Terms and Conditions

This is a courtesy translation. The German version is legally binding.

1. Scope and definitions

(1) These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") apply to all contracts between Pascal Szorath (trading as "ZVG Melder", the "Provider") and the users of the ZVG Melder platform at zvg-melder.de (the "Platform").

(2) A consumer is any natural person who enters into a transaction for purposes predominantly outside their trade, business or profession (§ 13 BGB). An entrepreneur is a natural or legal person or a partnership with legal capacity acting in the exercise of their trade, business or profession (§ 14 BGB).

(3) These Terms contain provisions that apply only to consumers or only to entrepreneurs; these are marked accordingly. In case of doubt, a natural person is treated as a consumer unless there are indications to the contrary (e.g. a company registration, a VAT identification number, evidently commercial use). The user is required to state their status (consumer/entrepreneur) correctly at conclusion of contract and to notify any later change (e.g. business registration); until updated, the status last stated applies.

(4) Automated or AI-assisted preparation under these Terms means all content the Provider derives, estimates, classifies, summarises or generates algorithmically or by means of artificial intelligence from public sources and documents (see § 2(5)).

(5) The version of these Terms valid at the time of conclusion of the contract applies. Conflicting terms of the user are rejected unless expressly agreed.

2. Subject of services

(1) The Provider operates a platform that collects, structures and makes searchable publicly available information on compulsory-auction proceedings from the official announcements of German local courts (in particular zvg-portal.de).

(2) Registered users can create watches for individual proceedings (e.g. by case number) or for a local court and receive email notifications when relevant changes are detected (e.g. a newly scheduled, postponed or cancelled auction date). No specific notification time and no gap-free notification are owed (§ 5).

(3) The Provider offers a free basic plan, one or more paid standard plans (e.g. monthly or yearly) and possibly a professional/business plan configured on request without self-service ordering. The specific scope results from the service description on the Platform at the time of order. The Provider may change the scope of paid plans for the future or introduce new plans (§ 10). The free basic plan may be discontinued; registered users of the free plan are informed at least 30 days in advance in text form.

(4) The Provider is not a public authority and is not affiliated with any state justice administration or the operator of the official auction portal. The Platform does not replace inspection of the competent court's official announcement, nor inspection of the official market-value appraisal (Verkehrswertgutachten).

(5) Automated and AI-assisted preparation (nature and limits of the service). Parts of the Platform prepare information automatically or with AI. This includes in particular: a risk classification (risk class 1–6) with an information-grade indicator (A–D); the extraction and estimation of key figures and property attributes (e.g. areas, year of construction, estimated market value, €/m², land/building/income/asset values, renovation backlog, rent and yield figures); the detection and classification of rights and encumbrances (e.g. residential rights, heritable building rights, easements, building charges, heritage protection, contamination); summaries and reasoning including quotations from the underlying documents, opportunities and recommended checks; an automated assessment of suitability/buyer profile (e.g. "suitable for owner-occupiers/investors") and of yield figures; and the classification and technical processing of images (e.g. categorisation and AI-based upscaling of resolution).

These results are a non-binding orientation and prioritisation aid. They are derived automatically from documents, have not been reviewed by a qualified appraiser and rely on machine reading, estimation and assessment; they may be incorrect, incomplete or out of date. Possible error types include in particular reading and estimation errors, overlooked or misclassified rights and encumbrances, incorrect or fabricated (hallucinated) quotations, and image content altered by AI upscaling. They do not constitute an appraisal, a valuation or any binding statement about the property, its value, condition, encumbrances or suitability. Only the official market-value appraisal and the competent court's official announcement are authoritative.

(6) No advice. The Platform and its automated content do not constitute legal, tax, financing, investment or valuation advice, no brokerage service and no investment or purchase recommendation. The Provider owes no duty of advice or examination beyond providing the Platform. No regulatory or statutory monitoring or notification duty arises.

(7) Independent verification (user's duty). The user decides on their own responsibility based on the official sources and is required to examine the official market-value appraisal and the official announcement themselves before any bid, financing or purchase decision, rather than relying solely on the automated content. The user is informed of this nature of the service separately before conclusion of contract; consent is governed by § 3(4) and § 8.

3. Conclusion of contract

(1) The presentation of plans is an invitation to submit an offer, not a binding offer.

(2) By clicking the order or payment button, the user submits a binding offer; the contract is concluded upon the Provider's confirmation or provision of paid access.

(3) A free account is concluded upon confirmation of the email address provided.

(4) Separate acknowledgement regarding automated preparation. Before concluding a paid contract, the user confirms by a separate, non-pre-ticked statement (a dedicated checkbox) that they have taken note of the nature of the automated and AI-assisted content under § 2(5)–(7) and § 8 and consent to the deviation from the objective standard. This confirmation is recorded with timestamp, text version and account reference and retained for the statutory limitation periods. As long as this separate consent is not given and documented, the statutory requirements (§§ 327 ff. BGB) apply in full.

4. Prices, payment, term and cancellation

(1) The prices shown at the time of order apply. Towards consumers all prices are gross prices including statutory VAT where applicable.

(2) Paid plans are billed in advance for the chosen billing period. Payment is processed via external payment providers, whose terms additionally apply.

(3) In-app purchases. Where paid access is purchased via an app store (e.g. Apple App Store, Google Play), conclusion, billing, renewal and cancellation are handled entirely via that store's platform; in this respect the store operator is the contractual partner for the purchase flow. Cancellation and withdrawal of such purchases must be made via the store's account settings. The store operator's terms additionally apply to such purchases.

(4) The subscription renews automatically for the chosen billing period unless cancelled in good time. Cancellation is possible at any time effective at the end of the current billing period.

(5) Cancellation option (§ 312k BGB). Consumers who have entered into a continuing obligation by electronic commerce can terminate it via a permanently available and directly accessible cancellation option on the Platform; cancellation in text form to the contact details in the legal notice is also possible. The Provider ensures that cancellation can be declared without unreasonable hindrance.

5. Provision and availability

(1) The Provider endeavours to keep the Platform as continuously available as possible but owes no specific availability quota. Maintenance, force majeure or disruptions outside the Provider's control may cause temporary restrictions.

(2) The timeliness of displayed data depends on the courts' publication behaviour and the technical availability of the official sources. Notifications are sent only after the underlying change has been published in the official source and recorded by the Provider. Real-time delivery and gap-free recording are not owed; the Provider endeavours to maintain high recording quality but, subject to § 9, is not liable for individual changes missed or detected late due to technical failures, errors or force majeure.

6. User obligations

(1) The user must keep access credentials confidential and protect them from third-party access.

(2) The user must not misuse the Platform. The following are in particular not permitted: (a) automated bulk retrieval (scraping, crawlers) impairing operation; (b) circumventing access, authentication or rate-limiting mechanisms; (c) systematic extraction or commercial redistribution of the prepared datasets (see § 7); and (d) any use in breach of applicable law. On suspicion of a breach, the Provider may temporarily throttle features or suspend access under § 11.

7. Rights of use

For the term of the contract the Provider grants the user a simple, non-transferable right to use the Platform in accordance with the contract. Systematic extraction, reproduction or commercial redistribution of the prepared datasets — including substantial parts of the database within the meaning of §§ 87a ff. UrhG — without the Provider's prior consent in text form is not permitted. Statutory rights of the user, in particular to use insubstantial parts of the database and within the limits of mandatory copyright exceptions, remain unaffected.

8. Nature of automated services; separate agreement

(1) Owed is the provision of the Platform and the technically proper execution of the automated and AI-assisted preparation under § 2(5). It is not owed that individual automatically generated statements (in particular risk class, information grade, estimated values, key figures, detected rights and encumbrances, summaries, quotations, suitability/buyer profiles, image classifications) are correct, complete or up to date. The substantive incorrectness of an automatically generated result is therefore not a breach of an essential contractual obligation (§ 9(2)), provided the preparation was carried out technically properly. The user ensures the correctness, completeness and suitability of their decision basis by inspecting the official sources themselves (§ 2(7)).

(2) Separate agreement with consumers (§ 327h BGB). Where this is a consumer contract for digital products, the nature described in (1) expressly deviates from the objective requirements. The consumer is informed separately before submitting their contractual declaration and consents by a separate, express statement (§ 3(4)). Without this separate consent, the statutory requirements apply.

(3) This provision describes the content of the service and is not a limitation of liability; liability is governed by § 9. Statutory warranty rights remain unaffected where a service actually owed is defective.

(4) The user may report obvious errors in automatically generated content; the Provider will review and, where appropriate, correct reported content at its reasonable discretion. This does not establish any warranty or liability claim.

9. Liability

(1) The Provider is liable without limitation for damage arising from injury to life, body or health; for damage based on intentional or grossly negligent breach of duty by the Provider, its legal representatives or vicarious agents; under the Product Liability Act; and to the extent of a guarantee assumed by the Provider.

(2) For slightly negligent breach of essential contractual obligations (cardinal obligations) liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract. Essential contractual obligations are those whose fulfilment makes proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance the user may regularly rely; these include in particular the technical provision of the Platform, data security and the collection, structuring and searchability of the public data. The substantive correctness or completeness of individual automatically generated statements (§ 8(1)) and real-time or gap-free notification are not essential contractual obligations.

(3) Otherwise liability for slight negligence is excluded.

(4) Clarification regarding automated and AI-assisted content. Without limiting paragraphs (1) and (2) and in line with the agreement on quality (§ 8): the Provider is not liable for the substantive incorrectness, incompleteness or lack of timeliness of automated or AI-assisted results, because their correctness is not contractually owed; in particular it is not liable for damage based on the user relying on such content without inspecting the official sources themselves (§ 2(7), § 254 BGB). Liability for the technically proper provision of the service itself (e.g. availability, data security) under paragraphs (1) and (2) remains unaffected.

(5) The same applies to the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the court-published source data; only the competent court's official announcement is legally binding.

(6) Contributory negligence of the user, in particular failing to carry out the required own examination under § 2(7), is taken into account under § 254 BGB.

(7) The above limitations also apply in favour of the Provider's legal representatives and vicarious agents.

(8) Towards entrepreneurs only: liability for slightly negligent breach of essential contractual obligations is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract; otherwise liability for slight negligence is excluded. The limitation period for claims not based on intent, gross negligence, injury to life/body/health or an assumed guarantee is one year. These limitations do not apply in cases of fraudulent intent.

10. Changes to these Terms and to the services

(1) The Provider may amend these Terms with effect for the future where necessary to adapt to changed legal or technical conditions, changed case law, or to expand the range of services, provided the user is not unreasonably disadvantaged.

(2) Changes are notified at least 30 days before they take effect in text form (e.g. email). The notice contains the amended version, the reference to the right of objection in a prominent form, and a clear reference to the right of cancellation. The change is deemed approved unless the user objects in text form before it takes effect. If the user objects, either party may terminate the contract as of the effective date.

(3) Adjustments to fees for future billing periods are notified in good time. If the user objects to a fee increase, they may terminate the contract as of the effective date of the increase without observing any other notice period; the notice will point this out. If the user continues to use the service without objecting, the changed fees apply from the next billing period.

11. Suspension and termination by the Provider

(1) The Provider may temporarily suspend access or terminate the contract for good cause if the user materially or repeatedly breaches § 6 or endangers the security or functionality of the Platform. Before a permanent suspension or termination, the user is, where practicable and reasonable, informed and given an opportunity to remedy within a reasonable period; in cases of serious breach or acute danger, suspension may also occur without prior notice.

(2) The right of both parties to ordinary cancellation at the end of the billing period and the mutual right to extraordinary termination for good cause remain unaffected. Where the Provider is responsible for early termination, prepaid, unused fees are refunded pro rata.

12. Right of withdrawal for consumers

(1) Consumers have a statutory right of withdrawal; details are in the Withdrawal Instruction, which prevails over this § 12 in case of conflict.

(2) You have the right to withdraw within fourteen days without giving reasons, starting from the day of conclusion of the contract. To exercise it, inform us (Albulastrasse 50, 8048 Zurich, Switzerland, email: kontakt@zvg-melder.de) by a clear statement; you may also use our online withdrawal form.

(3) Consequences: if you withdraw, we refund all payments received from you without undue delay and at the latest within fourteen days of receipt of your withdrawal. If you requested that performance begin during the withdrawal period, you owe us a reasonable amount (compensation for value) for the performance already rendered up to withdrawal.

(4) Early expiry. For the supply of digital content not on a physical medium, the right of withdrawal expires if you (a) expressly agreed that we begin performance before the end of the withdrawal period and (b) confirmed, by a separate statement, your knowledge that you lose your right of withdrawal upon commencement. For a digital service (e.g. a continuing subscription) the right of withdrawal expires only upon full performance under the same conditions; until then you owe compensation for value under paragraph (3) in case of withdrawal. The confirmations under this paragraph are recorded with text version and timestamp.

13. Data protection, data export and account deletion

(1) Information on the processing of personal data is in our Privacy Policy.

(2) The user may receive their personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format (Art. 20 GDPR). After the contract ends or on request, the user account and associated watches are deleted unless statutory retention obligations apply. Invoicing and tax-relevant data are retained in accordance with commercial and tax retention obligations.

14. Final provisions

(1) The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If the consumer has their habitual residence in another state, then notwithstanding this choice of law the provisions of that state's law from which no derogation is permitted by agreement and which are more favourable to the consumer additionally apply (Art. 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 — Rome I).

(2) If the user is an entrepreneur, merchant, legal entity under public law or special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction is the Provider's registered seat. For consumers the statutory places of jurisdiction apply.

(3) We are neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute-resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration body.

(4) Should individual provisions be or become wholly or partly invalid or unenforceable, the validity of the remaining provisions remains unaffected (§ 306(1) BGB). In place of an invalid or unenforceable provision, and to fill any gaps, the statutory provisions apply (§ 306(2) BGB). A validity-preserving reduction of invalid provisions to a just-permissible level does not take place.