Terms of Service

1. Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using LodgeHQ (“the Platform”), operated by LodgeHQ Pty Ltd (ABN 52 696 192 677), founded by Awais Nisar, a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 2318017), (“we”, “us”, “our”), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these terms, do not use the Platform.

2. Eligibility

LodgeHQ is designed for use by registered migration agents in Australia. By creating an account, you represent that you are either a registered migration agent (holding a valid MARN issued by the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority) or an authorised employee of a registered migration practice.

3. Account Responsibilities

• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
• You must enable two-factor authentication if handling sensitive client data.
• You must not share your account with unauthorised individuals.
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
• You must notify us immediately of any unauthorised access at support@lodgehq.com.au.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the Platform for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable laws or regulations.
• Upload malicious software, viruses, or harmful code.
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to other users' accounts or data.
• Interfere with the security or integrity of the Platform.
• Use automated tools to scrape, crawl, or extract data from the Platform.
• Resell or sublicense access to the Platform without our written consent.

5. Subscriptions & Payment

• Access to LodgeHQ requires a paid subscription after the 14-day free trial.
• Subscription fees are billed monthly or annually via Stripe.
• All prices are in Australian Dollars (AUD) and are exclusive of GST unless stated otherwise.
• We reserve the right to change pricing with 30 days' notice.
• Refunds are handled on a case-by-case basis. Contact support@lodgehq.com.au.

6. Data Ownership & Connected Accounts

You retain full ownership of all data you upload to or create on LodgeHQ, including client records, documents, and case files. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over your data.

You grant us a limited licence to process, store, and transmit your data solely for the purpose of providing the Platform's services.

LodgeHQ stores your practice’s records, your clients’ records and your uploaded documents in Australia — on Amazon Web Services infrastructure in the Sydney region (ap-southeast-2) — and AI processing runs on Amazon Bedrock in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne, ap-southeast-4).

Some data does leave Australia. It leaves through parts of the platform that are always on — outbound email and its attachments, card payments, SMS and WhatsApp, browser push notifications, and document translation — and it leaves through optional integrations your practice chooses to connect, such as a mailbox, a calendar, an accounting connection or a cloud-storage mirror. Which data leaves, to which recipient, in which country and for what purpose is set out in the cross-border disclosure section of our Privacy Policy.

Every third party that receives personal information through the Platform is named, with its legal entity and country, in our Sub-processor Register, and the cross-border position is set out in our Privacy Policy.

The Platform optionally lets you connect your own Gmail or Outlook / Microsoft 365 mailbox to send and file client correspondence. If you connect a mailbox, you authorise LodgeHQ to access it through Google and Microsoft APIs solely to provide those features, you confirm you are entitled to grant that access, and you remain responsible for your own use of your email account and for complying with your email provider's terms. Data obtained from connected mailboxes is handled strictly in accordance with our Privacy Policy, including Google's Limited Use requirements, and you can disconnect at any time from Settings.

7. Data Export & Portability

You may export your data at any time through the Platform's built-in export functionality. Upon account termination, we will make your data available for export for 30 days before deletion from our active systems. Clause 11 sets out what happens after that, and clause 11 governs if this summary and it ever differ.

8. Service Availability

We strive to maintain 99.9% uptime but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We are not liable for any downtime, data loss, or service interruptions caused by factors beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to infrastructure failures, cyberattacks, or natural disasters.

We will provide reasonable notice of scheduled maintenance where possible.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, LodgeHQ Pty Ltd shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, data, or business opportunities arising from your use of the Platform.

LodgeHQ is a practice management tool. We do not provide legal advice or migration advice. You are solely responsible for the accuracy and compliance of your immigration work and client advice.

10. OMARA Compliance

LodgeHQ provides features to assist with OMARA compliance obligations, including conflict checks, CPD tracking, and audit trails. However, compliance with the Migration Agent Regulations 1998 and the Code of Conduct remains your sole responsibility.

11. Termination

• You may cancel your subscription at any time through Settings or by contacting support.
• We may suspend or terminate your account for breach of these terms, non-payment, or illegal activity.
• When an account ends, your data remains available for export for 30 days. After that it is deleted from our active systems, and the last remaining copy ages out of our Amazon Web Services infrastructure 90 days later — 120 days from closure in total. That 90 days is the longest of three expiry rules set on the infrastructure itself: point-in-time recovery on the database runs a 14-day window, database exports expire at 35 days, and superseded document versions expire at 90. No manual database snapshots exist outside those rules.

12. Data Breach Notification

If we confirm an eligible data breach affecting your firm, we will notify you within 72 hours of that confirmation — not within 72 hours of resolving it. The notice will tell you what data was affected, what we have done in response, and what you need to decide for your own clients. We anchor the commitment to confirmation because every practice carries its own notifiable-breach obligation for the same event, and you should be able to start your own assessment rather than wait for the end of ours. Separately, we handle breaches under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme in the Privacy Act 1988: we assess a suspected eligible breach promptly and in any case within 30 days of becoming aware of it, and where the scheme requires it we notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

13. Modifications to Terms

We may modify these terms at any time. Material changes will be communicated with at least 30 days' notice via email. Continued use of the Platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

14. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia. Any disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Victoria.

15. Contact