Subscription Service Agreement

This agreement is between Halekin Inc., a corporation carrying on business as Halekin ("Halekin", "we", "us"), and the person who accepted it ("you"). Your name and the date you accepted appear on the copy delivered to you and in your account under Billing.

You can reach us at any of the following. We answer email within one business day.

Non-medical companion care, in the member's home and in the community around it: companionship and conversation, going along on walks and outings, driving to appointments and errands, help with errands and grocery shopping, light household tasks including tidying and preparing simple meals in the member's kitchen, pet care such as dog walking, and check-in calls. Visits are normally two to four hours. Each visit is performed by a Kin — an independent contractor engaged by Halekin — assigned to the member. To use the service you need an email address and either a mobile phone or a web browser to book and manage visits, and the member needs to be at the service address at the scheduled time.

Halekin does not provide health care and is not a home care agency. Kin do not perform personal care or any hands-on health task. That includes bathing or showering, toileting and incontinence care, dressing, grooming and oral care, transfers or physically lifting the member, giving or organizing medication, wound care, injections, and any nursing or therapy service. Kin do not make medical, financial or legal decisions for the member. If the member comes to need care beyond this scope we will tell you and help you find a regulated provider. We cannot widen the scope on request, even by agreement — this limit is what keeps the service outside provincial home care licensing.

Time beyond your included hours bills at $35/hour. On transportation visits, mileage is charged at $0.72/km, up to 100 km per visit, and draws from your included hours before it is billed separately. If a visit ends early, you are charged only for the time actually used. There is no booking fee and no administration fee. No charge other than the ones in this agreement applies unless you agree to it in writing beforehand.

Cancelling a booked visit is free if you cancel 24 hours or more before it starts. Inside 24 hours there is a late-cancellation charge, because your Kin has already held the time and we pay them a one-hour minimum for it. If you cancel between 4 and 24 hours before the visit, the charge is 50% of the visit's cost. Less than 4 hours before, it is 100%. Either way the charge is capped at one hour at your hourly rate — never more than $35, however long the visit was going to be.

If the cancelled visit was inside your plan's included hours, you pay no money at all. Instead one included hour is used up for that period, capped at one hour no matter how long the visit was. Visits booked beyond your included hours have no included hour left to use, so those are charged the percentage above instead.

We waive the late-cancellation charge entirely when the reason is that the member has been hospitalized, regardless of how close to the visit it is.

You give us a payment card, which is stored by our payment processor, Stripe. Halekin does not keep your full card number. The monthly plan amount is charged when your plan starts, and then on the same day of each following month. Charges beyond your plan are billed after the visit they relate to. If a payment fails we will retry it and email you; if it remains unpaid we may pause visits until it is settled, and we will tell you before we do.

Performance starts on the plan start date shown on your copy. Visits then continue on the schedule you book, month after month. This agreement has no completion date: it runs for an indefinite period until you or we cancel it under section 11. If we have not begun performing within 30 days after the start date, you may cancel and receive a refund of what you have paid.

Visits are performed at the member's home and, for outings and transportation, in the community around it, within the service area we publish. They are performed for the member named in your account. Halekin performs the service through Kin — independent contractors we recruit, screen, train and insure — rather than through employees. We assign a dedicated Kin to the member and tell you that Kin's name before the first visit. If your assigned Kin is unavailable for a booked visit, we will offer a substitute and give you their name in advance; you may decline a substitute, and the hours stay in your allotment for that period.

The hours included in your plan are an allotment for one monthly billing period. They reset at the start of each period. Hours you do not use expire at the end of the period: they do not carry over, they are not refunded or credited, they cannot be transferred to anyone else, and they cannot be redeemed for cash.

One included hour can also be used up without a visit taking place: if you cancel a visit that was inside your included hours less than 24 hours before it was due to start, that hour counts as used. Section 6 explains why, and what happens instead when the visit was beyond your included hours.

Your included hours are not a gift card, gift certificate, voucher, prepaid purchase card or stored balance, and nothing in your plan creates one.

If you expect not to use your hours, a smaller plan or pay-per-visit will cost you less. You can change plans at any time from Billing, and we would rather you were on the plan that fits.

You may cancel at any time from Billing or by emailing us. There is no minimum term and no cancellation fee. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period you have already paid for, and you keep your remaining hours for that period. We do not refund unused hours.

In addition to your rights under the Act, we agree to this: if we cancel your plan, we refund the unused part of the period you have paid for, calculated pro rata by day. We may cancel with 30 days' notice by email, or immediately if a Kin's safety is at risk or the member needs care outside the scope in section 4.

You can pause your plan for between 1 and 8 weeks — for a hospital stay, a trip, or any other reason. You can start a pause and resume early from Billing.

While your plan is paused we do not bill you for it, and you cannot book new visits.

A pause does not save your hours. Your included hours continue to reset each billing period as usual, and because you cannot book during the pause, the hours for those periods go unused and expire like any others. They are not banked, carried forward, extended or refunded, and the pause does not lengthen your plan.

Visits already on the calendar inside the pause window are cancelled when the pause starts, and the late-cancellation terms in section 6 apply to them — including the possibility that an included hour is used up. If you want to keep a booked visit, cancel it out of the pause window or set the pause to start after it.

These rights are in addition to everything else in this agreement. Nothing in this agreement takes them away, and if anything here conflicts with them, they win.

If we did not give you the information the law requires before you entered into this agreement, or did not give you a clear chance to accept or decline it and to correct mistakes immediately beforehand, you may cancel within 7 days after you receive a copy of this agreement.

If we do not deliver a copy of this agreement to you within 15 days, you may cancel within 30 days after you entered into it.

If the copy we deliver does not contain everything the law requires it to contain, you may cancel within one year after you entered into it.

If we do not begin performing within 30 days after the start date, you may cancel at any time before performance begins.

To cancel under this section, tell us in a way that lets you show you told us — an email to hello@halekin.com is enough. You do not have to give a reason. If you cancel under this section, we refund the payments you made under this agreement, as the Act requires.

We serve addresses inside the cities we publish. If the member moves outside the service area, we may cancel under section 11.

The minimum visit length is two hours.

We may decline or end a visit where a Kin's safety is at risk, where the home is unsafe to work in, or where the member needs care outside the scope in section 4.

We may change the plan price or the included hours. If we do, we will email you at least 30 days before the change applies to you, and you may cancel before it takes effect instead of accepting it. We will not change the price of a period you have already paid for.

We use service providers for payments, messaging and hosting, as described in our Privacy Policy.

Every amount in this agreement and on your invoices is in Canadian dollars (CAD).

This agreement is available in English and French. Where the two versions differ, the English version governs, except that nothing in this section removes a right you have under Quebec's Charter of the French Language or under any consumer protection law that cannot be waived.

This agreement is governed by the laws of Ontario and the laws of Canada that apply there. Claims go to the courts of that province, including its small claims court, which is where a claim about a plan like this one usually belongs. There is no arbitration clause in this agreement and you are not giving up your right to go to court. Nothing here removes a statutory right that cannot be waived, and nothing here displaces the consumer protection law of the province you live in — if that law gives you more than this agreement does, it wins.

You entered into this agreement on the date you accepted it, which is shown on the copy delivered to you and in your account under Billing. This is version . If we publish a new version, the version you accepted continues to apply to you until you accept a new one.