently charge a 2% platform fee on amounts raised by successfully funded projects and on late pledges, in addition to standard transaction fees to cover costs charged to us by our payment processors.

Creating an account on Realstarter is free for the first realstarter year in business and cost $50 yearly afterwards. If you create a project that reaches its funding goal, Realstarter collects a 2% platform fee and our payment processor collects a standard processing fee from each collected pledge. Our payment processor fees may vary slightly based on your location. If we change our fees, we’ll announce that on our Site.

Funds pledged by backers are collected by payment processors. Each payment processor is its own independent company, and Realstarter isn’t responsible for their actions. Our current payment processor is Stripe.
You are responsible for paying any additional fees and all local, state, federal or other taxes and assessments associated with your use of Realstarter. For example, project owners are solely responsible for collecting and/or remitting any applicable taxes for amounts received in connection with their fundraising campaigns and projects.

8. Other Websites
If you follow a link to another website, what happens there is between you and them—not us.

Realstarter may contain links to other websites. (For instance, project pages, user profiles, and comments may link to other sites.) When you access third-party websites, you do so at your own risk. We don’t control or endorse those sites.

Realstarter partners with other companies (such as Stripe) for payment processing. When you back or create a project, you’re also agreeing to the payment processor’s terms of service.

9. Your Intellectual Property
We don't own the content you post on Realstarter, but you do grant us permission to use or copy it however we may need or deem appropriate. We generally use it to promote projects and showcase our community. Ultimately, you're responsible for the content you post, and you're promising us that it's ok to use.

Realstarter doesn’t own content you submit to us including for posting on your project page (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. When you submit a project for review, launch a project, or otherwise submit Content to us via email or any other means, you agree to these terms:
• We can use the Content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use, reproduce, make derivative works, publicly display, publicly perform, distribute, disseminate, communicate, commercialize, and exploit the copyright, publicity, trademark, and database rights with respect to your Content. In general, we use this Content to promote projects and showcase our community on the website, including through application of a Project We Love and other similar badges. There are many factors that we take into consideration before featuring a project on the homepage or giving it a Project We Love badge. This includes, but is not limited to, a crisp project image with no logos, badges, or text on top, a clear and detailed description that includes a thorough plan for completing your project, captivating images or videos, an excited community, what we think different users will be interested in, and of course, a lot of creativity. In addition to giving some projects a Project We Love badge, we also carefully curate the homepage to highlight great examples of Realstarter projects. The projects at the very top of the homepage typically are best-of-the-best Projects We Love—based on factors such as creative innovation, honesty, and alignment with Realstarter’s mission and charter —but we also use algorithms to surface popular projects, projects your friends have backed and launched, and projects recommended just for you. We may also recommend projects that are gaining traction as a result of their project owner’s own advertising, and/or on the basis of a user’s prior search terms, browsing history, project backings and other interactions during their visits to our website. Realstarter reserves the right to apply and remove all such badges, and to start and cease all such promotions, in its sole discretion.
• When we use the Content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to make derivative works of your Content. This may include edits, modifications, reformatting, excerpting, or translating any of your Content.
• You won’t submit stuff you don’t own or hold the copyright for (unless you have permission to grant us these rights in turn). Your Content must not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material and can pass those permissions along to us, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant Realstarter all the license rights outlined here).
• Any royalties or licensing fees owed by you to third parties are solely your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity associated with your Content, or that may be due as a result of posting that Content on Realstarter.
• You promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If Realstarter or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in these Terms you promise that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.
• You’re responsible for the stuff you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is solely your responsibility.
• We’re not responsible for mistakes in your Content. Realstarter is not liable for any errors or omissions in any Content.

10. Realstarter’s Intellectual Property
The content on Realstarter is protected in various ways. You may use it for certain personal non commercial purposes only. You must ask us for permission before using it for any commercial purpose or advantage.

Realstarter’s Services are legally protected in various ways, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, and other rights and laws. You agree to respect all copyright and other legal notices, information, and restrictions contained in any content accessed through the Site. You also agree not to change, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of the Service.

Realstarter grants you a non exclusive, worldwide, non sublicensable, non transferable, revocable license to reproduce content from the Services for personal non commercial use only. This license covers both Realstarter’s own protected content and user-generated content on the Site. If you want to do anything else with content on our Site, such as use it for commercial advantage or for a commercial purpose, you need prior written permission from Realstarter or the relevant copyright holder. A “commercial purpose” means any use, sale, license, rent, or other exploitive or commercial use.

11. How We Deal with Copyright Issues
We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If you’d like to submit a claim of copyright infringement, please email us at info@real-starter.ca

12. Deleting Your Account You can delete your account at any time, but doing so may not automatically remove all content.

You can delete your account at any time through your account settings. As permitted by law, we may retain certain information such as information necessary for our legitimate business purposes. These Terms remain in effect as to your prior and any ongoing use of our Site and Services by you, including our rights regarding any Content you’ve already submitted to the Site. For instance, if you’ve launched a project, deleting your account will not automatically remove the project from the Site. Similarly, if you successfully ran a campaign that funded on our Site, deleting your account will not delete, remove or hide your project because, among other things, of the agreement you have with backers. You can contact us at info@real-starter.ca for additional information or if you believe special circumstances warrant removal of your project page.

For more information about account deletions and what it involves, visit our Privacy Policy.

13. Our Rights
To operate, we need to be able to maintain control over what happens on our Site We reserve the right to make decisions and to take any action we believe necessary or appropriate to protect the health and integrity of our system. We don’t exercise these powers lightly, and we only use them when necessary.
To protect the health and integrity of our system and to help ensure that project owners and backers enjoy a safe and secure environment, Realstarter reserves these rights:
• We can make changes to the Realstarter Site and Services without notice or liability at any time.
• We have the right to decide who’s eligible to use Realstarter. We may in limited circumstances impose restrictions or limitations on accounts. For particularly significant or repeated violations of our Terms or any other rules on the Site, like our rules for starting projects, we may cancel accounts or decline to offer our Services. (Especially if you’re abusing them.) We can change our eligibility criteria at any time. If our Services are prohibited by law where you live, then you may not use our Site or our Services, and our Site and Services are not available and may not be used by you.
• We have the right to cancel any pledge to any project, at any time and for any reason.
• We have the right to reject, cancel, interrupt, remove, or suspend any project, at any time and for any reason.
• We have the right to cause funds to be withheld to comply with laws and regulations.
• We have the right to force refunds of amounts collected by our payment processor prior to payout if we deem it necessary, appropriate or desirable in order to resolve any dispute that may arise between a project owner and any third party related to the project owner’s use of our Site or Services.
• We have the right to verify your identity and investigate your account details at any time. You agree to cooperate promptly with our verification requests and investigations, including by engaging with us through any reasonable means (such as live video sessions) and providing us with additional information as we may request, for the legitimate purposes of protecting the integrity of our platform and preventing fraud or other wrongful conduct. If you refuse to cooperate, we may cancel your project and/or your account, suspend payout of campaign funding until we are satisfied or force refunds, or take any other action we deem appropriate in our sole discretion.

Realstarter is not liable for any damages as a result of any of these actions.

It is our general policy not to comment publicly on the underlying reasons or the details of any such action. However, if we take any action in reliance on these rights, we will let the account holder know the reasons for this action and whether, if at all, they can remedy any issues except if we’re prohibited from doing so by law or in the interest of safety. For account cancellations, we will attempt to let the account holder know the reasons for this action in advance unless we’re canceling for reasons related to illicit or inappropriate content, the safety of a good or service, counterfeiting, fraud, malware, spam, data breaches, other cybersecurity risks, or the suitability of a good or service.

14. Warranty Disclaimer
We work hard to provide you with great services, but we can’t guarantee everything will always work perfectly. This Site and the Services are presented and provided as-is, without warranties.
You use our Site and Services solely at your own risk. They are provided to you “as is” and “as available” and without warranty of any kind , express or implied.

REALSTARTER SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ANY WARRANTIES IMPLIED BY ANY COURSE OF DEALING, COURSE OF PERFORMANCE, OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION (ORAL OR WRITTEN) OBTAINED BY YOU FROM REALSTARTER SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY.

15. Indemnification
If you do something on Realstarter that winds up getting us involved in a dispute or sued, you have to help defend us.

If you do anything that results in our involvement in a dispute or threatened with legal action or sued , or break any of the promises you make in these Terms, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and other legal costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of our Site or Services. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to this indemnification clause, in which case you agree that you’ll cooperate and help us in asserting any defenses.

As part of this, by accepting these Terms of Use, you consent to service of process for any action that could be brought against Realstarter, for any reason.

16. Limitation of Liability
If something bad happens as a result of your use of our Site or Services, we’re not liable (beyond a very small amount).

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Realstarter, its directors, employees, partners, suppliers, or content providers be liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, consequential, special, or exemplary damages of any kind, including but not limited to damages (i) resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Site or Services; (ii) for any lost profits, data loss, or cost of procurement or substitute goods or services; or (iii) for any conduct of content of any third party on the Site. In no event shall Realstarter’s liability for direct damages be in excess of (in the aggregate) one hundred Canadian dollars ($100.00).

17. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law
We’re located in Winnipeg, and any disputes with us have to be handled in Winnipeg under Manitoba Provincial law.

We at Realstarter encourage you to contact us if you’re having an issue before resorting to the courts. Our Realstarter support team is on hand and ready to answer your questions. You can visit our How it works page to find FAQs with information that may resolve your issue. If you still have questions, you can “Contact us” in the Help Page or email info@real-starter.ca so that one of our support team agents can personally reply to you and attempt to resolve your issue. These resources are easily accessible and free.

If you’re a project owner based in the European Union and, after contacting us through those channels, you still don’t feel as if your issue has been resolved, we may agree with you to engage in mediation to resolve any complaints in good faith. You may address your complaint with one of these two mediation organizations:

• The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) • IPOS Mediation

In the unfortunate situation where legal action does arise, these Terms (and all other rules, policies, or guidelines incorporated by reference) will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Manitoba and Canada, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law, and without application of the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act or the United Nations Convention of Controls for International Sale of Goods. You agree that Realstarter and its Services are deemed a passive website that does not give rise to jurisdiction over Realstarter or its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, assigns, employees, agents, directors, officers, or shareholders, either specific or general, in any jurisdiction other than the Province of Manitoba. You agree that if you wish to file, commence, or prosecute any claim, action, lawsuit or proceeding of any kind, at law or in equity, arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use or non-use of Realstarter, you will do so only in a state or federal court located in Winnipeg in the Province of Manitoba, and will not file, commence, or prosecute any such claim, action, lawsuit, or proceeding in any other forum. You hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts for the purposes of litigating any such claim, action, lawsuit, or proceeding. You hereby irrevocably waive any right you may have to trial by jury in any dispute, action, or proceeding.

18. The Rest
These are our official terms and our rules for how things work. You can verify any confusing or conflicting information you see elsewhere by referencing what we’ve explained on this page.

These Terms and the other material referenced in them are the entire agreement between you and Realstarter with respect to the Site and Services. They supersede all other communications and proposals (whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and Realstarter with respect to the Site and Services and govern our future relationship. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under the law, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms otherwise will remain in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure of either you or Realstarter to exercise any right provided for in these Terms in any way won’t be deemed a waiver of any other rights.

These Terms are personal to you. You can’t assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get Realstarter’s prior written consent. Realstarter has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms without your consent. Realstarter will provide you notice via email, written notice, or by conspicuously posting the notice on our Site.


Realstarter Terms of Use