Terms of Service

Accounts are created in several ways: home owners register themselves; contractors register through the contractor sign-up process - directly or by accepting an invitation - and are shown to clients once we have reviewed their registration, which may be with or without the “Motiv verified” badge described in clause 2; field technicians are created for them by the contractor they work for; and store, regional and executive accounts are created by an organisation’s administrators or by us at their request.

You must be 18 or older and provide accurate details. You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for all activity under your account, and must notify us promptly of any unauthorised use.

Motiv is a technology marketplace. We operate a platform that connects clients - home owners and organisations - with independent service providers. We do not employ, appoint or engage service providers on behalf of any client, and we do not carry out maintenance work ourselves.Clients independently select the service provider they wish to transact with: a home owner chooses from the contractors shown to them, and on an organisation's job that organisation's own managers make the selection. Where a job is paid through the platform we hold the payment while the work runs, and nothing about that role makes us a party to the work itself.

The contract for the work is between the client and the service provider. It is formed when the client accepts a quote. Its terms are the quote and anything the two of them agree; Motiv is not a party to it, does not supervise how the work is done, and gives no undertaking that any particular provider will accept, attend or complete a job.

Service providers are responsible for their own compliance. Each provider is responsible for maintaining all licences, registrations, insurance, certifications and statutory compliance applicable to their business, their employees and the services they perform, and for ensuring these remain valid for as long as they use the Service. Clients may impose additional requirements for specific jobs, properties or sites - including site inductions, method statements, proof of cover or any standard their own policies demand - and it is for the client and the provider to agree those between themselves.

What verification means, and what it does not. Before a contractor is shown as “Motiv verified” we check that certain documents were provided and appeared valid at the time we looked at them. That check is administrative. It is not a warranty of workmanship, a guarantee that a licence or policy remains valid or in force on any given day, an endorsement, or advice that a provider is suitable for your particular job. We may also list a provider who has not completed that check; such a provider is shown without the badge. Whether or not a provider carries the badge, the client remains responsible for satisfying themselves that the provider is appropriate for the work, and any claim about the work lies against the provider.

Use the Service only for legitimate maintenance, project and quoting activities and for purposes you are legally authorised to undertake.

You must not:

• submit false, fabricated, altered, misleading or fraudulent information or documents;
• misrepresent your identity, business, qualifications, licences, registrations, insurance or authority to perform any service;
• upload unlawful, infringing, malicious or deceptive content;
• access or attempt to access another user's or organisation's account or data without authority;
• probe, scan, overload, interfere with or compromise the Service or its security; or
• use the Service for any unlawful or fraudulent purpose.

Motiv may verify information or documentation submitted through the Service and may request additional evidence where reasonably necessary.

Where Motiv reasonably suspects fraud, falsified documentation, misrepresentation, failed verification, unlawful conduct or a material risk to users or the Platform, Motiv may restrict, suspend or terminate access. Motiv may act immediately where reasonably necessary to protect users, funds, evidence, systems or legal compliance.

Motiv may preserve relevant records and disclose information to an issuing authority, regulator or law-enforcement body where permitted or required by law.

You retain ownership of the tickets, photos, quotes, documents and other content you submit, and grant us the licence needed to host, process and display it to provide the Service. We (and our licensors) retain all rights in the Service software, design and branding. You may not copy, resell or reverse-engineer it.

Company accounts (store managers, regional managers, executives) are provided under a separate written agreement with the organisation; no fee is charged through this Service.

Home-owner jobs paid through the platform. When a home owner approves a contractor's quote, the amount of that quote - the VAT-inclusive total where the quote states one - is paid into escrow held by TradeSafe, an independent licensed escrow provider, not by us. Motiv joins that escrow transaction as a fee-taking party so that TradeSafe can pay us directly, and takes acommission of 8%, carried by the contractor, so the contractor receives the amount less commission. That role is limited to the payment. It does not make us the contractor's or the home owner's agent for the work, and it does not change clause 2: the job is contracted between the two of them, and we neither appoint the contractor nor accept the work on anyone's behalf. The split is performed by TradeSafe when the funds are released; the money does not pass through our accounts.

What you pay on top. TradeSafe charges its own processing fee on the deposit. It is borne by you as the payer and is added at checkout, so the total you pay is the quoted amount plus that fee. The fee depends on the payment method you choose and includes a fixed per-transaction component, which makes it proportionally much larger on a small job than on a large one. The exact amount is shown to you as a separate line on TradeSafe's payment page before you confirm.

Cancelling, and when your money comes back. Until your payment is confirmed you can still cancel the job and anything already taken is refunded. Once the money is held in escrow you may cancel the job yourself until 24 hours before the agreed visit time - see the cancellation clause below. It is also refunded to you in the situations set out below - the contractor misses the booked visit and does not put it right, or the contractor reports they could not get access and then fails to arrange a new visit. Funds are released to the contractor when the job is closed out, or when it is automatically approved under the 48-hour window below.

Cancelling a job you have paid for. After your money is held in escrow you may cancel the job from the job page at any time up to 24 hours before the agreed visit time (or at any time while no visit has been agreed). The amount held is refunded to you in full. The contractor receives nothing on such a cancellation. Within the final 24 hours before the visit you can no longer cancel unilaterally - the contractor has planned their day around the job - and the missed-visit and dispute processes below then apply instead. Refunds are processed by TradeSafe and follow their settlement timing.

48-hour review window and automatic approval. Once the contractor submits their completion evidence for sign-off, you have a continuous 48-hour window (including weekends and public holidays) to approve the work, ask the contractor for more evidence, or raise a snag. If you do nothing within that window, the job is treated as approved and we instruct TradeSafe to release the escrow funds to the contractor. That instruction is issued by an automated check that runs hourly, so it follows shortly after the window closes rather than at the exact minute it ends, and TradeSafe's own settlement timing then applies before the money reaches the contractor. Requesting more evidence or raising a snag stops the clock, and a fresh 48-hour window starts when the contractor resubmits. The same window applies at the final close-out step, where approving is the only alternative to silence. An approval - express or automatic - is an instruction to TradeSafe to release the funds, and we cannot recall funds once released.

If the contractor misses a booked visit. Report the missed visit on the job page when we ask you to confirm the visit. The contractor then has 24 hours to put it right - propose a new time, reply in the job chat, or send evidence of the visit - and each reply from them starts a fresh 24 hours. Once they have been silent for a full 24 hours, or if they miss a second agreed visit (where you need not wait at all), you can end the engagement: the full amount held in escrow is refunded to you, that contractor is removed from the job, and the job reopens so you can invite others.

If the contractor cannot get in: the call-out fee. If the contractor arrives for a booked visit and cannot get access, they report it and the job pauses. They then have 24 hours to offer you a new time, and you have 24 hours to accept it. If they do not offer a new time in that period, no call-out fee is payable: the job is cancelled and the amount held in escrow is refunded to you in full, with the contractor receiving nothing. A cancelled job cannot be reopened, so you would need to log it again. If they do offer a new time and you do not respond, the contractor may claim the call-out fee stated in the quote you accepted - it is their choice, and they may instead keep waiting for you.

If that claim is made, the money held in escrow is split like this: the contractor is paid the call-out fee in full, and everything else is refunded to you. We take no commission on a job that did not go ahead. Nothing beyond the call-out fee is ever taken, and the call-out can never exceed the amount held. TradeSafe's processing fee is charged when the money enters escrow and is not refunded.

Contesting a call-out charge. The formal dispute process inside the platform belongs to the contractor - they use it to contest a snag, an evidence request, a declined variation order or a declined quote, and while such a dispute is open no escrow payment on that job is released until it is resolved. It does not cover a call-out charge. While a “nobody home” report is open you can message the contractor in the job chat and ask us to look at it from the job page, but neither stops the charge on its own: once the contractor claims the call-out, the split is carried out automatically, usually within the hour. If you believe a call-out charge was wrong, email legal@motivgroup.co.za and we will investigate and put it right where that is warranted. If we cannot resolve it between us, the governing law and jurisdiction in clause 14 apply.

Variation orders (extra work found after the job was funded). A variation is paid into escrow as a separate payment before it takes effect, on the same commission and release terms as the original quote; where it carries an amount, the contractor cannot carry on until that extra amount is held. You have 48 hours to approve or decline it. If you decline, you choose whether the contractor carries on with the originally agreed work or the job ends there. If the job ends there, the contractor is paid the call-out fee stated in their approved quote, the balance is refunded to you, we take no commission, and the job reopens for new quotes. If you do not respond within 48 hours the variation is treated as declined and the job ends on those same terms.

VAT on our commission. Motiv is not registered for VAT, so no VAT is charged on our commission and we do not issue a tax invoice for it. The commission is 8% of the amount paid into escrow - the VAT-inclusive total of the approved quote where the quote states one. Any VAT on the work itself is the contractor's own: a VAT-registered contractor charges it and invoices you for it; one trading below the registration threshold does not.

If the job fails before any work is done. Where a visit cannot go ahead - nobody at the address, or a variation declined and the job released - the contractor is paid the call-out fee stated in their approved quote and the balance is refunded to you. Motiv takes no commission on that outcome. The escrow processing fee is charged when the money enters escrow and is not refunded proportionally, so a job that ends this way still carries that fee; Motiv absorbs the refund fee rather than passing it on to you.

We aim to keep the Service available but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may change, suspend or discontinue features, and perform maintenance, at our discretion. We do not commit to a guaranteed uptime percentage for the Service. Response and resolution targets for the work contractors carry out are set in the separate Supplier Service Level Agreement between us and each contractor. Those are targets for that contractor's work; they say nothing about the availability of this website.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose. This does not affect rights the Consumer Protection Act gives you that cannot lawfully be excluded.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss, or loss of profit, data or goodwill.

As set out in clause 2, Motiv is a marketplace: we introduce clients to independent contractors and hold payment while a job runs. We do not carry out the work, we do not employ or appoint the contractors, and we do not supervise how they work. The contractor is responsible for their own workmanship, materials, licensing and conduct on your property, and any claim about the work itself lies against them.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008, and nothing in them affects your statutory rights.

Any warranty or guarantee on the work carried out, or on the parts, appliances or materials supplied or installed, is given by the contractor as part of their quote - and, for a manufactured item, by its manufacturer or supplier - not by Motiv. It is an arrangement between you and the contractor, and Motiv is not a party to it.

Motiv gives no warranty or guarantee of its own on any work or item, and does not provide, underwrite, extend, administer, honour, enforce or take any responsibility for a warranty given by a contractor or a manufacturer. A quote may show a warranty the contractor offers, and the platform may display it as part of that quote, but doing so is not a warranty by Motiv and creates no obligation on us - we do not verify its terms, guarantee its validity, or ensure it is honoured.

Any warranty claim is made directly with the contractor or the manufacturer, not with us, and any dispute about a warranty is between you and them. Nothing in this clause limits any right the Consumer Protection Act, 2008 gives you that cannot lawfully be excluded, or any warranty that Act or any other law imposes on the contractor or on the supplier of the goods.

You agree to indemnify us against claims and losses arising from your misuse of the Service or your breach of these terms.

If you use the Service as a contractor, that indemnity also covers claims brought by a third party arising from work you carried out through it. This paragraph does not apply to a home owner in respect of work carried out for them by a contractor.

You may close your account from Settings. We cannot close it while a payment for one of your jobs is still being processed or is held in escrow - that job has to be finished or resolved first. Closing your account removes your personal details from your profile and permanently disables your login. Records of jobs, quotes, messages, ratings, payments and uploaded documents are kept, because they are also the other party's records and ours; our Privacy Policy explains what is removed and what is retained.

We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these terms, legal reasons, or risk to the Service. On termination your right to use the Service ends.

Your use is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle personal information under POPIA.

We may update these terms. The current version is always published on this page and the “last updated” date above changes whenever it does, so that date is the way to tell whether anything has moved since you last read it. Continued use after a change means you accept it. We do not currently send a separate notification for every change, so please check this page from time to time.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction. Where the work itself is in question, raise it on the job first: a home owner raises a snag or asks the contractor for more evidence, and a contractor uses the in-platform dispute process to contest a snag, an evidence request, a declined variation order or a declined quote. While such a dispute is open, the affected step and any release of escrow funds on that job are paused until it is resolved. If that does not settle it, contact us and we will try to resolve it before anyone goes to court. Contact: legal@motivgroup.co.za, Plot 25 Mountain Drive, Derdepoort Park, Gauteng, 0035.