Terms of Service

Welcome to CampusNest (“the Platform,” “we,” “our,” or “us”). By accessing, browsing, registering for, or using the Platform, you enter into a legally binding contract governed by these Terms of Service (“Terms”) and the Electronic Transactions Act No. 19 of 2006 of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. If you do not agree to all of these Terms, you must immediately discontinue your use of the Platform.

These Terms apply to all users of CampusNest, including university students, boarding and property owners, property managers, platform administrators, and general visitors. We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time, and your continued use of CampusNest following any posted updates constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

You must be at least 18 years of age to register an account or use CampusNest. By using the Platform, you represent and warrant that you possess the legal capacity to enter into these Terms and that all registration details you provide are accurate, current, and complete.

• Student Eligibility: To access student-exclusive features (such as saving boardings, writing reviews, and submitting listing dispute reports), you must register with a valid institutional email address issued by a recognized Sri Lankan university or higher education institute (e.g., *.ac.lk, *.edu, or approved higher educational institute domains). You must complete email verification via our 6-digit one-time password (OTP) workflow.
• Boarding Owner Eligibility: Property owners and managers must provide accurate personal contact information, verifiable phone numbers, and legitimate physical property details.
• Single Account Policy: Users may not create duplicate accounts, impersonate any other person, or misrepresent their affiliation with any university, property, or organization.

CampusNest is an online discovery directory and marketplace platform only. We connect university students seeking accommodation with independent boarding owners offering rooms, annexes, and houses near Sri Lankan university campuses.

• Not a Landlord or Agent: CampusNest does not own, manage, lease, sub-lease, operate, or inspect any accommodation listed on the Platform. CampusNest is not a real estate broker, leasing agent, or property management firm.
• No Tenancy Relationship: CampusNest is not a party to any tenancy, lease, rental, or lodging agreement entered into between students and boarding owners. All rental arrangements, house rules, lease agreements, and tenancy conditions are established privately and directly between the student and the boarding owner.
• No Physical Verification: CampusNest does not conduct physical property inspections, structural audits, pest inspections, electrical/fire safety checks, or environmental quality assessments. Users are strictly advised to visit properties in person, inspect facilities, and verify owner credentials before committing to any rental agreement or paying money.

Boarding owners who create and publish advertisements on CampusNest agree to adhere to the following standards:

• Accuracy of Information: All listing details—including room title, physical address, student capacity, distance to campus (in km), monthly rent (in LKR), key money / deposit (in LKR), amenities, and facilities—must be strictly accurate, up to date, and truthful.
• Genuine Media: Uploaded photographs must depict the actual current state of the specific room or accommodation being advertised. The use of deceptive, digitally altered, copyrighted stock photos, or images of properties you do not own or represent is strictly prohibited.
• Status Management: Owners must promptly update their listing status to “Occupied” via their dashboard when an accommodation unit is filled, and return it to “Available” only when vacant.
• Strict Anti-Discrimination Policy: Boarding owners must not discriminate against prospective student tenants on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, caste, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability. While boarding owners may designate gender preferences (e.g., “Male Only” or “Female Only”) to accommodate student privacy and cultural norms in shared boarding arrangements, discriminatory practices beyond standard gender boarding allocations violate these Terms and will result in immediate listing deactivation and account termination.

To maintain platform quality and prevent spam advertisements, CampusNest charges boarding owners a listing fee to publish an advertisement:

• Listing Fee: The current fee to publish a boarding advertisement is LKR 1,000 per listing. All fees are clearly displayed prior to payment initiation. Students browse listings and use student features completely free of charge.
• Payment Processing: Payments are processed in Sri Lankan Rupees (LKR) through our authorized payment gateway partner, PayHere (Pvt) Ltd. By completing a transaction, you agree to comply with PayHere's terms and conditions. CampusNest does not collect, handle, or store credit or debit card numbers.
• Non-Refundability Policy: Listing fees paid by boarding owners to CampusNest are strictly non-refundable once payment is processed and the advertisement is published or queued for publication. Fees compensate CampusNest for digital publishing, cloud storage, hosting, and platform infrastructure.
• Exceptions for Technical Errors: Refunds may be granted at CampusNest's sole discretion solely in documented instances of technical payment errors resulting in verified duplicate debits for the exact same listing order ID. If you believe you experienced a duplicate charge, you must contact support@campusnest.lk within seven (7) days of the transaction.

All financial arrangements relating to accommodation tenancies—including monthly rent payments, advance payments, security deposits (“key money”), utility bills, and maintenance costs—take place strictly offline directly between the student and the boarding owner.

• Zero Financial Intermediation: CampusNest does not collect, escrow, hold, or disburse rental payments or security deposits. We do not act as an escrow agent or financial trustee.
• Key Money & Deposit Disputes: Any disputes regarding the amount, withholding, deduction, or refund of key money or advance rent must be resolved directly between the student and the owner under applicable Sri Lankan tenancy laws (including the Rent Act and the common law of landlord and tenant).
• Complete Disclaimer of Tenancy Liability: CampusNest expressly disclaims all liability for unpaid rent, breach of tenancy contracts, property damage, loss of personal possessions, theft, physical accidents, premature evictions, or disagreements regarding utility splits or house rules.

CampusNest features an automated, algorithmic Suitability Score (ranging from 0.0 to 100.0) calculated dynamically for each listing. The score is computed using a deterministic formula that evaluates:

• Affordability and rent competitiveness relative to student market benchmarks;
• Proximity and distance in kilometers to the specified university campus;
• Completeness of essential student facilities (such as Wi-Fi, study space, attached bathroom, kitchen access, water, and security);
• Quality, quantity, and presence of photographic media;
• Completeness of verified owner contact information and listing freshness.

Disclaimer: The Suitability Score is an automated heuristic provided solely for informational and comparison convenience. It does not constitute an endorsement, official certification, physical safety guarantee, or warranty by CampusNest regarding the quality, suitability, or safety of any accommodation.

Verified students may submit a 1 to 5 star rating and written review for boarding accommodations listed on the Platform. To maintain review authenticity:

• Genuine Experience: Reviews must be based on genuine, firsthand personal experience residing at or inspecting the property.
• Prohibited Review Content: Users may not post defamatory, abusive, obscene, profane, threatening, or racially biased reviews, nor may they post false claims, commercial solicitations, or private personal information (such as personal phone numbers or ID numbers) of any individual.
• No Extortion or Incentives: Reviews must not be written in exchange for monetary compensation, discounts, threats, or coercion. Boarding owners may not compel or pressure students to write favorable reviews.
• Moderation Rights: Reviews represent the personal opinions of individual students and do not reflect the views of CampusNest. We reserve the absolute right, without prior notice, to edit, unpublish, or delete any review that violates these Terms or our community standards.

CampusNest empowers verified students to report problematic listings through our dedicated reporting mechanism at /boarding/[id]/report. Valid grounds for reporting include:

• Misleading or false property information;
• Fake, non-existent, or duplicate advertisements;
• Incorrect pricing or undisclosed hidden charges;
• Inappropriate, offensive, or infringing content/photos;
• Owner harassment, abusive behavior, or policy violations;
• Accommodation already unavailable or filled.

Our moderation team reviews submitted reports and may take disciplinary actions, including: (a) dismissing invalid or malicious reports; (b) deactivating and taking down offending advertisements (with email notice sent to the owner); and (c) permanently banning and soft-deleting owner accounts found engaging in fraud or repeated violations, without entitlement to a refund of any listing fees.

Users of CampusNest must not engage in any of the following prohibited activities:

• Violating any applicable local, national, or international law, regulation, or court order;
• Impersonating any student, boarding owner, university official, or CampusNest administrator;
• Harvesting, scraping, or systematically collecting user data, phone numbers, email addresses, or property listings without explicit prior written authorization;
• Attempting to probe, scan, or breach platform security, bypass authentication mechanisms, or reverse engineer any part of CampusNest;
• Uploading malicious software, viruses, trojans, or corrupted files;
• Submitting fraudulent reports or abusive support tickets to harass other users or manipulate platform rankings;
• Circumventing payment systems or attempting fraudulent chargebacks.

The CampusNest name, logo, software code, database architecture, algorithms (including the Suitability Score algorithm), website design, graphics, and text are the exclusive intellectual property of CampusNest and are protected under Sri Lankan and international copyright, trademark, and intellectual property laws.

• Platform Content: You may not copy, reproduce, scrape, distribute, modify, create derivative works from, or publicly display any CampusNest intellectual property without prior written consent.
• User-Submitted Media License: Users retain copyright in the text, photographs, and media they upload. However, by uploading property photos, descriptions, or reviews to CampusNest, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, resize, display, optimize (via Cloudflare R2), and distribute such content across our platform for the purpose of operating, marketing, and improving our services.

The Platform incorporates third-party services and may contain links to external websites, including PayHere (Pvt) Ltd (payment processing), Cloudflare R2 (object storage CDN), Resend / SMTP servers (email delivery), and Google Fonts. CampusNest does not control, endorse, or assume responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or operational practices of any third-party websites or services. Your interactions with third-party providers are governed exclusively by their respective terms and policies.

The CampusNest platform is provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise.

• CampusNest expressly disclaims all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, habitability, title, and non-infringement.
• We do not warrant that the Platform will operate uninterrupted, secure, or bug-free, that defects will be corrected, or that any listing data, descriptions, or suitability scores are completely accurate, reliable, or complete.
• All rental decisions, property inspections, and financial transactions are made at your own sole risk and discretion.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable Sri Lankan law:

• In no event shall CampusNest, its developers, operators, directors, employees, or agents be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages—including loss of profits, data, goodwill, tenancy opportunities, or business interruption—arising out of or in connection with your access to or inability to access the Platform, any conduct or content of any user, or any accommodation arranged through the Platform.
• In all circumstances, CampusNest's aggregate liability to you for any and all claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the Platform shall be strictly capped at the greater of LKR 1,000 or the total amount you have paid to CampusNest in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to liability.

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless CampusNest, its operators, officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in any way connected with: (a) your access to or use of the Platform; (b) your breach of these Terms or any applicable law; (c) any listing, photograph, or review you submit; (d) any dispute, contract, or interaction between you and any student or boarding owner; or (e) your violation of any third-party right, including intellectual property or privacy rights.

You may terminate your account at any time by utilizing the Delete Account feature in your Account Settings. CampusNest reserves the right to suspend, deactivate, or permanently terminate your account and remove your listings immediately, without prior notice, if:

• You breach any provision of these Terms or community guidelines;
• You provide false, fraudulent, or unverifiable registration, property, or payment details;
• Multiple verified reports or complaints are lodged against your listings or conduct;
• Required by law enforcement or regulatory authorities in Sri Lanka.

Provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination shall survive, including intellectual property licenses, disclaimers of warranty, limitations of liability, and indemnification.

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the substantive laws of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, without regard to its conflict of law principles.

• Informal Negotiation: In the event of any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or relating to these Terms, the parties shall first make good-faith efforts to resolve the matter amicably through direct communication with CampusNest support.
• Arbitration / Mediation: If the dispute cannot be resolved through informal negotiations within thirty (30) days, it shall be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration or mediation under the Arbitration Act No. 11 of 1995 of Sri Lanka. The seat of arbitration shall be Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the language shall be English.
• Jurisdiction: Subject to the arbitration clause, any legal proceedings shall be instituted exclusively in the competent courts of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

We reserve the right to revise or replace these Terms at our sole discretion. Any changes will be posted directly to this page with an updated “Last updated” date. For material changes, we may notify registered users via email or through a platform notice. Your continued use of CampusNest following any modifications indicates your binding acceptance of the updated Terms.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding these Terms, please reach out to us:

• Email: support@campusnest.lk / contact@manuja.dev
• Phone: +94 11 234 5678
• Support Portal: campusnest.lk/support
• Office: Colombo, Western Province, Sri Lanka