Homeowner Marketplace Agreement

This Agreement is between you and Eznest Technologies Inc. ("eznest", "we", "us") — a corporation incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act on 13 June 2026, corporation number 1801532-5, with its registered office at 226 Kinloch Crt, Nepean, Ontario K2J 5S9, Canada. It governs your use of the eznest platform as a homeowner or household member. If you are a service provider, the Provider Terms of Service apply to you instead.

By using eznest, you agree to this Agreement, the Acceptable Use Policy, and the Privacy Policy.

The short version

Six things worth knowing before you read the rest. Each is expanded below, and where the short version and the detail differ, the detail governs.

1. eznest introduces you to a contractor. We are not part of the deal you strike with them. The agreement to do the work is between you and them, and we do not sign it, guarantee it, or stand behind it.
2. We do not check contractors. We do not verify licences, insurance, business registration or identity, and we run no background checks of any kind. Check them yourself before you let anyone into your home.
3. eznest is free for homeowners. We charge you nothing. Our revenue comes from a fee charged to providers.
4. We do not take your money and we never hold it. During this beta, payments are arranged and made directly between you and your provider, outside eznest.
5. We will help if something goes wrong, but we cannot decide it. Our dispute process is an internal case record that pauses approvals. It awards nothing and binds no one.
6. Reviews here are from people who actually hired. We never filter, gate or delay a review because of what it says.

1. What eznest is

eznest is a venue. We help homeowners describe what they need and connect with local service providers, and we give both sides tools to keep track of the work — a project record, messages, quotes, milestones, change orders and documents.

We are not a contractor, a broker, an agent, an employer, or a party to your work agreement. When you engage a provider through eznest, the contract for that work is between the two of you. Every contract document our system produces names exactly two parties — you and the provider — and eznest is not one of them. We have no signature line on it, and we could not add one.

We are also not a payment processor, a lender, an insurer, an escrow agent, a lawyer, or an arbitrator.

1.1 Who can use eznest

You must be the age of majority in your province and able to enter a binding contract. eznest currently serves Ontario.

Access is by invitation only. During this beta, creating an account requires an invitation code from us. We may end, extend or change the beta at any time.

1.2 The Platform is early

eznest is in an early, invited release. Features described here may change, and some capabilities that exist in the product are switched off. Where that is the case, this Agreement says so rather than describing them as though they were running. We will not tell you something works when it does not.

2. Your account

You are responsible for your account and for what happens under it. Keep your sign-in secure and tell us promptly at support@eznest.ca if you think someone else has access.

We do not offer two-factor authentication today. We are telling you so you can judge for yourself how to secure the account you use to sign in.

You may add household members. If you do, you are responsible for what they do on the Platform, and for having the authority to share your household's information with them. If you set up an account for a young person in your household, you are consenting on their behalf and you control what that account may do.

You can close your account at any time from Settings → Account. What that erases, and what it does not, is set out in §7.4 of the Privacy Policy.

3. Providers, and the fact that we do not check them

Read this section twice. It is the most important thing in this document.

3.1 What we actually verify

We verify one thing: that a provider controls the email address on their account.

That is the entire list.

3.2 What we do not verify

We do not verify, and you must not assume we have verified:

• trade licences or certifications, with any regulator or issuer;
• Home Construction Regulatory Authority registration;
• Electrical Safety Authority licensing;
• WSIB coverage or clearance;
• liability insurance — whether it exists, what it covers, or its limits;
• business registration or corporate standing;
• the identity of the individual behind the business;
• criminal record, police clearance, or vulnerable-sector screening.

We run no background check of any kind, at any level, on any provider. No tier of our system includes one. If you have read otherwise anywhere, that was wrong.

Providers may upload business documents — a registration, an insurance certificate, a trade certification — and an eznest administrator may look at them. That is a person's eyes on a PDF, not verification with the issuer. A document we have looked at may be expired, altered, or belong to someone else, and we would not know.

Badges, trust levels, and words like Bronze, Silver or Gold that appear in the product reflect how much a provider has told us and shown us. They are not a performance rating, an endorsement, or a safety assurance.

3.3 What that means for you

Before you let anyone into your home or pay them anything:

• ask for their licence number and check it yourself with the relevant Ontario regulator;
• ask for a certificate of insurance and confirm it with the insurer, not the contractor;
• ask for a WSIB clearance certificate if the work warrants one;
• get references and call them;
• get the agreement in writing before work starts.

You choose your provider. You accept the risk of that choice. We provide the introduction and the tools; we do not provide assurance about the person.

3.4 We do not guarantee the work

We do not warrant, guarantee, insure or stand behind any provider's work — its quality, its timeliness, its completion, its compliance with the building code, or anything else. Any warranty on the work runs from your provider to you, under whatever you agreed with them. eznest gives no warranty on the work at all.

4. How hiring works

There are two routes to the same place, and either is a valid way to engage a provider.

Post a project and take bids. You describe the work. Eligible providers submit bids. You review them and award one. The winning bid is accepted, the others are declined, and a conversation opens between you and the provider you chose.

Accept a quote. A provider sends you a quote — a price, a scope, and any terms they attach. You accept it. That accepted quote becomes the basis for the work, and any competing quotes on the same project close.

Either way:

• You are never obliged to award anything. A posted project creates no commitment. You may take no bids at all.
• A bid or quote is the provider's offer, not ours. We do not set, review, approve or vouch for any price.
• What you agree with your provider is your contract with them. eznest records it. eznest is not bound by it.

4.1 Site visits

A provider schedules visits and updates their status — confirmed, on the way, on site, working — from their side of the product. You do not confirm or decline a visit in the app, and a status showing in eznest is the provider's report of what they are doing, not our verification of it. Arrange access to your home directly with them.

4.2 Work agreed at your door

If a provider signs an agreement with you at your home and then records it in eznest, that agreement is between you and them, made outside the Platform. This Agreement governs your use of eznest; it does not govern that contract, and it does not displace any statutory right you have in relation to it — see §7.

5. Money

5.1 eznest is free for homeowners

We charge you no fee: no booking fee, no service fee, no commission, no subscription, no percentage of your project. Our revenue comes from a fee we charge providers on work you have approved. That fee is between us and them; it is not added to your price, and it is not deducted from anything of yours.

5.2 During this beta, you pay your provider directly

eznest does not process, collect, hold, transmit, remit or refund payment for your project. Our payment integration is built but switched off. In practice that means:

• you and your provider agree how and when you pay — cheque, e-transfer, card, whatever you settle on;
• the money moves directly between you, entirely outside eznest;
• eznest never holds your funds. Not in escrow, not in trust, not for a moment. There is no eznest account your project money passes through.

Because we do not hold your money, we cannot release it, refund it, reverse it, or protect it. eznest offers no payment guarantee, no purchase protection and no chargeback assistance. If you want that protection, use a payment method that carries it and take it up with your card issuer or bank.

5.3 What "approving" a milestone means today

If your project is broken into milestones, your provider marks one submitted and you approve it. Approving records your acceptance of that portion of work. It does not charge you anything today, because payments are switched off. Payment happens between you and your provider by whatever means you agreed.

When we do switch payments on, approval will be the moment payment is taken — that is the design, and it is why there is never an escrow. We will tell you before that changes, and this section will be updated first.

5.4 Automatic approval, if you switch it on

You can set a dollar threshold below which submitted milestones are approved automatically if you have not acted on them. This is off unless you turn it on, and you set the amount.

If you do turn it on, a submitted milestone at or below your threshold is approved automatically after a grace period of 72 hours. Automatic approval never runs while a dispute is open on the project, and never runs during a cooling-off period. You can change or remove the threshold at any time in your settings.

If you leave this off — the default — nothing is ever approved without you.

5.5 Taxes, deposits and holdback

Your provider is responsible for charging and remitting HST on their work. eznest calculates, collects and remits no tax on your project.

If you and your provider agree a deposit, that is between you. eznest does not collect it, does not cap it, and does not hold it. Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002 governs what a contractor may require from you in the circumstances it covers; nothing here limits it.

Where statutory holdback applies to your project under Ontario's Construction Act, eznest may display a calculated figure for reference. That is arithmetic on numbers you and your provider entered. eznest does not hold back, retain, or release holdback funds, and the obligation to deal with it correctly sits with you and your provider under your contract.

5.6 Change orders

Once work is agreed, a provider can propose a change to scope or price. It takes effect only when you approve it. Nothing you did not approve changes what you owe.

A change cannot be approved while a cooling-off period is running on the project. If you and your provider agree a reduction rather than an increase, eznest records the reduced scope — settling any money already paid is between the two of you, because we hold none of it.

6. Contract documents

In-system contract creation and signing are not currently available. You and your provider must use your own written agreement outside the Platform before work starts. Eznest does not supply legal advice and is not a party to that agreement.

When in-system signing is activated, the Platform will identify the exact agreement version, both parties, signature roles, timestamps, signature evidence, and a cryptographic fingerprint of the signed content. The activation notice and applicable terms will describe that process before either party can use it.

You remain free to use your own contract.

7. Your statutory rights

Nothing in this Agreement takes away a right you have under Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002, or any other consumer-protection law that applies to you. Where anything here conflicts with such a law, that law wins and the rest of this Agreement stands.

7.1 Cooling-off

Ontario law gives you a cooling-off period to cancel certain direct agreements — broadly, contracts for more than $50 negotiated or entered into somewhere other than the supplier's place of business, such as your home.

That right comes from the statute, not from eznest, and you have it whether or not it is reflected in the app.

The Platform can help you track it: if you tell us a project is a direct agreement, we start a cooling-off period using the number of days that applies in your province, and while it runs the Platform blocks change-order approval and automatic milestone approval. That tracking is a convenience. If you do not flag the project, the app will not show a cooling-off window — and your legal right is entirely unaffected.

To cancel within your cooling-off period, tell your provider in writing. Marking something in eznest is not notice to your provider.

8. Disputes with a provider

8.1 What we do

You or your provider can open a dispute on a project. One at a time. The person who opened it can withdraw it.

While a dispute is open, the Platform pauses milestone approval and automatic approval on that project. That is a real and immediate effect, and it is the main thing a dispute does.

An eznest administrator reviews what both sides recorded and writes down an outcome: resolved in the homeowner's favour, in the provider's favour, split, or still under review, along with the reasoning.

8.2 What we do not do, and cannot

Our outcome is a recorded view. It is not binding on anyone and it moves no money.

• We do not arbitrate or adjudicate.
• We do not mediate to a binding result, and we do not provide or pay for a mediator.
• We do not refer you to arbitration or any alternative dispute resolution service — no such arrangement exists.
• We do not award compensation, order anyone to pay, or issue refunds. We hold no funds, so we could not.
• We do not enforce our own outcome.

Your real remedies are the ones you had anyway — your contract with your provider, Ontario's consumer-protection framework, the applicable trade regulator, and the courts including Small Claims Court. Nothing here replaces them, and using our dispute process does not use up any of them or extend any deadline.

We will provide you with the records we hold about your project if you need them.

8.3 Disputes with us

If you have a complaint about eznest itself, write to support@eznest.ca, or to privacy@eznest.ca for anything about your personal information. We will respond. We would much rather sort it out with you than have it go anywhere else.

9. Reviews

You can review a provider you actually hired, once the work has reached completion. You get one review per project. Your provider gets one response.

We do not gate reviews by what they say. A one-star review takes exactly the same path as a five-star one: no extra confirmation, no delay, no routing to the provider first, no filtering. We will never ask you to reconsider a negative review, and we will never quietly suppress one.

We may remove or hide a review that breaks the Acceptable Use Policy — because it is defamatory, contains someone's personal information, is not about the work, or is fraudulent. We will not remove one because a provider dislikes it. If we remove yours, we will tell you why.

Reviews are your opinion, not ours. We do not verify factual claims inside a review.

10. Your content

What you post is yours. Your project descriptions, photos, documents, messages and reviews remain yours.

You give us permission to store, copy, display and process that content as needed to run the Platform for you — to show your project to providers who can bid, to deliver your messages, to render your documents, to publish your reviews. That permission lasts as long as we hold the content and covers nothing else. We do not use your content for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not use it to train AI models.

You are responsible for what you post: that you have the right to post it, that it is not somebody else's confidential or personal information you have no basis to share, and that it complies with the Acceptable Use Policy.

11. Suspension and termination

You can leave at any time, from Settings → Account.

We may suspend or close your account if you break this Agreement or the Acceptable Use Policy, if we are required to by law, or if your use of the Platform puts other people or the Platform itself at risk. Where we reasonably can, we will tell you why and give you a chance to put it right first. Suspension is immediate where someone's safety is at stake.

If we close your account, you remain able to obtain your data and to raise a complaint. Your existing agreement with a provider is unaffected — it is not ours to end.

We may stop offering the Platform, or any part of it. If we do, we will give you reasonable notice and time to export your data.

12. Liability

What we are responsible for: operating the Platform honestly and with reasonable care, and handling your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy.

What we are not responsible for: the acts, omissions, work, conduct, honesty, safety or solvency of any provider; any agreement between you and a provider; any damage, loss, injury or cost arising from work performed; and any decision you make about whom to hire.

To the fullest extent the law allows, and subject always to §12.1, eznest is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages, or for lost profits or lost data.

12.1 What we do not limit

Nothing in this Agreement excludes or limits our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded, including rights and remedies under Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, eznest's aggregate liability to you for claims arising from this Agreement is limited to CA$1,000. This limit does not apply to the matters listed in §12.1.

13. Changes to this Agreement

If we make a minor change, we update this page and its date.

If we make a material change — one that changes what you get, what you owe, or what you can do about it — we will tell you at least 30 days before it takes effect, explain what changed, and where the law requires it, ask you to accept it again rather than assume you have.

If you do not accept a material change, close your account before it takes effect. Work already under way stays governed by the version in force when you started it.

14. General

Governing law. This Agreement is governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. The courts of Ontario have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory law of your own province, or of your access to Small Claims Court.

No arbitration clause. We have not asked you to give up the right to go to court, and this Agreement contains no mandatory arbitration or class-action waiver.

Assignment. You may not transfer this Agreement. We may transfer it as part of a corporate reorganisation, merger or sale, on notice to you.

Severability. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest stands.

Entire agreement. This Agreement, the Acceptable Use Policy and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and eznest about the Platform. They do not affect your contract with a provider.

Language. This Agreement is in English. A French version will be published when we open to Quebec. Les parties conviennent que la présente convention soit rédigée en anglais.

15. Contact

Corporation number 1801532-5 (Canada Business Corporations Act) 226 Kinloch Crt, Nepean, Ontario K2J 5S9, Canada

General and support — support@eznest.ca Privacy — privacy@eznest.ca (Privacy Officer: Niruban Kandasamy)

Our name, address and contact details are set out above so you have them in writing, as Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002 requires for an agreement made online.

Appendix — What is switched off today

We keep this list because a marketplace agreement that describes capabilities the product does not have is worse than no agreement. Everything here is built and not running. When one changes, this Agreement and the notice you receive will change with it.