Terms of service

These terms are an agreement between you and VALLO SPACES LTD (RC 9870413), a private company limited by shares registered in Nigeria, which operates the Vallo website, apps and services. Where these terms say "Vallo", "we" or "us", they mean that company. By creating an account or using the platform you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the platform.

Vallo is a marketplace for property and stays in Nigeria. People list homes to rent, property for sale, land, shops and offices, and shortlets, hotels and rooms let by their owners. We check the people who list, host their listings, carry messages between them and you, review the agreements you make on the platform, and arrange payment through a licensed payment processor. We never hold your money.

Vallo does not remove the agent. It sets out to remove the runaround. Agents hold most of the property offered in this market and their fee is theirs to charge. What Vallo is for is that you know who you are dealing with, what you will actually pay and whether the property is real, before you travel to see it. Where an owner lists a property directly, you deal with the owner; where an agent does, you deal with the agent, and either way any fee they charge is theirs and not ours.

A real listing on Vallo is listed on Valloby a person who applied and was approved. Nothing is imported from an outside feed, so a real listing has somebody to message and somebody accountable for what it says. Some listings are examples, marked Example, that Vallo publishes to show how the platform works; an example cannot be rented, bought or booked.

The property itself is provided by the person who listed it, not by Vallo. The tenancy, sale or stay is between you and them. We are not a party to it, not an agent for either side, and not a landlord.

• You must be at least 18 years old to use Vallo.
• The information on your account must be accurate and kept up to date, and you may hold only one personal account.
• You are responsible for keeping your sign-in details secret and for activity on your account. Tell us immediately if you believe it has been compromised.
• Browsing is open to anybody. Saving, messaging, requesting an inspection, paying and listing need an account.

• All payments must go through the platform. The full price, in naira, is shown before you confirm anything.
• Vallo never holds your money. If you pay by card, the owner's or agent's share goes straight to their bank account in the same payment. If you choose to have a licensed partner hold it, it stays with the partner until the deal is confirmed. Our payment processor splits every payment at the moment it is made: the share of the owner or agent goes to the bank account on their payout details, the Vallo Guarantee contribution described in section 14 goes to a separate reserve, and our commission, if any, goes to us. Vallo has no wallet and keeps no balance for you, so there is nothing to top up, nothing held and nothing to withdraw.
• Payment opens as soon as the inspection report is submitted and both of you confirm the agreement. An escrow payment opens straight away; a direct payment waits for a person at Vallo only when something about the deal needs a second look. For a stay, the host accepts the booking and we approve it before payment opens. We record what was paid, to whom, for what and when, and that record is what we act on if something goes wrong.
• Where a crypto payment is offered, it is made through Yellow Card, which converts it to naira before it is split. Vallo never holds crypto and never gives you a crypto address of its own.
• Paying in cash or by direct bank transfer outside the platform leaves no record we can act on at all, and we cannot help recover money paid that way. Keep every message, agreement and payment on Vallo. Vallo is not responsible for anything arranged, discussed or paid outside the platform. If anybody asks you to pay outside the platform, report them to us.
• If a property is materially not as listed, report it to us. We investigate, and we can suspend a listing and stop the person who posted it from trading. Because we never hold the money, we cannot reverse a payment that has already settled to them; what we can do is described in sections 5 and 14.

• This schedule governs stays booked and paid for on Vallo, which is a shortlet, a hotel room or anything else let by the night. One schedule covers all of them, rather than a different one for each person who lists: everything back until 72 hours before check-in, half back inside that window, and nothing back once check-in day has started.
• A tenancy, a sale, a lease or a purchase of land is not governed by it. What is payable, what is returnable and on what notice are terms of the agreement you make with the landlord, the vendor or their agent. A rental paid on Vallo is paid against an agreement both of you confirmed and we approved (section 13), and the owner’s or agent’s share settles to them when you pay; the agreement decides what is returnable, between you and them.
• A stay nobody has paid for is only a hold on the calendar and can be called off at any time for nothing.
• If the person who listed it cancels, the property was not what was listed, or you could not get in, you get everything back whenever it happens. Report it rather than cancelling it yourself.
• A refund goes back to the card or bank account you paid with, through our payment processor. Banks usually show it within 5 to 10 working days. There is no Vallo balance for a refund to sit in.

• Listing is free, and Vallo charges renters and guests nothing: no fee to look, to book or to pay, and nothing added to the price on the listing. Vallo charges a fee only when a deal is completed. When a payment is made through the platform, the platform fee comes out of your share as the lister, and it is shown to you in naira before you agree. A restaurant pays a fixed fee for each table that is seated; the diner pays nothing extra to book.
• If that ever changes, the rate will be shown before the action that incurs it, on the same screen and at the same weight as the amount. We will give thirty days' notice by email and in the product first, and anything listed or booked under one rate completes under that rate.
• If you host a stay or a restaurant, you also agree to the Host Agreement (at /host-agreement) before your business is set up. In short: you must not charge a guest anything that is not listed on Vallo, every charge you list must say what it is for, and anything not listed cannot be charged.
• You are responsible for the accuracy of what you list. Listings must be lawful, must be yours to offer, and must carry photographs of the actual property. Every listing is reviewed by a person before it is published.
• No hidden charges. A lister or host must not charge a guest or renter anything that is not listed on Vallo, and must not add a charge without a stated reason. Every cost, including any charge payable at the door, must be listed before the booking is confirmed so that the guest sees the full total first. A charge that breaks this rule can lead to the listing being removed or the account being stopped, and you can report it.
• Where a listing states a title, such as a certificate of occupancy or a deed of assignment, that is what the seller claims. It is not a statement that anybody has checked it. Have a lawyer verify title at the land registry before money moves.
• Your share of a payment settles straight to the Nigerian bank account on your payout details, through our payment processor, at the moment it is paid. You need payout details on file before anybody can pay you. We may remove listings or stop accounts that break these terms.

Trust on Vallo is deliberately not a single tick, because a single tick is a promise we would have to keep about things we cannot know.

• The verified badge means an administrator approved the listing and the person who posted it has passed identity checks. It means those two things and nothing else.
• The person who lists climbs a ladder of four rungs, in this order: identity seen, then address confirmed, then bank account in their own name, then met in person. Where a rung is shown with a date, that is a record of something that happened on that date. Where it is absent, nobody has done it. An absence is not a negative and does not mean anything is wrong.
• Verification is not a guarantee against fraud, not a valuation, not a survey, not a structural inspection and not legal advice about title. A verified person can still behave badly, and the checks tell you who somebody is rather than how they will behave.
• Badges are earned and are never for sale.

Keep every conversation on the platform. The record is what protects you when a deal goes wrong, and a conversation that moved to another app is one we cannot see, cannot verify and cannot act on.

You should know that messages are screened automatically. An automated check flags messages containing things like bank account numbers and payment requests, and a flagged message is put in front of our staff to review. It exists because asking somebody to pay outside the platform is the most common way people are defrauded in this market.

We do not give staff casual access to private conversations. Staff read a conversation when a check has flagged it, when somebody reports it, or where the law requires it. You can block and report any other member.

You can request an inspection through the platform and the person who listed the property arranges it with you. Vallo is not present at an inspection and does not conduct it unless the listing explicitly says the property was physically inspected by us and gives the date. Take somebody with you, meet in daylight, and never pay before you have seen the property.

Vallo charges no inspection fee. Viewing a property through Vallo is free. If an owner or agent asks you for a fee to inspect, that is a private arrangement between you and them. It is not a Vallo charge, Vallo does not collect it, and you can report it to us.

After a rental inspection you submit the inspection report on the platform: eight items, each with its photographs. It is the record of the property as you found it, it is what an agreement is drawn up from, and it is what any claim on the Vallo Guarantee is compared with.

Vallo includes an assistant and other automated features that generate text. Anything they produce is assistance, not advice. It is not a valuation, not legal advice and never a substitute for inspecting a property in person. Generated answers can be wrong. Check anything that matters against the listing itself and against the person who posted it, and take professional advice before you commit money.

Reviews must reflect a genuine stay or visit, and you can only review a stay you actually had. You keep ownership of the content you post, and you grant Vallo a non-exclusive licence to host and display it on the platform and in connection with the service. We may remove content that is unlawful, abusive or misleading. The platform itself, its design, its software and its name remain ours.

You agree not to:

• Post false, misleading or unlawful listings, reviews, posts or messages.
• Take a transaction or a payment off the platform, or ask anybody else to.
• Impersonate any person, or use another person's identity documents.
• Harass, threaten or discriminate against anybody, including our staff.
• Scrape the platform, interfere with its security, or use it to send spam.
• Hold more than one personal account, or try to claim a reserved handle.

Before a rental or a stay is paid for on the platform, an agreement is drawn up from the listing’s own figures and, for a rental, the inspection report. Both of you confirm the same version. Changing anything creates a new version and both of you confirm again.

A person at Vallo then reviews the agreement and approves it, or sends it back with a reason. Both of you are told by email and in the app. Payment opens only after approval. Approval means the agreement is complete and consistent with the listing and the report; it is not a guarantee of the property, the owner or the agent, and every decision is logged.

Where an agent confirms for an owner, the agent confirms that they hold the owner’s mandate to do so.

Between 1 and 2 percent of every payment made through the platform is set aside, at the moment of payment, in a reserve kept apart from Vallo’s own money. The exact percentage is shown on the agreement before you pay. At launch the Guarantee covers rentals and stays paid through Vallo. It does not cover property purchases.

• A claim is made from the agreement on the platform, with evidence, within the claim window: 72 hours from move-in on a rental or from check-in on a stay.
• A person at Vallo reviews every claim against the inspection report and the agreement, and approves it, in full or in part, or declines it with a reason.
• A claim is capped at what you paid for that booking and by what is in the reserve at the time it is decided. An approved claim is paid to your bank account from the reserve.
• The Guarantee is not insurance, it is not a deposit and it creates no balance in your name. Anything arranged or paid outside the platform is not covered.

We work hard to keep listings honest, but Vallo is a marketplace: we do not own, occupy, inspect daily or control the properties people list. To the extent Nigerian law allows:

• The platform is provided "as is", and we do not guarantee it will always be uninterrupted or error free.
• We are not liable for losses caused by another user breaking their agreement with you, beyond the specific commitments in sections 5 and 14.
• We are not responsible for anything arranged, discussed or paid outside the platform. The Disclaimer sets this out in full and forms part of these terms.
• Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

You may close your account at any time from settings or by contacting support. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. Where we do, we tell you why and, where the breach can be fixed, give you the chance to fix it. Serious harm, fraud or a legal requirement may mean immediate suspension.

You can appeal any suspension or closure. Reply to the notice or contact support, and a person who was not involved in the original decision reviews it.

How we handle personal data is described in our Privacy policy, which is written for the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and forms part of these terms.

We may update these terms as the platform grows. The date at the top of this page always shows the current version, and we will notify you through the product or by email before significant changes take effect. Continuing to use Vallo after a change means you accept the updated terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the Nigerian courts have jurisdiction over disputes arising from them. We would always rather resolve a problem directly first, so please contact support before anything else; most issues are settled that way.

Questions about these terms go to the contact form. We reply within one business day.