SWFL Vacations Terms of Service

Please read carefully. Section 20 contains a binding arbitration agreement and class action waiver that affect how disputes are resolved.

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover#

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and SWFL Vacations LLC, a Florida limited liability company ("SWFL Vacations," "we," "us"). They govern your use of swflvacations.com and related sites, apps, emails, messages and services (the "Platform").

If you list a property, you also agree to the Host Terms. If you list a service or experience, you also agree to the Vendor & Experience Provider Terms. The Fee Schedule, Cancellation Policies, Nondiscrimination Policy and SMS Terms are part of these Terms. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information. If these Terms conflict with supplemental terms, the supplemental terms control for that subject.

2. Eligibility and accounts#

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to use the Platform. The person who books a vacation rental must be at least 25 years old and must stay at the property during the booking. You agree to give accurate information, keep your login secure, and tell us promptly about any unauthorized use. We may verify identity, including through Stripe, and may refuse, suspend or close accounts as described in Section 17.

3. SWFL Vacations is a marketplace#

(a) The Platform lets independent third parties list vacation rental properties ("Hosts") and services or experiences ("Vendors"; Hosts and Vendors together, "Providers"), and lets guests ("Guests") book them. When you book a listing, you are contracting directly with the Provider. SWFL Vacations is not a party to that contract. SWFL Vacations collects the booking fee and the deposit paid at booking for itself, and helps the Provider collect the rest of the payment, as described in Section 7.

(b) SWFL Vacations does not own, operate, manage or control any listing. Providers are independent businesses, not our employees or agents. We review listings for our own marketplace quality purposes. Our review is not a guarantee of safety, legality, licensing, accuracy or quality.

(c) Listings appear under the SWFL Vacations brand. Some Hosts choose to show a public profile with a display name, photo and short bio; a Host's legal name may not be shown to you. Statements on a profile such as "License and registration numbers on file" mean the Host gave us those numbers; we do not verify them with licensing authorities. None of this makes SWFL Vacations the owner, operator or manager of any listing. You may ask us for the legal name of the Provider responsible for your booking at any time, and we will provide it where required by law or needed to resolve a claim.

4. Listings offered by Sands Property Management LLC#

Some properties on the Platform are offered and managed by Sands Property Management LLC, a Florida-licensed real estate brokerage (license no. CQ1069009). Sands Property Management LLC is a separate legal entity from SWFL Vacations LLC. The two companies are affiliated through common ownership.

Sands Property Management LLC lists on the Platform as a Host like any other, and pays SWFL Vacations the same Host commission as every other Host, currently 6% of the booking subtotal, collected the same way. Its listings are identified on the Platform. Some of its listings are booked through its own reservation and payment system instead. Those bookings are governed by its own rental agreement, cancellation policy and privacy policy, which you will be shown before you book, and SWFL Vacations is not a party to them and does not collect payment for them. You are never required to book a Sands Property Management LLC listing.

5. Booking#

A booking is confirmed only when you receive a confirmation from the Platform. By booking, you agree to pay all amounts shown at checkout, on the schedule shown at checkout, and to follow the listing's house rules, cancellation policy, occupancy limits, and any Provider-specific terms or waivers shown on the listing. The total price of the stay, including the booking fee, all mandatory fees and taxes, is shown before you book. Checkout also shows the amount due today, the amount charged later, and when the later charge will be made.

6. Fees#

SWFL Vacations charges Guests a booking fee and charges Providers a commission, as set out in the Fee Schedule. SWFL Vacations pays card processing on Guest payments for stays, so Guests and Hosts pay no processing charge. We may change the Fee Schedule with 30 days' notice. Changes never affect confirmed bookings.

7. Payments#

(a) Payments for bookings made on the Platform are processed by Stripe, Inc. and its affiliates ("Stripe"). We do not store full card numbers.

(b) Who you are paying. At booking you pay SWFL Vacations 9% of the booking subtotal: the booking fee plus a deposit toward your stay. The deposit is credited against your stay total. The remainder (the rent, cleaning fee and other mandatory fees, less the deposit, plus taxes) is charged on behalf of the Host, through the Host's own Stripe account, and the Host is the merchant of record for it. You may see two charges on your statement. Each Provider appoints SWFL Vacations as its limited agent to arrange and accept those payments, and when a payment for a booking succeeds, your obligation to pay the Provider that amount is satisfied.

(c) Two-step payment and your saved card. The amount due today is charged when you book. The remainder is charged automatically before the listing's cancellation cutoff, starting 3 days before it, as shown at checkout. If you book after that first charge date, the full stay total is charged when you book. By booking, you authorize SWFL Vacations and the Host, through Stripe, to save your card and charge it for the remainder before the cutoff, and for any amounts you owe under Section 10. You may update your card before the cutoff in your account or through the payment link we email you.

(d) Failed or reversed payments. If the charge for the remainder fails, we will retry it before the cutoff and email you a payment link. If the remainder is not paid by the cutoff, the booking is canceled automatically, and the cancellation is treated as your cancellation at the cutoff under the listing's policy. If a payment is reversed, we or the Host may cancel the booking or collect the amount due.

8. Cancellations, changes and refunds#

(a) Each listing shows a cancellation policy described in our Cancellation Policies. That policy governs refunds, except as stated in this Section. Bookings keep the policy version in effect when they were confirmed.

(b) Provider or SWFL Vacations cancellation. If a Provider cancels, or we cancel a booking other than for your breach of these Terms or non-payment, you receive a full refund of the amounts you paid for that booking, including the booking fee and the deposit paid at booking.

(c) Listing not as described. If the property is materially not as described, is unsafe or unsanitary, or cannot be accessed, report it to us within 24 hours of discovering the problem and give the Provider a reasonable chance to fix it. We may then arrange a partial or full refund. Refunds under this Section are funded from the Provider's payout, except where the problem was caused by an error on the Platform.

(d) Hurricanes and evacuations. The listing's cancellation policy applies to storms, including named storms, watches, warnings and evacuation orders. We strongly recommend travel insurance that covers hurricanes. If a Host cancels because of an evacuation order or storm damage, you receive a full refund, including the booking fee and the deposit paid at booking.

(e) If you cancel before the cutoff, the booking fee is not refunded and the deposit paid at booking is refunded. If you cancel at or after the cutoff, nothing is refunded, as the Cancellation Policies describe. Both are refunded in full when the Provider or we cancel, or where the law requires.

9. Guest responsibilities and conduct#

You agree to follow house rules and posted occupancy limits for guests and vehicles. You agree not to host parties or events unless the listing expressly allows them. You agree to follow pool, spa, dock and waterfront safety rules, including constant adult supervision of children around pools and water. You agree to observe quiet hours, parking and trash rules and local ordinances, not to smoke or bring pets unless allowed, to leave the property in reasonable condition, and to report damage promptly.

A Host may end a stay and remove guests who seriously violate the rules, as Florida law allows, without a refund. You are responsible for the acts of everyone in your party.

10. Damage, security deposits and claims#

(a) Each Host chooses whether to require a refundable security deposit, a card hold, a non-refundable damage waiver fee, or none of these. The listing and checkout show what applies.

(b) If a Host reports damage, excess cleaning or missing items within 14 days after checkout, with reasonable documentation, we will notify you and give you a chance to respond. If we reasonably determine you are responsible, you authorize us, or the Host through its Stripe account, to charge your saved payment method or apply your deposit for the documented amount. You may dispute our determination by contacting us, and Section 20 applies to any unresolved dispute.

11. Experiences and services: assumption of risk#

Many experiences involve physical activity, boats, open water, weather, wildlife, heat and other inherent risks. You participate voluntarily and at your own risk. A Vendor may require you and your party to sign its own waiver or release, meet age, weight, health or swimming requirements, and follow safety instructions, including life jacket use. SWFL Vacations does not operate or supervise any experience or service.

12. Communications and anti-circumvention#

(a) Communicate and pay only through the Platform. You may not use the Platform to find a listing and then book or pay for it outside the Platform, or share or request contact details for that purpose. We screen messages and listing content, including automatically, to detect contact information, off-Platform payment requests, fraud and policy violations. Messages may be delayed or edited to remove that information.

(b) Bookings made outside the Platform have no protections under these Terms. Violations may lead to account suspension, and Providers may owe fees as described in their supplemental terms.

13. Stay pages and access information#

For confirmed bookings, we may give you a private stay page with check-in details, door or lock codes, Wi-Fi details, house rules and local recommendations. Treat the link and codes as confidential and do not share them outside your party. Anyone with the link may be able to view the page. Access information is provided by the Host, and we do not guarantee its accuracy. Codes may be changed or revoked after your stay. Local recommendations are informational and may include businesses listed on the Platform.

14. Reviews#

14.1 Who can review, and when. After a stay booked directly through the Platform is over, the Guest who booked it may write one review of that stay. You may write the review during the 14 days that begin the day after check-out. We invite you by email to the address on the booking, and you confirm that address before you submit, either by signing in to your Guest account with that verified email or with a one-time code we send you. Stays booked through Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com or another channel are reviewed on that channel and are not eligible for a review on the Platform.

14.2 What a review must be. A review must be your honest opinion based on your own stay. Your review has an overall rating from 1 to 5, an optional headline and text of 20 to 2,000 characters. You choose the name shown with it; it starts as your first name and last initial. You must not put in a review:

• phone numbers, email addresses, web addresses, social media handles or other contact details;
• an offer or a request to book, pay or communicate outside the Platform;
• threats, harassment, hate speech, or abuse of any person; or
• anything you do not have the right to publish, including other people's private information.

14.3 No incentives. You may not be paid, or receive any discount, credit or other benefit, for a review, and no one may offer you one for a positive review or for withholding a negative one. We do not offer incentives for reviews. Reviews by anyone affiliated with SWFL Vacations or Sands Property Management LLC are not permitted unless the affiliation is disclosed.

14.4 How reviews are published.

(a) Checked first. Every review is read by our staff before it is published.

(b) Held until both sides have written, or the window closes. A Guest's review is held back until a staff member has approved it and either the Host has written a review of the Guest or the 14-day window has closed, whichever comes first. For stays on Sands-managed homes there is no Host review, so those reviews appear once approved and the window has closed.

(c) Hosts' reviews of Guests. For stays booked on the marketplace, the Host may review the Guest (a rating and text) during the same 14 days. A Host's review of a Guest is visible only to that Host and to our staff. We do not publish it or show it to the Guest.

14.5 What we may remove, and what we never do. We may reject, or take down, a review only if it contains contact details, an offer or request to deal outside the Platform, or abuse. We never reject, hide, rank or filter a review because of its rating or its tone toward a listing, a Host or us, including negative reviews. Every review we receive that is approved is counted in the averages and shown, newest first. We record who made each decision, when and why.

14.6 Your name and your content. A review is shown with the display name you choose, the month it was written and the listing it is about; we never show your email address. You keep ownership of your review. By submitting it you give SWFL Vacations a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to display, reproduce and use it in connection with the listing and the Platform, and you confirm that it is yours to give. If you delete your Guest account, your review stays on the listing without your name, shown as "Past guest".

14.7 Reviews from booking channels. Many homes are also listed on Vrbo, Airbnb and Booking.com. For Sands-managed homes we also show reviews that guests wrote on those channels or on direct bookings, which we receive through our reservation software. They appear in a separate box labeled as coming from our booking channels, with their own averages, and are never combined with reviews written on the Platform. Each shows the channel, the month and the name the channel gave us, or "Guest". For Airbnb reviews we show the rating and date but not the text. Reviews hidden by the channel are not shown. We apply Section 14.5 to these reviews too and show every one we receive, newest first.

14.8 Privacy and emails. How we handle review information, including review emails, the confirmation code, hashes, retention and the data download, is in our Privacy Policy, section "Reviews". The invitation and one reminder are about your stay only and contain no offer.

15. Your content and content standards#

You keep ownership of the content you submit, including photos, descriptions, reviews and messages. You grant SWFL Vacations a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable license to host, use, reproduce, modify (for example, crop, resize or enhance), display, distribute and create derivative works of your content to operate, promote and advertise the Platform and its listings, including in search results, social media and paid ads. For listing content, this license continues for a reasonable period after removal for materials already in circulation.

You represent that you have the rights to the content you submit, including permission from photographers, and that it is not false, misleading, defamatory, infringing, discriminatory or unlawful.

16. Prohibited conduct#

You may not:

• break the law or discriminate (see our Nondiscrimination Policy)
• post fake listings or reviews
• scrape or copy the Platform or its data, or use bots
• interfere with the Platform's security
• harass anyone
• use recording devices in a listing unless disclosed. Exterior devices must be disclosed, and devices are never allowed in bedrooms or bathrooms.
• use the Platform for any commercial purpose we have not authorized

17. Suspension and termination#

You may close your account at any time. We may suspend, restrict or terminate accounts, remove listings or cancel bookings if we reasonably believe you have broken these Terms, created risk or legal exposure, or committed fraud, or if the law requires it. Where appropriate, we will give notice and a chance to respond. Sections that by their nature should survive termination do so, including fees owed, licenses, disclaimers, limits of liability, indemnities and dispute resolution.

18. Disclaimers#

THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SWFL VACATIONS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THE CONDUCT OF USERS OR THE ACCURACY, SAFETY, LEGALITY OR QUALITY OF ANY LISTING, PROPERTY, SERVICE OR EXPERIENCE. Weather, beach, water, red tide, wildlife and other local conditions are outside our control.

19. Limitation of liability#

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (a) SWFL VACATIONS, ITS PARENT, ITS AFFILIATES AND THEIR OWNERS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES AND AGENTS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, DATA OR GOODWILL; AND (b) OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE PLATFORM OR ANY BOOKING WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (i) THE BOOKING FEES, COMMISSIONS AND OTHER FEES YOU PAID TO SWFL VACATIONS (NOT AMOUNTS PAID TO OR ON BEHALF OF PROVIDERS) IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY, OR (ii) US $100.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability for our gross negligence, willful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, or any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

20. Dispute resolution: arbitration and class action waiver#

(a) Informal resolution first. Before filing a claim, you and we agree to try to resolve it informally for 30 days after written notice to legal@swflvacations.com or our mailing address in Section 27.

(b) Binding arbitration. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Platform will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, and governed by the Federal Arbitration Act. The arbitration will take place in Lee County, Florida, or by video. If you are a consumer, you may choose the county where you live instead.

(c) Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court. Either party may seek injunctive relief in court for misuse of intellectual property or unauthorized access to the Platform.

(d) Class action waiver. Claims may be brought only on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective or representative proceeding.

(e) 30-day opt-out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing legal@swflvacations.com within 30 days after you first accept these Terms.

(f) If the class action waiver is found unenforceable for a claim, that claim must proceed in court and not in arbitration.

21. Governing law and venue#

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida and applicable federal law, without regard to conflict of law principles. Subject to Section 20, the state and federal courts located in Lee County, Florida have exclusive jurisdiction.

22. Changes to these Terms#

We may update these Terms. For material changes, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in-app notice before they take effect, and we may ask you to accept the updated Terms before you continue using account features. Continuing to use the Platform after the effective date means you accept the change. Changes do not apply to confirmed bookings or to disputes already notified, unless required by law. Each version is dated, archived, and posted with a summary of changes.

23. Force majeure#

Neither we nor Providers are liable for failures caused by events beyond reasonable control. These include hurricanes, tropical storms, flooding, storm surge, red tide and other environmental events, fires, epidemics, government orders including evacuation orders, utility or internet failures, and acts of war or terrorism. Section 8(d) governs guest refunds for storms and evacuations.

24. Copyright complaints (DMCA)#

If you believe content on the Platform infringes your copyright, send a notice that meets 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) to our designated agent: Matt Hullinger, SWFL Vacations LLC, 3645 Bonita Beach Rd SW, Unit 1, Bonita Springs, FL 34134, legal@swflvacations.com. We remove infringing content where appropriate and terminate repeat infringers.

25. Accessibility#

We aim to make the Platform accessible and to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Providers describe the accessibility features of their own properties and experiences, and we do not verify them. If you have trouble using the Platform, contact support@swflvacations.com.

26. General terms#

These Terms, the supplemental terms and the policies they reference are the entire agreement between you and us. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. We may send notices to you by email or through the Platform.

27. Contact#

SWFL Vacations LLC 3645 Bonita Beach Rd SW, Unit 1 Bonita Springs, FL 34134 support@swflvacations.com · 239-900-1682

SMS Terms#

SWFL Vacations sends text messages to guests who have opted in, about their booking, their stay page link, check-in and checkout reminders, and a post-stay survey. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP at any time to opt out. Reply HELP for help, or call (239) 900-1682. Consent to receive text messages is not a condition of any booking, purchase or service. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. We do not sell or share your phone number or SMS opt-in data with third parties for marketing purposes. See our Privacy Policy at https://swflvacations.com/privacy.

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