General Terms and Conditions (GTC)

The following General Terms and Conditions (GTC) shall govern the relationship between you as our contractual partner (“you” or “user”) and us, the Expat Services UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Almstadtstr. 25, 10119 Berlin, Germany (“we” or “Expats”), for using our online portal/website (the „website“: www.residence-registration.de, www.socialsecuritynumber.de, sympat.me) and any other form of communication (email, chat, telephone, fax etc.) for information and support regarding the organisation of a stay in Germany as well as for the arrangement of related services.

The GTC consist of a general part (I.) and a special part (II.) which includes special rules for the individual services.

I. General Part

1. Scope

The present GTC shall govern the relationship between the user and Expats for using the website and any other form of communication (email, chat, telephone, fax etc.) for information and support regarding the organisation of a stay in Germany as well as for the arrangement of related services. By using the services offered by Expats the GTC are deemed to have been agreed per the current version available on the website at https://sympat.me/about-us/general-terms-conditions/. The present GTC shall not apply to any relationships between the users and third parties, even if such relationships came into existence by contribution of Expats.

The German version of the GTC is binding in all respects. The English translation only serves as a non-binding assistance to the user. Any divergence of the English text or its interpretation does not affect the exclusive validity of the German text and its interpretation.

2. Performance

Expats via its website and other forms of communication provides information and support regarding the organisation of a stay in Germany as well as for the arrangement of related services. Expats provides its services to the users free of charge unless for individual services a fee has been explicitly agreed upon.

3. Liability

Expats makes every effort to ensure that the information made available to users is always current, complete and accurate. However, Expats assumes no liability for the accuracy of information provided to users, unless there are any legal obligations, such as primarily from §§ 60 to 66 of the German Insurance Contract Act. In particular, the provision of information does not constitute a consulting service on the part of Expats and does not under any circumstances replace legal or tax advice. None of the information provided is to be construed as a guarantee.

Within the scope of information about services and their arrangement, Expats limits itself to the offers of individual cooperation partners whereby Expats for successful arrangement may receive a commission respectively expense allowance from the respective cooperation partner or a fee from the user.

Expats does not assume any liability or guarantee for the availability and content of the services presented, in respect of which the respective cooperation partner with whom the user enters into an agreement is solely responsible. Furthermore, Expats is not responsible for the content of the websites of its cooperation partners.

Expats assumes no liability for technical errors or failures in the website or any other computer or communication system beyond the control of Expats. This applies in particular to errors and failures caused by a defect or overload of the communication link. Liability is also excluded if the user culpably fails to inform Expats immediately of any technical errors or failures. Expats does not guarantee that the website and the user account are permanently accessible.

4. User’s Obligations

Via the intended means of transmission (website or other forms of communication), the user must provide the personal information required for the use of the services of Expats. This applies in particular to information which serves to identify the user, if necessary, or which is required by law to be obtained. The user is responsible for ensuring that the information provided to Expats is current, complete and accurate. Expats reserves the right to leave unprocessed requests based on false or inadequate information and to claim damages from culpable users. Expats may permanently exclude users acting intentionally in this way from its services.

The use of individual services may require the user to register by setting up a user account on the website. The use of a user account requires the participation of the user in the intended log-in details such as password allocation or the use of other authentication procedures. Users for whom a user account is set up on the website are obliged to ensure that third parties do not gain access to their access data. Any suspicion of improper access by third parties to the user account must be reported immediately to Expats by the user.

The users are obliged to immediately and diligently review the content and completeness of the documents received due to an arranged contract.

5. Termination

Users can terminate the contractual relationship with Expats at any time without adherence to a period of notice, unless for individual services a different termination provision has been agreed upon.

Expats reserves the right to extraordinarily terminate the contractual relationship with users for a significant reason without adherence to a period of notice. Especially the violation of the user’s obligations stipulated in number I.4 of the GTC can be considered as such reason.

6. Data protection and Privacy Policy

Information on data protection and privacy policy is available on our website https://sympat.me/about-us/privacy-policy/.

7. Applicable Law, Jurisdiction

The contractual relationship between the user and Expats shall be governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany to the exclusion of the rules of private international law. For all disputes between the user and Expats arising out or in connection with their contractual relationship the place of exclusive jurisdiction shall be Berlin.

II. Special Part

1. Insurances

Expats places users with cooperating insurers who offer property, life and health insurances. In the course of the activity outlined under number II.2.a Expats acts as an insurance intermediary within the meaning of Paragraph 34d Section 1 of the German Trade Regulation Act and as such is registered under registration number D-DK4A-SJF20-22 (published at www.vermittlerregister.info). More detailed information on Expats’s activities as an insurance intermediary has already been provided to the user upon first business contact on the website as part of the initial information required pursuant to the Paragraphs 15, 16 of the German Regulation on Insurance Mediation and can further on be viewed at https://sympat.me/about-us/broker-information/.

2. Vouchers

Expats may issue vouchers granting users advantages in terms of individual services. Vouchers are issued in the form of codes and can be redeemed online via a special input field during the request process. The use of a voucher code is only possible once and is limited to the purpose and period of validity which Expats specifies in the context of the issue of the voucher. Under no circumstances can several coupon codes be combined with each other. Expats reserves the right to subsequently check and, if necessary, reject voucher codes used by the user, even if the website’s computer system has initially accepted them.

3. Other Services

On our website you can obtain information about other services, that are offered by our cooperation partners. Such information does not constitute any contractual obligations between you and Expats. In some cases we can offer you the opportunity to arrange such further services on request without Expats assuming any obligations beyond the arrangement. On our website you can be redirected to our cooperation partners’ homepages via online links. Using the online links does not constitute any contractual obligations between you and Expats.