Terms of use

HomiStart is operated by Ardalan Ebrahimi, Pragpath Studio, Frankenallee, 14052 Berlin, Germany ("we", "us"). Contact: info@pragpath.com. Further details are in the imprint.

HomiStart helps people moving to a new country: a personal plan with tasks and deadlines, guides, practical tools, a community for questions and answers, and housing listings. The service is free of charge. It contains no advertising and no paid placements.

We develop the service continuously and may add, change or remove features. We aim for high availability but cannot guarantee uninterrupted operation, for example during maintenance.

Our guides, plans and tools are researched carefully from official sources and show when they were last checked. Nevertheless, rules and procedures change, and individual cases differ. The content is general information and not legal, tax, immigration, financial or medical advice.

• Deadlines and steps in your plan are for orientation. What applies to you is decided by the responsible authority.
• Calculators and planners provide estimates based on stated assumptions, not binding figures.
• Community answers reflect the personal experience and opinion of their authors, not ours.
• Where a decision matters (residence, taxes, contracts, health), check the linked official source or ask a qualified adviser.

• You must be at least 16 years old to create an account.
• Provide accurate information and keep your sign-in details confidential. Tell us if you suspect misuse of your account.
• An account is personal and may not be shared or transferred.
• Your display name must not impersonate other people, authorities or our team, and must not be offensive or advertising.

The community works because people help each other in good faith. When you post questions, answers, comments, reviews or listings, please follow these rules:

Be helpful and respectful

Answer the question that was asked, explain what you know and what you are unsure about, and treat others kindly — everyone was new once.

No harassment or hate

No insults, threats, bullying, or content that attacks people for their origin, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or any similar characteristic.

No spam or advertising

No ads, self-promotion, referral or affiliate links, repeated posts or off-topic content. Mentioning a service you have used is fine if it genuinely answers the question.

No personal data of others

Do not publish other people’s names, addresses, phone numbers, photos or documents. Be careful with your own: never post ID documents, tax IDs or bank details.

No scams or illegal offers

No fraud, fake offers, selling of appointments or registrations, requests for advance payments, or anything else illegal.

Cite sources for facts

When you state rules, deadlines or costs, link an official source if you can, and make clear what is your personal experience.

Respect rights

Only post content you are allowed to share; do not copy others’ texts or images without permission.

Moderation and sanctions. We may review content, hide or remove posts that break these rules or the law, and — depending on how serious or repeated the breach is — warn, temporarily mute or suspend an account, or close it permanently. We tell you the reason for a decision that affects you, and you can contest it by writing to us.

Reporting. Use the "Report" button on any post or listing, or write to info@pragpath.com. We review every report, including notices of illegal content, promptly.

Contributions marked "Editorial" are written by our team.

You keep the rights to what you post. So that we can show it, you grant us a free, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to store, display, reproduce and make your content available within HomiStart (website and apps, including indexing of public pages by search engines) and to adjust its formatting. The licence lasts as long as the content is published in the service.

When you delete your account you choose whether your public contributions are removed or remain visible as "Former member"; if they remain, the licence continues for them.

Guides, texts, graphics and software of HomiStart are protected by copyright. You may use them for personal purposes and quote short passages with a link to the source. Any other use requires our permission.

• Only publish real, currently available offers that you are entitled to publish.
• Give accurate details: rent and additional costs, deposit, size, location and availability.
• Never ask for money, deposits or copies of ID documents before a viewing and before a contract has been signed. Do not charge fees for viewings.
• Listings must not discriminate (for example by origin, religion or gender) and must comply with applicable law.
• Commercial advertising, multi-level marketing and paid promotions are not allowed.
• We may check listings before or after publication, set an expiry date, and remove listings that break these rules.

We are not a party to agreements between users or with third parties. Check offers carefully and never transfer money before you have seen the flat and signed a contract.

We link to official sources and other websites, and some listings and photos come from external sources. We are not responsible for the content of external websites; check details at the source before acting on them.

You can stop using the service at any time and delete your account in your profile.

We may suspend or close an account for serious or repeated breaches of these terms or the law. Where reasonable, we warn you first and explain the reason. We may also discontinue the service as a whole with reasonable advance notice; you will be able to export your data before that.

We are liable without limitation for damage caused intentionally or by gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the Product Liability Act and where we have given a guarantee.

For slight negligence we are only liable if we breach an essential contractual obligation — an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper use of the service possible in the first place and on which you may regularly rely — and only for the typical, foreseeable damage.

Otherwise our liability is excluded. These limitations also apply to our employees and agents. Mandatory statutory liability remains unaffected.

We may change these terms if the service or the law changes. We will inform you about material changes in good time in the app or by email. If you do not agree, you can delete your account before the changes take effect.

The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a merchant, a legal entity under public law or have no general place of jurisdiction in Germany, the place of jurisdiction is Berlin.

If you are a consumer, the mandatory consumer protection rules of the country in which you habitually reside continue to apply.

The European Commission provides a platform for online dispute resolution: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/ (Opens {{site}} in a new tab). We are neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

Should individual provisions be invalid, the remaining provisions remain effective.