Terms of Service

These terms apply when you use our website and apps (the "platform") to find and book studio space — rehearsal rooms, photo and film studios, podcast rooms, dance and yoga rooms, wellness rooms and maker spaces — or to message a host. The Community Standards are part of these terms. How we handle your data is in the Privacy Policy.

1. Who we are

The platform is run by COGITO CODE S.R.L., Aleea Tândală 18-20, Sector 3, București 031882, Romania, Trade Register no. J40/12985/2023, CUI 48481995, VAT ID RO48481995 ("we", "us"). You can reach us at contact@cogitocode.ro. More in the Legal Notice.

2. Preview phase

• Payments run in Stripe's test mode: you pay with test cards and no real money moves.
• Some listings are samples and are marked as such. There is no real studio behind them, and a booking on a sample listing is a test that creates no contract with anyone.
• Before real payments start, we will publish new terms and ask you to accept them.

3. What we do and what the host does

• Hosts list their rooms, set prices, opening hours, house rules and a cancellation policy, and provide the room for your session.
• We run the platform: search, booking, card payments through Stripe, messages, your arrival pass, reviews and support.
• Every listing names its host. We run an online marketplace: the contract for the session is between you and the host, and we are not a party to it. We collect the booking price as the host's agent, in the host's name and on the host's behalf: once your payment reaches us, you have paid the host. Business hosts issue an invoice for the rental where the law requires it — ask the host through messages; every renter gets a booking confirmation with the price breakdown from us.
• Every listing shows whether its host rents out as a business ("Business host") or as a private individual ("Private host"), as the host has declared. EU consumer protection law covers contracts with businesses, so it does not apply to your contract with a private host. Our own obligations as platform operator — these terms, the cancellation rules, refunds and the First-15 guarantee — apply the same whoever the host is.

4. Your account

• You sign in with Google or Apple. We set up your account with the name and email address they share, and with your profile picture if you use Google.
• You must be at least 18 years old.
• Keep your sign-in to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your account.
• To host, you also verify your phone number with a code we send by SMS, and you accept the Host Terms.
• You can delete your account at any time: on the website under Account, in the app under Profile. Section 14 says what happens to your bookings.

5. Booking

• Prices. The total you see before you book is the total you pay: VAT and every fee included, in the room's currency. Renters pay no service fee.
• Instant booking. On rooms marked for instant booking, your booking is confirmed as soon as your payment goes through.
• Request to book. On other rooms you send a request, and your card is only authorised: the amount is held, not charged. The host has 24 hours to answer, or less if your session starts sooner. A request must start at least 2 hours ahead, and you can have up to 5 open requests at once. If the host accepts, your card is charged and the booking is confirmed. If the host declines or doesn't answer in time, the hold is released.
• Binding order. The final button in checkout says that you will pay. Pressing it is a binding order: an instant booking is confirmed at once, and a request becomes binding when the host accepts it.
• Who and what for. You tell us how many people are coming and what you will do there. Stay within the room's capacity and the activity you booked.
• House rules. Before you book, you confirm that you have read the host's house rules and will follow them.
• What you saw is what applies. The price, the cancellation policy and the house rules are saved with your booking. Later changes by the host don't affect it.

6. Paying

• Card payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details go directly to Stripe; we never see or store your full card number. We keep the card brand and the last four digits to show them on your booking.
• If your bank asks for it, you confirm the payment with 3-D Secure.
• We collect your payment as the host's agent, in the host's name and on the host's behalf (section 3). Prices include any VAT the host owes. You always get a booking confirmation with the price breakdown from us; where the law requires an invoice for the rental, a business host issues it — ask the host through messages.

7. Cancelling and refunds

You can cancel a confirmed booking until it starts. How much of the rental you get back depends on the host's cancellation policy. The listing and checkout show it, with dated deadlines in the room's local time.

• Flexible: the full rental back up to 24 hours before the start, half up to 2 hours before, nothing after that.
• Moderate: the full rental back up to 3 days before the start, half up to 24 hours before, nothing after that.
• Strict: the full rental back up to 7 days before the start, half up to 48 hours before, nothing after that.

Whatever the policy:

• Changed your mind? Cancel within 1 hour of booking, and at least 24 hours before the start, and you get everything back.
• The cleaning fee always comes back if you cancel before the start.
• Withdrawing a request costs nothing: the hold on your card is released.
• If the host cancels, you get everything back.
• Once the booking has started you can't cancel it, and a booking you don't turn up for is not refunded.

Before you confirm a cancellation, we show you the exact refund. Refunds go back to the card you paid with; how quickly they show up depends on your bank.

No right of withdrawal. Bookings for a fixed date and time have no 14-day right of withdrawal: they are services related to leisure activities for a specific date or period (Art. 16 lit. l of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 34/2014). The cancellation rules above apply instead.

8. Getting in

• Your access details — address, door code, Wi-Fi, the host's arrival steps and phone number — appear in your booking at the time the host has set, 24 hours before the start unless the host chose otherwise.
• The code works from then until 15 minutes after your booking ends. The room is yours for the booked time only, and the next booking may start right when yours ends, so plan setting up and packing up within your time.
• Each time you open your access details, we log it, to protect the host's premises.
• First-15 guarantee. If you can't get in, or the room or its gear isn't as described, report it in your booking within the first 15 minutes after the start. We'll find you another room nearby or give you the full price back. You can report problems until your booking ends, and our team reviews every report. We carry the guarantee out ourselves; how we settle it with the host does not affect you.

9. Post-session charges (extras and damage)

After some bookings there is more to pay: extra cleaning, time used beyond the booking (overtime), more attendees than booked, late checkout, damage to the room or its equipment, or a penalty set out in the listing's house rules. This section says how those post-session charges work. Charging the saved card automatically (without you) needs the agreement in "The card on file" below at checkout; without it, an approved claim is paid by you on a secure payment page.

• Who charges. We collect post-session charges on behalf of the host — from the saved card where you gave the agreement, or on a secure payment page that you pay yourself — and pass the amount collected to the host, in the same way we collect the booking price (section 3).
• What a host can claim. Only for a completed booking — or, for extra cleaning only, for a booking you did not turn up for — and only for the kinds named above. A host can file one claim per booking. Our support team may file it on the host's behalf.
• Deadline and evidence. The host must file the claim within 72 hours after the session ends, itemised line by line, with the evidence the platform asks for. Damage needs at least one photo and a description. Claims filed later are refused.
• Limits. A claim can never exceed, for one booking, in total: 1,000 € / 5,000 lei / 400,000 Ft (the amount the agreement at checkout shows, where checkout shows it), and, where it does, never more than the amount you agreed to, even if these limits change later. Extras of the same kind (cleaning, overtime, attendees, late checkout) are each limited to the booking total or a minimum floor (100 € / 500 lei / 40,000 Ft), whichever is larger. Penalties from house rules are limited to the local market cap (250 € in Germany, 1,250 lei in Romania, 100,000 Ft in Hungary).
• Notice and dispute. Before anything is charged, you get an itemised notice in the app, with a push notification if you have the app installed, and you can accept or dispute it within 48 hours on the booking page. These notices always arrive: they cannot be switched off in your notification settings. Nothing is charged during those 48 hours unless you accept. A disputed claim is decided by our support team, who give a written reason; a support member who filed a claim never decides it.
• No answer. If you neither accept nor dispute within 48 hours, the claim is treated as accepted and we collect it.
• The card on file. Where checkout shows the agreement, you tick a box, unticked in advance, agreeing that we may charge the card used for the booking for approved post-session charges on that booking, up to the amount shown. Where checkout shows it, card bookings need that agreement: without it you cannot pay by card. The card is stored by our payment provider (Stripe), not by us, and is used only for approved charges on that booking. Once no post-session charge can still be filed or is still open for the booking — or, when you delete your account, as soon as nothing is open — we detach the saved card.
• When the bank asks for confirmation, or a charge fails. If your bank requires you to confirm a charge, or the claim is large compared with the booking (over half the booking total), we ask you to pay on a secure page instead of charging automatically, within 7 days. If a charge is declined we try again, up to three attempts in total about a day apart, telling you each time; after that our support team contacts you.
• Refunds. If a charged claim is later withdrawn, reduced or overturned, we refund the difference to the same card.
• Payment to the host. The amount collected is paid to the host's payout account 7 days after the charge, if no refund or card dispute is open on it. We take no commission on post-session charges.
• Your rights. This section does not limit any right you have as a consumer, including to complain to us, to the ANPC, or to use alternative dispute resolution (section 16).

10. Messages

• You can message a host before and after you book. Keep the conversation and every payment on the platform.
• Until a booking is confirmed, phone numbers, email addresses and links in messages are hidden automatically. A program scans messages for them, not a person, and each hiding is logged for review.
• You can mute a conversation, block someone and report a conversation.

11. Reviews

• After a completed booking, you and the host can review each other within 14 days. Neither of you sees the other's review until both are in or the time is up.
• Only renters with a completed booking can review a room. The person reviewed can reply once.
• Reviews must be honest, first-hand and follow the Community Standards. We remove a review only on one of the grounds listed there, never just because it is negative.

12. What you post

You keep the rights to what you post: messages, photos, files and reviews. You allow us, free of charge and non-exclusively, to store, show and technically adapt it (for example resize a photo) in order to run the platform, for as long as it is on the platform. Only post what you have the right to share.

13. Responsibility

• We work to keep the platform available and correct, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors.
• Hosts are responsible for their rooms, for what their listings say and for the session itself.
• You are responsible, as the law provides, for damage that you or the people you bring cause to the room or its equipment. How such claims are collected is in section 9.
• We are liable under the law for damage caused by breach of our own obligations. We are not liable for the host's performance of the session, except for our own commitments: refunds, the First-15 guarantee and the post-session charge rules. There is no additional cap for consumers. If you book for your business, our liability for slight negligence is limited to the amount paid for the booking concerned.

14. Ending your account, and our measures

• If you delete your account, your open requests are withdrawn and your confirmed bookings that haven't started are cancelled under their cancellation policy, so check the refund first. If you also host, the Host Terms apply as well.
• If you break these terms, the Community Standards or the law, we may hide content, limit features, or suspend or close your account. We act in proportion, tell you why and how to contest the decision, unless the law stops us.

15. Changes to these terms

• Every version has a number and a date. Earlier versions stay readable on this page.
• If we change something important, we announce it at least 14 days before it takes effect, on the platform, and show what changed — except changes the law requires or that only benefit you. If you do not agree, you can delete your account before the date. We then ask you to accept the new version before your next booking.
• A booking you have already made stays under the terms you made it under.

16. Complaints and disputes

• Tell us first: contact@cogitocode.ro.
• As a consumer, you can also turn to the Romanian consumer protection authority, ANPC (Autoritatea Națională pentru Protecția Consumatorilor), and its alternative dispute resolution service, SAL: anpc.ro/sal. We agree to take part in alternative dispute resolution through SAL.
• These terms are governed by Romanian law. Disputes go to the competent Romanian courts. As a consumer, you may also sue in the courts where you live and can only be sued there, and you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you live.

17. Language

These terms exist in Romanian, English, Hungarian and German. The Romanian version is the binding one; the others are translations for your convenience. If a translation is unclear, it is read in the way most favourable to a consumer.