life.file Terms and Conditions

Last Update 17 June 2021

  1. Introduction

  1. This user agreement (the Agreement) is an agreement between you and LIFE FILE TECHNOLOGIES (PTY) LIMITED, a company incorporated in South Africa with a registration number of 2021/631543/07 (the Company/us/we). The Agreement governs your use of the life.file web application (the App), and sets out your relationship with us.

  2. You will be required to accept this Agreement before you register for a life.file user account and before you enter your personal details for use of the App (Account Information). Completing the registration process allows you to use the features described in section 9 below. If you decline the acceptance of this Agreement, you will not be able to use the App or any of its features. 

  3. By using the App you agree that you have read and understood the terms and conditions of this Agreement and you acknowledge that these terms and conditions in their entirety apply to you.

  4. We reserve the right to amend, modify, update and change any of the terms of this Agreement. We advise you to check for updates on a regular basis. Any material changes to the Agreement will be sent to the email address provided by you when you register as a user of the App. Your continued use of the App will be deemed to constitute your acceptance of such changes.

  5. We may assign or transfer our agreement with you including our associated rights and obligations at any time and you agree to cooperate with us in connection with such an assignment or transfer.

  6. Our Privacy Policy, which is accessible through the App and forms an integral part of this Agreement, describes how we collect and use your Account Information. Please read this Agreement together with our Privacy Policy.

  1. Legal Advice

  1. Any legal information provided on the App is not a substitute for legal advice.

  2. We provide a platform for legal information. The information and documents provided by us, along with the content on our App related to law ("Legal Information") is provided for your private use and does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. We cannot guarantee that Legal Information is correct, current or up-to-date, or suitable for every situation.

  3. Except as part of a separate engagement, we will not review any information you provide or generate through the App for legal accuracy or sufficiency.

  4. The documents available on the App are customisable templates reasonably fit for use by you.  These should be viewed as a starting point for the preparation of legal documents. They are only intended to be used as templates and to be adapted by you to meet your individual requirements. If you need legal advice for a specific problem please consult a lawyer. 

  5. Your use of the App does not create a lawyer-client relationship between you and us. As such, please note that any communications between you and us may not be protected as privileged communications under legal professional privilege. Legal professional privilege is a principle that entitles a client to refuse to disclose certain confidential, legal communications to third parties including courts, tribunals, regulatory bodies and enforcement agencies.

  1. Your Account

  1. The user who created the life.file account and whose Payment Method is charged (“Account Owner”) is responsible for any activity that occurs through the App. To maintain control over the account and to prevent anyone from accessing the account (which would include information on the documents uploaded onto the account), the Account Owner should not reveal the password of their account or details of the Payment Method associated with the account to anyone.

  2. If you are the Account Owner, you are responsible for updating and maintaining the accuracy of the information you provide to us relating to your account. We can terminate your account or place your account on hold in order to protect you, us, or our partners from identity theft or other fraudulent activity.

  3. Except for the information that we are required to collect and store set out in our Privacy Policy, all other details and information related to your account will be sent to an external server. We will not store or have access to any passwords or payment information that you upload or enter into the App.

  1. Safety and Unauthorised Access

  1. We use industry leading security measures to safeguard your use of the App. For more information, please refer to our dedicated security page.

  2. As part of our security features, the App requires you to choose a password that contains lower and upper case letters, numbers and special characters such as $, #, * and is at least 8 characters long (“Password”).

  3. As long as the correct Password is entered, we will assume that you are the person accessing your account and authorising payments for your subscription to the App.

  4. You must therefore:

    1. choose a secure Password that is not easily guessed by another person;

    2. keep the Password secret; and 

    3. make sure that the Password is not stored in a way that enables others to access it or impersonate you.

  5. If you disclose the Password to any person who you authorise to access the App, you are also responsible and liable for any access, use, misuse or disclosure of your Password by such person, including all payments.

  6. If you disclose your Password to a person unauthorised by you, or believe that someone else can use the App by impersonating you, you should inform us immediately by emailing hello@lifefile.co.za and we will disable your account as soon as is reasonably possible until we are able to reset your account with us. 

  7. Unless and until you provide such notice:

    • you will be responsible for any instruction that we receive and act on through your account, even if it was not given by you; and

    • we will not be responsible for any unauthorised access to confidential information in the App.

  8. We can refuse to act on any instruction including where we believe an instruction:

    • was unclear; 

    • was not given by you; 

    • might cause us to breach a legal or other duty; 

    • if we believe the App is being used for an illegal purpose; or 

    • may harm our reputation.

  9. You agree to fully cooperate with us, our agents, regulatory authorities and the police where you or we suspect there has been unauthorised access to the App.

  1. Charges

  1. The App is provided as a Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) and requires users to have a valid membership subscription. To use the App, once the Free Trial has expired, you must provide valid details of an account that we can debit (“Payment Method”).

  2. Payment is facilitated through PayFast. The App accepts payments with Visa and Mastercard cards. Further information about billing cycles and how PayFast manages payments can be found on PayFast’s website.

  3. You authorize us to charge any Payment Method associated with your account. You remain responsible for any uncollected amounts. If a payment is not successfully settled, due to expiration of your Payment Method, insufficient funds, or otherwise, and you do not cancel your account, we may suspend your access to the App until we have successfully charged a valid Payment Method.

  4. For some Payment Methods, the issuer may charge you certain fees, such as foreign transaction fees or other fees relating to the processing of your Payment Method. Local tax charges may vary depending on the Payment Method used. We recommend that you check with your Payment Method service provider for details.

  5. By subscribing to the App, you agree to enroll in an automatic renewal service. This keeps your access to the App and all content you create or upload to the App up and running, and automatically charges the then-current renewal fees to your Payment Method, with no further action on your part. Your subscription will renew automatically at the end of the subscription term unless you cancel your membership.

  6. The length of your billing cycle will depend on the type of subscription that you choose when you signed-up for the App. In some cases your payment date may change, for example if your Payment Method has not successfully settled, when you change your subscription plan or if your paid membership began on a day not contained in a given month.

  7. We may change our subscription plans and the price of our service from time to time. Any price changes or changes to your subscription plans will apply no earlier than 30 days following notice to you.

  8. Your mobile network operator may also charge you to access this App and these charges may vary if you access the App when abroad. You are responsible for these charges.

  1. Updating or Cancelling your Subscription

  1. You can update your payment method, or cancel at any time by following the steps listed on PayFast’s website.

  2. You can cancel your membership to the App at any time, and you will continue to have access to the App through the end of your billing period. To the extent permitted by the applicable law, payments are non-refundable and we do not provide refunds or credits for any partial membership periods or unused features of the App.

  3. If you cancel your membership, your account will automatically close at the end of your current billing period and you will no longer have access to the App, including any documents or notes stored on your life.file. 

  4. We accept no liability for anything that you may no longer have access to, and you are encouraged to keep back-up copies of all content uploaded to or created through the App. 

  5. In order to exercise the share feature of the App, described in section 9, you are required to have an up to date paid subscription to the App.  Please note that if you cancel your subscription, the authorised contact listed in your life.file will not be able to access your account.

  1. Free Trial

  1. We offer a two-month free trial version of the App. We do not request or require a Payment Method when signing up to the free trial.

  2. The free trial allows you to view some content of the App. The free trial, however, does not allow you to:

    1. download the contents of your life.file; 

    2. view your customised legal documents; or 

    3. authorise a shared contact. 

  3. You will need to choose a payment plan and enter the details of a valid Payment Method in order to access and be able to fully download and edit any documents or authorise a shared contact.

  1. Intellectual Property

  1. As long as you comply with the terms of this Agreement, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited licence to enter and use the App for non-commercial purposes.

  2. The App may include videos, text, graphics, user interfaces, visual interfaces, photographs, trademarks, logos, sounds, music, artwork and computer code, interactive features, software, metrics, and other materials whether provided by you, us, or a third party (collectively, "Content”).

  3. The Content is owned, controlled or licensed by or to us and is protected by copyright and trademark laws, and various other intellectual property (“IP”) rights and unfair competition laws. 

  4. Except as expressly provided in this Agreement, no part of the App and no Content may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, publicly displayed, encoded, translated, transmitted or distributed in any way (including mirroring) to any other computer, server, website or other medium for publication or distribution or for any commercial enterprise, without our prior written consent. Any replication or redistribution of any Content available on any of the App is strictly prohibited without prior consent given to you in writing by us.

  5. By uploading content onto the App, you retain the ownership of any IP that may exist in that content.  You do, however, grant the Company a  limited non-exclusive, transferable license to the IP for the purposes of:

    1. storing the content of your life.file;

    2. sharing that content with your authorised contact; and 

    3. for any other reason required to provide the services and features of the App to you.

  6. If you provide us with any feedback or suggestions regarding the App, you hereby assign to us all rights in such feedback and agree that we shall have the right to use and fully exploit such feedback and related information in any manner we believe to be appropriate. We will treat any feedback you provide to us as non-confidential and non-proprietary.

  1. Your Use of the App

  1. The App allows you to:

    1. register for and login to the App; 

    2. enter details into your life.file profile;

    3. upload documents to your life.file; and

    4. share your life.file with an authorised third party.

  2. Anyone may register to use the App.  However, if you are younger than 18 years old, you may only use the App if permitted to do so by a parent or legal guardian.  Please read this Agreement with your parent or legal guardian.

  3. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a user of the App who is under the age of 18, by allowing your child to use the App, you agree to the terms of this Agreement and remain responsible for your child’s activity on the App. 

  4. If you are using the App from a country other than the Republic of South Africa, please note that all content made available through App has been done so taking into account South African law.

  5. You represent and warrant to us that: 

    1. all Account Information provided to us is true and accurate in every respect and you will keep all such information up to date during the term of this Agreement; 

    2. you will only use the App for your own purposes and not on behalf of any other person or entity without their express and voluntary consent to do so;

    3. you and all payments initiated by you will comply with all laws, rules, and regulations; and 

    4. you will not use the App, directly or indirectly, for any fraudulent undertaking or in any manner so as to interfere with the functionality of the App.

  6. You may not use any “deep-link”, “page-scrape”, “robot”, “spider” or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, or any similar or equivalent manual process to access, acquire, copy or monitor any portion of the App or any Content, or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the App or any Content, to obtain or attempt to obtain any materials, documents or information through any means not purposely made available through the App.

  7. You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any portion or feature of the App, or any other systems or networks connected to the App or to any of our servers, or to any of the services offered on or through the App, by hacking, password “mining” or any other illegitimate means.

  8. You may not probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the App or any network connected to the App, nor breach the security or authentication measures on the App or any network connected to the App. You may not reverse look-up, trace or seek to trace any information on any other user of or visitor to the App, including any profile not owned by you, to its source, or exploit the App or any service or information made available or offered by or through the App, in any way where the purpose is to reveal any information, including but not limited to personal identification or information, other than your own information, as provided for by the App.

  9. You agree not to use any device, software or routine to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the App or any transaction being conducted on the App, or with any other person’s use of the App.

  10. You may not use the App or any Content for any purpose that is unlawful (for example contrary to the provisions of the Electronic Communications Act of 2002, the Protection of Personal Information Act of 2013, or the Copyright Act of 1978), prohibited by this Agreement, or to solicit the performance of any illegal activity or other activity which infringes the rights of us or others.

  1. Termination/Suspension of your Access

  1. We may suspend or terminate your access to the App or to the features within the App without notice where it is reasonable for us to do so and specifically if:

    1. we decide to discontinue to provide the App for any reason;

    2. we believe that you have breached any of the terms of this Agreement;

    3. your use of the App has been in any way improper or breaches the spirit of this Agreement;

    4. we reasonably believe use of the App may be at risk of fraud or misuse; 

    5. our information technology infrastructure has failed, is experiencing outages, or requires maintenance; or 

    6. we are ordered or recommended to do so by the court or a relevant regulatory authority.

  1. Communications

  1. When you use the App or send emails to us, you are communicating with us electronically. By registering for the App and accepting the terms of this Agreement, you affirmatively consent to receive notices electronically from us. We may provide in electronic format all communications including, without limitation, agreements related to the App, amendments or changes to such agreements or any applicable policies, disclosures, notices, payment information, statements, responses to claims and other customer communications that we may be required to provide to you by law (collectively, “Communications”).

  2. Communications may be posted to the App and sent by email to the address used by you to register for the App and stored in your Account Information. All Communications will be deemed to be in "writing" and received or accessed by you. You are responsible for printing, storing and maintaining your own records of Communications, including copies of this Agreement. This condition does not affect your statutory rights.

  3. This Agreement has been drafted in the English language. In the event of any discrepancy between the meanings of any translated versions of this Agreement and the English language version, the meaning of the English language version shall prevail. You agree that we will communicate with you and you will communicate with us in English during the term of this Agreement.

  4. To find more information about our App and its features, or if you need assistance with your account, please email us at hello@lifefile.co.za.

  5. In the event of any conflict between this Agreement and information provided by our customer support team, or other portions of our website, the terms of this Agreement will prevail.

  1. Warranties and Limitations on Liability

  1. The App is provided "as is" and without warranty or condition. In particular:

    1. We make no warranty or representation, whether express or implied, in relation to the satisfactory quality, fitness of purpose, completeness or accuracy of the service offered through the App.

    2. We make no warranty that the operation of the App will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that the software or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs, or represent the full functionality, accuracy, reliability of the materials within the App.

  2. You waive all special, indirect and consequential damages against us. These terms will not limit any non-waivable warranties or consumer protection rights that you may be entitled to.

  3. You confirm that we shall not be liable to you or any third party for any modification to, suspension of, or discontinuance of the App.

  4. Nothing in this Agreement shall limit or exclude the liability of you or us for death or personal injury resulting from negligence; fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or any other liability that cannot be excluded by applicable law.

  5. Our total liability arising under or in connection with this Agreement, whether arising in contract, delict (including negligence) or restitution, or for breach of statutory duty or misrepresentation, or otherwise, shall be limited to the repayment of your subscription fees.

  6. Neither you nor us shall be liable to the other, whether in contract, delict (including for negligence) or restitution, or for breach of statutory duty or misrepresentation, or otherwise for any:

    1. losses that are not reasonably foreseeable, beyond reasonable control which cannot reasonably be avoided or overcome, while such events persist; or 

    2. special, indirect or consequential damage or loss of any kind whatsoever in each case that arises under or in connection with this Agreement.

  7. You will indemnify us against any losses incurred as a result of claims made or threatened against either of us as a result of your use of the App in connection with criminal or other illegal activities.

  1. General

  1. We reserve the right to modify or terminate the App at any time, without notice, and we will not be liable to you as a result of any such action.

  2. If any part of this Agreement shall be deemed unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed to be severable from the rest of this Agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any of the remaining provisions of this Agreement. In such cases, the part deemed invalid or unenforceable shall be construed in a manner consistent with applicable law to reflect, as closely as possible, the original intent of the parties.

  3. Any waiver of any right under this Agreement is only effective if it is in writing and it applies only to the party to whom the waiver is addressed and to the circumstances for which it is given. No failure to exercise or delay in exercising any right or remedy provided under this Agreement or by law constitutes a waiver of such right or remedy nor shall it prevent any future exercise or enforcement of such right or remedy.

  4. Unless otherwise expressly stated, nothing in this Agreement shall create or confer any rights or any other benefits to third parties.

  5. This Agreement contains the entire agreement between you and us relating to its subject matter. You confirm that, in agreeing to accept this Agreement, you have not relied on any representation other than what has expressly been made a representation in this Agreement.

  6. This Agreement is personal to you and you may not assign any of your rights or obligations to any third party. Any assignment in violation of this provision shall be void and of no effect. We reserve the right to transfer, assign, sublicense or pledge this Agreement, in whole or in part, to any person without notice and you will be deemed to consent to such assignment.

  1. Governing Law

  1. This Agreement and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with it shall be governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

  2. The parties irrevocably agree that the courts of South Africa shall have non-exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim that arises out of or in connection with this agreement or our subject matter (including non-contractual disputes or claims).