These terms set out how the marketplace may be used, what Serproz does and does not take responsibility for, how fees and cancellations work, when an account can be closed, and how a dispute is resolved.
The contract for the work is between the customer and the provider. Serproz operates the marketplace that introduces them. Payments are arranged directly between you and the provider. Serproz does not collect or hold the payment.
These terms are governed by New Zealand law and the New Zealand courts have jurisdiction over any dispute that reaches a court.
Nothing here excludes a right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded, including consumer rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act.
Last updated 22 September 2026. Terms version terms-of-use-2026-09-22-v3. These terms apply to the Serproz website and marketplace.
These terms form a binding agreement between you and the company that operates Serproz. By creating an account, posting a job, claiming a profile, or otherwise using the marketplace, you accept them.
The registered company details of the operator of Serproz are not published on this site yet. Until they are, the operator is identified by the Serproz trading name and the contact page, and these terms bind that operator on the same footing. The registered name, New Zealand Business Number, GST number and registered address will be published on the contact page and repeated here when they are set. If you need the counterparty confirmed in writing before you transact, ask through the support page first.
This clause defines the role every other clause depends on.
A marketplace, not a contractor: Serproz publishes a directory, receives job requests, routes them to providers, and provides the tools a job runs on. It does not carry out the work, supervise it, or employ the providers who do.
The work contract is between you and the provider: When a provider accepts a booking or a quote is accepted, the contract to carry out that work is between the customer and the provider. Its scope, price, timing, access, materials and warranty are theirs to agree.
What Serproz is responsible for: Operating the platform itself: the accuracy of the labels it applies, the integrity of the payment and milestone mechanics it runs, the records it keeps, and the way it handles your information.
A listing is not a recommendation: Appearing in the directory, holding a claimed profile, or carrying a verification label is not an endorsement, a guarantee of workmanship, or permission to carry out regulated work.
Serproz is not holding your money: Payments are arranged directly between you and the provider. Serproz does not collect or hold the payment. If and when the in-platform milestone funding step is switched on, Serproz would hold the funded amount for that milestone and release, refund or split it according to the payment terms and the dispute process; holding funds would not make Serproz a party to the work contract either.
Provide accurate, current information and keep your sign-in details secure. You are responsible for activity on your account until you tell Serproz it has been compromised.
Only claim or manage a business profile when you are authorised by that business to do so. Claiming a profile you have no authority over is a breach of these terms and may be an offence.
You must be able to form a binding contract to use the marketplace. One person or business may not run parallel accounts to evade a suspension, a rating, or a policy decision.
Do not misuse the service, impersonate another person or business, or submit unlawful content.
Some listings are created from public business information and have not been claimed by the business. Claim and verification labels describe only the checks explicitly shown on the profile.
A licence label covers only the register and the scope named on the profile. It is your responsibility, and the provider's, to confirm that the licence or registration held actually covers the work you need.
Serproz may add, change or remove a label when the underlying evidence changes, expires or fails, and may remove a listing entirely.
What each status means, and what it deliberately does not promise, is set out on the quality checks page.
Posting a job or sending a request does not guarantee a response, a quote or an appointment.
Customers and providers are responsible for confirming the scope, price, timing, access and any licences or insurance required for the work before it begins.
Where a job runs on the platform, the accepted quote, the milestone descriptions and any approved change orders are the written record of what was agreed. A verbal side-agreement outside the platform cannot be adjudicated by Serproz.
A provider must hold, and keep current, every licence, registration, consent and insurance the work requires under New Zealand law, and must not accept work outside the scope those permit.
Fees are data, not fine print: a versioned fee schedule is snapshotted onto the job before any charge is created, and the exact amounts that apply are shown before you confirm.
Payment is arranged directly: Payments are arranged directly between you and the provider. Serproz does not collect or hold the payment. The price, the payment method and the timing are agreed between you and the provider, and a payment made that way is outside the milestone protections and the dispute process that depends on them.
What you see is what applies: Review the amount, any fees and the payment terms shown for the job before confirming. The figures displayed at that moment are the ones snapshotted against the job.
In-platform payment, if it is offered to you: Serproz does not currently offer an in-platform payment step. Where it does, follow the instructions in the job workspace: milestones are funded before work, and released, refunded or split under the payment terms.
Provider plans: A provider plan is a separate, recurring purchase with its own billing, renewal and cancellation terms.
The full fee and payment mechanics are in the payment terms; subscription billing is in the provider plan terms.
A job can be called off, and what happens to the money depends on how far it has progressed. While payment is arranged directly, Serproz holds nothing to return: the funded-milestone rules below apply only where the in-platform payment step is in use.
Before a provider accepts, and after acceptance while no milestone has been funded, a customer can cancel from their dashboard at any time and no money moves through Serproz. That includes a job already under way that the customer pays the provider for directly; anything owed for work already done is settled between them.
The assigned provider can withdraw from a job on the same terms. The job is then cancelled, and the customer can re-post it in one step.
Once a milestone is funded, cancelling an instant booking triggers a refund of that milestone rather than a silent release, committed together with the cancellation. Any other job with money held is not cancelled around it: the funded milestone is refunded or decided through the dispute process first, and a job whose funded milestones are all refunded closes with the last refund.
Once the work is complete — every milestone released, or every stage confirmed on a job paid directly — the job is no longer cancellable. Once a milestone is in dispute, the dispute decides the outcome.
The stage-by-stage detail, including who bears which cost, is on the cancellations and refunds page.
Reviews must reflect a genuine experience. Businesses are responsible for the accuracy of content they add to a claimed profile.
You keep ownership of the content you submit — job descriptions, photos, profile text, reviews. You grant Serproz a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce and display that content for the purpose of operating and promoting the marketplace, and to keep the copies its records require.
Only submit content you have the right to submit. Do not upload someone else's photographs, copy, or identity documents belonging to another person.
Serproz may remove misleading, fraudulent, unsafe or unlawful content and may restrict accounts that misuse the service.
Who may review, what belongs in one, and how each source is labelled is set out in the reviews policy.
These are the uses that will get an account restricted.
Scraping, bulk-extracting or republishing the directory, or using automated means to access the marketplace beyond ordinary browsing.
Harvesting contact details for unrelated marketing, or sending unsolicited commercial messages to people you met through the marketplace.
Interfering with the platform, probing its security without authorisation, or attempting to access another account, job or file.
Manipulating reviews, ratings, verification labels or matching, including by incentivising or writing reviews that are not a genuine first-hand experience.
Deliberately taking a job introduced through Serproz off-platform to avoid fees while continuing to rely on the platform's records or protections.
A profile may display Google Maps features and content, including ratings, reviews and photos.
Your use of that content is subject to the current Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.
The Serproz name, logo, interface, copy and underlying software belong to the operator or its licensors. These terms grant you a personal, revocable, non-transferable right to use the marketplace, and nothing more.
Do not copy, adapt or create derivative works from the platform, or use the Serproz brand in a way that suggests endorsement or partnership you do not have.
You can leave: You may stop using the marketplace at any time and ask for your account to be closed through the support page.
Serproz can suspend or close an account: Serproz may suspend or close an account, remove a listing, or withdraw access to a feature where these terms are breached, where a listing or claim is inaccurate, where required by law, or where there is a real risk to another user's safety or money. Where it is practical and lawful to do so, you will be told the reason.
Live jobs are not abandoned: Suspension does not by itself release, forfeit or redirect money already funded to a milestone. Funded milestones continue to be released, refunded or split under the payment terms and the dispute process.
What survives: Clauses covering fees already incurred, the content licence, intellectual property, disclaimers, liability, indemnity, disputes and governing law survive the end of this agreement, along with the records Serproz must keep.
The marketplace is provided on an as-available basis. Serproz does not promise uninterrupted availability, and may change, suspend or withdraw features.
Serproz does not warrant the quality, timeliness, legality or outcome of work carried out by a provider, or that any particular provider will respond, quote or be available.
Information supplied by a provider, by a business, or drawn from a public source is presented as it was supplied or found. Serproz checks what its labels say it checks, and nothing beyond that.
These disclaimers apply only to the extent the law allows. They do not touch the statutory rights described in clause 15.
This clause is deliberately narrow, and it is subject to clause 15.
What Serproz is not liable for: The acts, omissions, workmanship, delay, damage or conduct of a provider or a customer; loss arising from an arrangement made outside the platform; and indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of business, or loss of data, however caused.
The cap: To the extent permitted by law, the total aggregate liability of Serproz to you for all claims connected with the marketplace in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the platform fees you paid to Serproz in that period, or one hundred New Zealand dollars.
What the cap does not cover: The cap does not apply to liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or a liability under clause 15 that cannot be excluded.
Money held for a milestone: Nothing in this clause limits the obligation to account for money actually held for a funded milestone. That money is released, refunded or split under the payment terms; it is not capped away.
Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies a right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded.
Consumers: If you acquire services from Serproz as a consumer, the guarantees in the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 apply and are not excluded. Your rights under the Fair Trading Act 1986 also apply and cannot be contracted out of in a consumer transaction.
Business users: Where you acquire the platform service for the purposes of a business, the parties agree that the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and sections 9, 12A and 13 of the Fair Trading Act 1986 do not apply, to the extent that section 43(2) of the Consumer Guarantees Act and section 5D of the Fair Trading Act permit that agreement and it is fair and reasonable to be bound by it.
The work itself: The guarantees that apply to the work a provider carries out are owed by that provider. They are not displaced by anything in these terms.
Other statutory routes: Rights under the Construction Contracts Act 2002, the Building Act 2004 and other applicable legislation remain available on their own terms.
The four service guarantees, when they apply to a marketplace and when they do not, are explained on the your rights page.
This clause applies to providers and to anyone using the marketplace for business purposes; it does not apply to a consumer.
You indemnify Serproz against loss, cost and liability arising from work you carried out or failed to carry out, from a breach of these terms by you, from content you submitted, and from any licence, registration, consent or health-and-safety obligation you did not meet.
This indemnity does not extend to loss caused by Serproz's own breach, negligence or unlawful act.
Three different problems take three different routes. Using the right one is faster than starting anywhere else.
A dispute about a job: Open it on the milestone in the job workspace. The funds for that milestone freeze, a structured negotiation opens, and a Serproz review follows if it cannot be settled directly.
A complaint about Serproz: Raise it through the complaints page. That covers how Serproz handled you, a decision it made, a label it applied, or an error in the platform itself.
Escalation: Nothing in these terms prevents you from taking a matter to the Disputes Tribunal, seeking adjudication under the Construction Contracts Act 2002 where it applies, or approaching a regulator. Serproz will not treat doing so as a breach of these terms.
Court: Before starting a court proceeding, each party agrees to use the routes above in good faith. That requirement does not prevent either party from seeking urgent interim relief.
Job disputes run through the dispute resolution process; complaints about Serproz itself go to the complaints page.
These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. The courts of New Zealand have jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or in connection with these terms or the marketplace, and each party submits to that jurisdiction. A consumer keeps any right they have to bring proceedings in the courts of the place where they live.
Serproz may change these terms. The version string and the last-updated date at the top of this page change with them, and a material change is notified through the marketplace before it takes effect. Continuing to use the marketplace after that date means you accept the new version. A job already underway continues under the fee snapshot and the policy versions recorded against it. The current version is terms-of-use-2026-09-22-v3.
Whole agreement: These terms, together with the policies they link to, are the whole agreement between you and Serproz about the marketplace.
Severability: If a clause is unenforceable, it is severed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest of the agreement continues.
No waiver: A delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.
Assignment: You may not assign your rights under these terms. Serproz may assign or novate them to a successor operator of the marketplace, on the same terms.
Notices: Serproz may give you notice through the marketplace or by email to the address on your account. You give notice to Serproz through the support page or the published contact route.
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