Terms of Use
INTRODUCTION
Coleese (Pty) Ltd is committed to providing a world-class marketing platform for everyone while delivering a great user experience for the millions of property enthusiasts browsing our website daily.
To ensure that Coleese (Pty) Ltd continues to be a vibrant and effective property marketplace, we have established the following Acceptable Usage Policy.
Coleese (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to amend this policy at any given time and encourages estate agencies and private clients to familiarize and stay up to date with the latest terms.
Performance Management and Penalties
Coleese (Pty) Ltd aims to maintain a high-quality standard of listings on our website.
As such we reserve the right to restrict or penalize any offending offices, estate agents or private clients who do not adhere to our policies outlined below, in one of the following ways:
1. Listings may be blocked
• Should a listing violate our policies it will result in the listing being blocked from the website.
• It is the responsibility of the offender to correct the listing, and once rectified to contact the support team at support@coleese.com
• A listing may take between 24 and 48 hours to re-appear on the website after it has been unblocked.
2. Offices may be suspended from the website
• Should an office violate our policies, it may will result in the office and the office’s listings being blocked from the website for a period of 7 days.
3. Estate Agents may be suspended from the website
• Should an estate agent be seen to be spamming private sellers, violating our usage policy or abusing the website in any way, the estate agent’s profile and listings will be suspended from the website for a period of 7 days.
4. Cancellation of Agreement
• Should an office or estate agent continually violate our policies and/or be repeatedly suspended from the website, Coleese (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to close the account of the offending office with immediate effect.
Depending on the level of offence, the below penalties may be enforced by Coleese (Pty) Ltd:
PENALTY 1: Block listing with email notification
PENALTY 2: Suspended estate agent and associated listings with email notification
PENALTY 3: Suspended office and associated listings with email notification
PENALTY 4: Long term suspension or permanent cancellation of an office account.
LISTING POLICY
The aim of the listing policy is to ensure all listings on the website provide relevant, accurate and realistic information on the property being advertised. As such, we require offices and private clients to adhere to this policy and be informed of the potential penalties that will be implemented.
1. Listing Details
1.1 Status
A listing can be allocated a status on the website to provide additional insight to our property shoppers enquiring on the property.
Rentals
• A rental listing must accurately reflect the correct date of availability.
• If a rental listing is no longer available it must be removed from the website.
1.2 Address
Submitting incomplete or incorrect information on the physical address of the advertised property gives false representation to our property shoppers. Incorrect address information can include but is not limited to:
• Address information includes a “0”, “null”, “blank”, or any other placeholder in any of the address fields.
• Descriptive text within the address field
• Incorrect area or suburb allocation
• Incomplete or false unit number and complex name of sectional title schemes.
1.3 Price
Submitting incorrect information on the pricing details of the advertised property gives false representation to our end property shoppers. Incorrect pricing details can include, but is not limited to:
• False or unrealistic rate amounts
• False or unrealistic levy amounts
• Sale / rental price inconsistencies
1.4 Attributes
Submitting incorrect information on the attribute details of the advertised property gives false representation to our end property shoppers. Incorrect attributes can include, but is not limited to:
• Incorrect allocation of the house type
• Irregularities regarding bedroom or bathroom count.
• Carports misrepresented as garages.
• Any other attribute that may be relevant and misguide the property shopper.
1.5 Reported Listings
Coleese (Pty) Ltd allows property shoppers to report any listings which are deemed to be inaccurate or misleading, for one of the following reasons:
• Fraudulent listing
• Wrong Suburb/Location
• Wrong Property Photo
• Wrong Price quoted
• Inaccurate Description
• Property no longer available
• Other
Our support team are tasked to verify the claims reported on a listing and ensure ample evidence is provided to support the claim. The appropriate penalty will be implemented on listings, estate agents or estate agencies reported.
Additional note on penalties for reported listings: Due to the competitive nature of the property industry. Any estate agent seen to be falsely reporting listings may have penalty 2 being actioned against them.
2. Listing Images
To deliver the best digital experience to end property shoppers, we require estate agencies to provide clear, unique, high-quality images that accurately represent the property.
• A minimum image size of 600 x 450px, and a maximum size of 1920px width and at least >1px will be accepted for a listing.
• We require a minimum limit of 1 photo for sale listings, with a maximum limit of 9 photos for all listing types.
• Each image on a listing should be a unique feature of the property.
Incorrect images can include, but are not limited to:
• Images which are blatant copies and have not been taken by the estate agent themselves.
• Images used without the express permission of the original photographer.
• Images containing any borders.
• Generic pictures related to animals, children, or imagery portraying a lifestyle experience or collages related to any of the above.
• Duplicate, similar or identical images within the same listing.
• Images containing branding such as an official logo, estate agent branding, estate agent boards, branded vehicles or text overlaying the image. • Coleese (Pty) Ltd have created branding products and status flags to allow for all estate agencies and agents to market their brand in a consistent way on the website.
• Branding as a watermark is acceptable within an image but needs to adhere to the following guidelines:
• Limit the size of the watermark to 150 x 50px.
• An element of transparency is required.
• The branding should be in one of the corners of the image.
• In development instances where architect “artist impression” images are available, these are acceptable to the point where the property is still under-construction but need to be updated to represent the actual property being advertised as soon as the development is completed.
USAGE POLICY
1. Office/Estate Agent Marketing
Coleese (Pty) Ltd allows for offices and estate agents to market their brand and themselves through specific products on the website. As such, we do not allow for offices or estate agents to market their brands within the listing description or images.
2. Duplicate properties within an agency
Coleese (Pty) Ltd does not allow for the loading of duplicate listings within the same office. If a listing falls between two agency offices, the listing may be listed once within each office if there is a unique associated estate agent.
3. Re-listing/Re-activating Properties
Re-creating new versions of previously activated listings, or turning listings on and off periodically to attempt to either “bump up” an advert or benefit from additional alert notifications is not acceptable.
4. Estate Agents listing as Private Letters
Estate agents are not permitted to list any properties as a private letter, unless the property is their personal property.
5. Office disputes
Resolving any disputes between offices or estate agents is not the responsibility of Coleese (Pty) Ltd. Any disputes need to be referred to the Estate Agents Affairs Board for resolution.
6. Businesses for sale
Coleese (Pty) Ltd’s platform is solely for the advertising of properties, as such we do not allow for businesses to be sold on the website.
7. Website Engagement
Offices and estate agents must adhere to the following with regards to engagement on the website:
• Not use any device, software, process or means to interfere with the proper working of the website.
• Unnecessarily impose a burden or make excessive traffic demands on our infrastructure that we deem, according to our sole discretion to be unreasonable or exorbitant usage of the website. This pertains to web service calls and updates (feed service providers servicing the estate agent network) as well as excessive usage of the lead generating mechanisms on the website front end.