This Agreement applies to any user who registers, is approved, or offers care services through HUDDLE. These users are called Care Service Carers. By registering or providing services through HUDDLE, you agree to this Agreement, the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Community Guidelines. Where this Agreement conflicts with the Terms of Service, this Agreement controls for carer matters.
HUDDLE is a technology platform that enables users to find each other, communicate, and arrange care services. HUDDLE does not provide, supervise, direct, or control how you perform any care service and does not employ you.
You are an independent carer — not an employee, worker, agent, partner, or joint venturer of HUDDLE. You are solely responsible for your own taxes, licences, permits, insurance, and legal compliance. You must not represent yourself as an employee, agent, or representative of HUDDLE to customers or any third party.
Where mandatory local law imposes a different worker-classification test, that law governs to the extent it cannot lawfully be waived, and this section otherwise applies to the fullest extent permitted.
You must be at least 18 years old. You must complete all identity verification, ID/passport checks, payment method confirmation, and trust steps HUDDLE requires before accessing the care marketplace. Your marketplace access is conditional on maintaining good standing, up-to-date verification, and a valid Stripe Connect payout account. HUDDLE may pause or revoke your marketplace access if any required verification lapses or becomes invalid.
Your profile, listings, rates, availability, qualifications, and service descriptions must be accurate and not misleading at all times.
Credential badges on your profile are labelled as either verified (Registry matched, Certificate matched, Organisation matched, or Directory matched) or Self-declared. Self-declared badges are based solely on your own claim and are not verified by HUDDLE. HUDDLE makes no representation about the accuracy of self-declared credentials.
You must notify HUDDLE promptly if any listed credential lapses, is suspended, or materially changes. You must never claim qualifications, licences, insurance, or certifications you do not hold.
You must provide care with reasonable skill, care, and professionalism; follow all agreed care instructions; communicate with customers in a timely manner; and complete confirmed bookings unless prevented by genuine emergency.
You may not delegate, subcontract, substitute, or transfer a confirmed booking to another person without HUDDLE's and the customer's prior approval through a new confirmed booking. You may refuse or pause a handoff that is unsafe, unlawful, inaccessible, or materially different from the confirmed Care Scope, but you must report the issue through HUDDLE immediately.
Where a booking requires a Start PIN or check-in photo, you must not submit or record a start confirmation until the customer has genuinely completed handoff and you are ready to begin care. Submitting false, fabricated, or misleading handoff evidence — including confirming a Start PIN you did not receive from the customer, or uploading a check-in photo that does not reflect the actual start of care — is a material breach of this Agreement. It may result in immediate suspension, forfeiture of payout, and permanent ban.
You must report any serious incident — including pet injury, illness, escape, property damage, safety concerns, or police involvement — to both HUDDLE and the customer without undue delay.
If the owner or emergency contact cannot be reached after the booked service ends, you may take reasonable protective steps and, within 12 hours after the booked end or sooner for safety, transfer the pet to animal control, law enforcement, a licensed shelter, a veterinarian, a licensed boarding provider, or another lawful provider that accepts the pet. You are not required to provide unpaid care beyond what applicable law requires. HUDDLE may assist at its discretion but does not assume custody, transport, housing, rehoming, payment, or placement responsibility.
Where a customer grants emergency vet permission in a booking, you are authorised to consent to emergency veterinary treatment on the customer's behalf only where: (a) the pet faces a genuine, time-critical medical emergency, and (b) you have made reasonable attempts to contact the customer first and could not reach them in time.
All veterinary costs arising from treatment authorised under emergency vet permission are the customer's sole financial responsibility. HUDDLE is not liable for any veterinary costs, treatment outcomes, or decisions made under this permission.
Any displayed treatment limit limits your authority to consent; it does not limit the customer's responsibility for treatment costs or create a payment obligation for HUDDLE or you.
This permission does not authorise you to consent to elective, non-urgent, or preventative treatment. Misusing emergency vet permission — including using it outside a genuine emergency — is a breach of this Agreement and the Community Guidelines.
HUDDLE may charge a service fee or apply another disclosed payout deduction on the agreed care scope price. Any applicable amount is shown in your booking and payout details before you accept — it may change over time and is not fixed in this Agreement.
Payouts are processed through Stripe Connect. You must complete Stripe Connect onboarding and maintain a valid payout account. HUDDLE is not responsible for payout delays caused by incomplete Stripe onboarding, bank processing times, or Stripe's own processing requirements. Payouts may be held where required for fraud review, dispute resolution, regulatory compliance, or platform risk management. Where a payout is held, HUDDLE will notify you and release it as soon as reasonably practicable once the relevant review is resolved.
If you cancel a confirmed booking before care starts, HUDDLE may cancel the booking and refund amounts for care not provided; you receive no payout for that cancelled booking. A cancellation may also affect your Care record, visibility, ranking, booking access, or account status. HUDDLE may help the customer find another carer, but does not guarantee replacement care or an alternate booking.
Where the agreed Care Scope requires photo updates, notes with photos, or daily summaries, you must submit each required update before requesting completion. Missing a required photo or note may prevent completion and delay payout. Daily summaries may be completed through the completion flow's recorded exception where that option is shown.
If neither party reports a blocking issue, an eligible booking may be completed automatically after the scheduled end time and payout may then be released. You must report any issue that may affect completion or payout before the platform's completion cutoff.
You must not move a HUDDLE booking, payment, or care arrangement off-platform. An off-platform arrangement voids all HUDDLE platform protections, dispute rights, payout guarantees, and booking safeguards for that arrangement. HUDDLE has no responsibility for any off-platform arrangement or event, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
You must honour all confirmed bookings. Acceptable grounds for cancellation are limited to: a genuine emergency preventing you from performing care; a safety concern for you, the pet, or a third party that HUDDLE accepts; the owner's failure to complete handoff as required; or a HUDDLE-authorised cancellation. Repeated or unexplained cancellations may reduce your visibility, ranking, and marketplace access.
A cancellation trust penalty is a marketplace-ranking consequence, not an undisclosed cash deduction. Any payout amount or payout deduction is shown in the booking or payout details before you accept.
For an owner's late cancellation, a paid booking cancelled 24 to 72 hours before the scheduled start gives the owner a 50% refund and HUDDLE retains 50%; a booking cancelled less than 24 hours before the start is non-refundable. Any carer payout or trust consequence is determined by the booking record and applicable policy; no payout is guaranteed. On a no-payment booking no payment is involved, but the owner's repeated or last-minute cancellation or no-show is treated as a trust violation under this Agreement.
System no-start cancellation is separate from either party cancelling the booking. If care has not started by the scheduled end time, the system cancels the booking under the no-start policy and PIN/check-in actions stop. Either party may submit one no-start report after the significant-delay warning and before the scheduled end time; the report reason is required and notes or supporting evidence are optional.
If you do not report a handoff or no-start problem before the scheduled end time, HUDDLE may treat the unreported failure to start as a failure to protect the booking. This may affect your Care record, visibility, ranking, booking access, account status, or payout. A paid no-start outcome may include no payout, a reserved-time payout where the records support it, a refund, a retained amount, or review. HUDDLE may use reports, non-response, Start PIN records, check-in evidence, messages, timestamps, and other platform records to decide responsibility and the applicable refund, payout, or account outcome.
A no-start or handoff report must be submitted through the in-app report flow before the scheduled end time. Other serious incident or financial claims must be reported within 48 hours of the actual or expected completion of care, unless applicable law requires a longer period. Safety or legal reports may be reviewed outside that period, but no financial outcome is guaranteed.
After valid check-in, the pre-start cancellation and no-start rules no longer apply. If care cannot safely continue, you must report the issue immediately. Ending care early by mutual agreement does not itself create a refund or reduce the agreed price; any safety or emergency report is reviewed under HUDDLE's Trust & Safety process, and HUDDLE does not promise a refund or payout adjustment.
A multi-day Care Scope is one booking for the total agreed price, not separate daily bookings. Early mutual completion does not create an automatic daily refund or proration. Any partial-performance dispute is decided under HUDDLE's Trust & Safety process using the care delivered and platform records.
Where a dispute is raised, HUDDLE may review platform records, messages, timestamps, handoff evidence, Start PIN logs, check-in submissions, and mid-care photos. HUDDLE's determination of the final payout and owner refund is final and binding for the platform process. No response time or outcome is guaranteed, and any reconsideration is discretionary unless applicable law requires otherwise.
A handoff, no-start, or care-issue report may place the booking in review and pause payment handling. While review is open, no refund, retained amount, payout, or resolution time is guaranteed. After HUDDLE executes a refund or payout, that financial decision is final for the platform process except where applicable law requires otherwise.
Customers may submit a post-booking review including a star rating, review tags, written feedback, and up to six media files. Reviews are posted publicly on your carer profile. HUDDLE may moderate or remove reviews that violate the Terms of Service or Community Guidelines.
You must not solicit, offer, or arrange for false, coerced, or incentivised reviews. You must not retaliate against customers who submit honest negative reviews.
You may receive personal information about customers and pets — including names, addresses, contact details, medical information, behaviour notes, and access instructions — solely to perform confirmed bookings. You must not use, share, copy, retain, or otherwise process this information for any other purpose. This obligation survives termination of your marketplace access.
HUDDLE may suspend, restrict, or permanently revoke your marketplace access — with or without prior notice — for breach of this Agreement or any HUDDLE policy; safety, fraud, legal, quality, or reputational risk; repeated customer complaints; failure to maintain required verification or Stripe Connect status; or conduct that harms users, pets, or the platform. HUDDLE may block related devices, phone numbers, or payout accounts to prevent re-entry where permitted by law.
The disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity provisions, governing law, and dispute process in the Terms of Service apply to you as a Care Service Carer.