Terms of Service and Subscription Agreement

These Terms of Service and Subscription Agreement (the "Terms") are a contract between ARO Chicago LLC, an Illinois limited liability company ("ARO Chicago LLC," "we," "us"), and the property management company, owner or other business that creates an account for ARO Manager (the "Customer," "you").

By creating a company account, checking the box at signup, subscribing to a plan, or using ARO Manager, you agree to these Terms on behalf of the Customer, and you confirm you have authority to bind the Customer. If you don't agree, don't use the service.

People who apply for apartments through ARO Manager ("Applicants") use the service at no charge under Section 11 and our Privacy Policy.

ARO Manager is web-based software that helps property managers run applications, waitlists, income and rent calculations, document collection, compliance packets, and annual owner certifications for units covered by the City of Chicago's Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO).

Not affiliated with the City. ARO Chicago LLC is a private company. ARO Manager is not operated, endorsed or approved by the City of Chicago, its Department of Housing, or its ARO Long-Term Monitoring and Compliance (LTMC) staff. City forms, income limits and rent limits are loaded from documents the City publishes, for your convenience.

You make the decisions. The service's calculations, checklists, deadlines, filled-in forms and eligibility results are tools to help your staff. You remain responsible for every leasing and compliance decision, for reviewing each file before you submit it, for confirming that the limits and forms in use are the City's current ones, and for complying with the ARO, fair housing laws, tenant screening laws, and any agreement you have with the City. The City's determination always controls.

• You must give accurate company information and keep it current.
• Your organization admin controls who on your team has access. You are responsible for everything done under your company's accounts, and for removing access when someone leaves.
• Keep login credentials private. Tell us right away at support@arochicago.com if you think an account has been compromised.
• One company account per company. Add teammates through the Team page rather than creating separate company accounts.

Plans are priced by the number of ARO units your company manages in the service, as shown on the Billing page and our pricing at the time you subscribe:

• Essentials — up to 10 ARO units
• Professional — 11 to 40 ARO units
• Portfolio — 41 to 100 ARO units
• Enterprise — more than 100 ARO units, priced by written quote

Setup fee. Each plan has a one-time setup fee charged with your first payment. Setup fees are non-refundable.

Subscription. Subscriptions are billed in advance, monthly or yearly, and renew automatically for the same period until cancelled. Yearly plans are discounted and are paid up front.

Payment. Payments are processed by Stripe. You authorize us, through Stripe, to charge your payment method for all fees when due. We don't store full card numbers.

Right plan for your size. If the number of ARO units you manage grows past your plan's limit, you agree to move to the plan that fits. Upgrades take effect right away and are prorated by Stripe; no second setup fee is charged for an upgrade.

Lease-up package. The optional lease-up package is a one-time, non-refundable fee per building.

Price changes. We may change prices with at least 30 days' notice by email. A change applies at your next renewal after the notice period.

Taxes. Fees don't include taxes. You're responsible for any sales, use or similar taxes that apply, other than taxes on our income.

If a payment fails, we'll show a notice in the service and Stripe will retry the charge. If the balance isn't paid within 7 days, staff access to your company's account is limited to the Billing page and your buildings stop accepting new applications until the account is paid. Applicants can still see their own applications and documents during a suspension. Your data is not deleted because of a suspension.

You can cancel at any time from Billing → Manage billing. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period, and you keep access until then. Fees already paid — including setup fees, monthly and yearly subscription fees, and lease-up packages — are non-refundable, except where the law requires a refund.

You own your data. "Customer Data" means the information you and your Applicants put into the service for your company, including applications, household and income information, uploaded documents, tenancies and certifications. As between us, you own Customer Data.

How we use it. We use Customer Data only to provide, secure, support and improve the service for you, as described in our Privacy Policy, or as required by law. We don't sell Customer Data, and we don't use one company's Applicant data for another company.

Your responsibilities. You are responsible for having a lawful basis to collect and use Applicant information, for giving Applicants any notices the law requires, for the content of your tenant selection plan and screening criteria, and for how your staff use the information.

Export and deletion. You can export your data from the service while your account is active. For 60 days after your subscription ends, you can ask us at support@arochicago.com for an export of your Customer Data. After that we may delete it, except where we must keep records by law, and except backup copies that are overwritten on their normal schedule.

Service providers. We use trusted providers to run the service — including our hosting and application platform, Stripe for payments, and email delivery. They process data only to provide their services to us.

We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect Customer Data, including company-by-company access separation, encrypted connections, private storage for uploaded documents with short-lived access links, and role-based access for your staff. No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of unauthorized access to your Customer Data, we will notify you without unreasonable delay and as the law requires.

You agree not to:

• use the service to discriminate against applicants in violation of fair housing or other laws;
• upload unlawful content, malware, or anything you don't have the right to upload;
• post listing photos that show tenants, their belongings, mail or documents (listing photos are public);
• try to access another company's data, probe or disrupt the service, or get around its security or billing limits;
• copy, resell, sublicense or build a competing product from the service; or
• share login credentials or let people outside your company use your account.

We may suspend access that violates this section or threatens the security of the service or other customers.

Applicants can use ARO Manager free of charge to apply for units, upload documents, and follow their applications. Each application belongs to the property manager the Applicant applies with, and that property manager makes all leasing decisions. ARO Chicago LLC does not decide who is approved, does not guarantee any unit, and is not a party to any lease. Applicants agree to give true and complete information and to upload only their own documents or documents they have permission to share.

Support is available by email at techsupport@arochicago.com for technical issues and support@arochicago.com for account and billing questions. We work to keep the service available at all times but don't guarantee it will be uninterrupted. We may perform maintenance and will try to schedule it outside business hours. We may improve or change features over time; we won't remove a core feature you've paid for during your current paid period without notice.

ARO Chicago LLC owns the service, its software, design and content (other than Customer Data and City-published materials). These Terms give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service for your company's internal business during your subscription. If you send us suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

Each party will protect the other's non-public business information it receives with reasonable care and use it only for this agreement. This doesn't apply to information that is public, already known, independently developed, or that must be disclosed by law (with notice where allowed).

The service is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent the law allows, ARO Chicago LLC disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We don't warrant that calculations, limits, forms or deadlines in the service match the City's current requirements in every case, or that any application will be approved by the City.

To the fullest extent the law allows: (a) neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue or data, even if advised they were possible; and (b) ARO Chicago LLC's total liability arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. These limits don't apply to your payment obligations or to either party's indemnity obligations.

You will defend and indemnify ARO Chicago LLC against third-party claims arising from your leasing, screening or compliance decisions, your Customer Data, or your violation of these Terms or the law. We will defend and indemnify you against third-party claims that the service, as we provide it, infringes their intellectual property rights.

These Terms apply from when you first use the service until your subscription ends and any export period is over. Either party may end the agreement if the other materially breaches it and doesn't fix the breach within 30 days of written notice. We may also end the agreement for non-payment as described in Section 5. Sections that by their nature should continue (fees owed, data, confidentiality, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity and governing law) survive termination.

We may update these Terms. For material changes we'll give at least 30 days' notice by email or in the service. Continuing to use the service after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms. If you don't agree, you may cancel before the change takes effect.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The state and federal courts located in Cook County, Illinois have exclusive jurisdiction, and both parties consent to them. Before filing a claim, each party agrees to try to resolve the dispute informally for 30 days after written notice.

These Terms, any order form or written quote, and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement on this subject. If a written Enterprise agreement conflicts with these Terms, the written agreement controls. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. If any part is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Not enforcing a right is not a waiver. Neither party is liable for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control. Notices to us go to support@arochicago.com; notices to you go to your organization admin's email.

ARO Chicago LLC · support@arochicago.com