Last updated October, 9th 2024

55plusExplorers©

Applicable Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms will be interpreted in accordance with the laws of Germany. You and we both consent to venue and personal jurisdiction in Cologne, Germany.

Every time you access and use the 55plusExplorers website you agree to these Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND THE PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE WEBSITE.

Terms and Conditions

1. Range of Services:

55plusExplorers is a social impact communication platform. The platform enables members to contact each other and communicate with each other to find home exchange partners, make new friends or to plan to travel together.

2. Membership and User obligations:

To register as a member you have to provide correct, up-to-date information about yourself, your mobile phone number, as well as your email address and photos of yourself and your home.

The minimum age of 55PlusExplorers is 55 years.

To sign up as a member you have to be a resident (rent or ownership) in a senior living community in the United States of America or seek to home exchange with someone living in a senior living community in the USA. You will provide proof of your location by stating the exact name of the retirement community in your profile and uploading a utility bill in your personal profile. The utility bill will be reviewed by admin and is not visible to other members.

Verifying your identity with Two-Factor Authentication during the first registration is crucial in establishing trust within the 55plusExplorers community. All data uploaded as part of this process will be kept strictly confidential, and is stored securely, separate from other data, using best practice, industry standard encryption.

By signing up to 55plusExplorers the User accepts the General Terms and Conditions, Community Guidelines, Security Guidelines, Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.

You agree that it is your own responsibility to verify that you have insurance coverage.

You agree that you will at all times respect all applicable laws.

It is the User's responsibility to proof that his identity is real by providing correct data and photos, mobile phone number and a recent utility bill (the utility bill is not visible to any other user) in the Personal Profile area of your account on this website. All Users agree to make the following data available to other registered 55plusExplorers club members: User's first name, location (City, Country), name of retirement community, gender, photos provided, interests, languages, where do you want to travel to, and the free text fields: Personal Motto and Personal Description that the User can fill in. Only by accepting and providing the above mentioned data to the platform will the user be considered for a potential membership. Any other personal data is not made available to other Users by the platform.

You agree that your membership is for your own personal use; you will not transfer your account to any other person or entity, you won't allow anyone else to access the website through your membership for their use. You will not pass-on, refer or sell any member profiles to any other person.

You agree that you will not include specific details, websites, surnames or commercial names in your profile that would enable anyone to identify or contact you outside of the site.

You agree that you will not send any unsolicited messages to other Members, that direct or indirect Spam or any other mass e-mailing techniques are prohibited. Any violation of this paragraph shall subject the violator to severe penalties including a minimum of USD 500 per violation and you shall indemnify and hold the 55plusExplorers platform harmless from and against any and all costs and damages incurred by the platform as a result of such violation.

You agree that you will not use this site for commercial or business purposes, that you will not send any advertising to other Members meant to sell or promote products, services, or memberships, nor any messages promoting political, philosophical, religious, affinity or charity interests.

In case you agree to a home exchange or hospitality exchange with another member, where one member hosts the other member in their own home, you agree that such an exchange does not imply any monetary exchange, it is a non-commercial transaction. Furthermore any kind of home or hospitality exchange is your sole responsiblity.

In case you make plans to travel with another member you agree that you will not ask any other member for money in respect to any travel plans you make together. Each person is responsible to cover their own expenses and travel costs. You also agree to not have any monetary personal gain from suggesting a trip to another member.

You will honor any and all obligations you make to other members, for instance travel plans together, and use best efforts to mitigate any loss caused by your failure to do so.

55plusExplorers reserves the right to verify the data provided by the User and can request further proof of the User's identity. 55plusExplorers reserves the right to reject, delete and block a User without warning from accessing the website if the User does not provide the above mentioned data or does not comply to these Terms and Conditions.

3. Denied Membership or Termination:

55plusExplorers reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or no reason whatsoever and to terminate any membership, for any reason, at our sole and absolute discretion.

We reserve the right to cancel a membership and remove an account without warning and at any time, without reimbursement of any membership fees already paid. Grounds considered for termination may include, without limitation: if the person does not comply with our terms and conditions, or does not meet the age requirements, or does not upload correct and up-to-date photos of himself/herself and their home, or tries to use 55plusExplorers for commercial purposes, or tries to collect donations, or tries to use our services for the purpose of finding sexual partners, or if we feel that an action of a member compromises the reputation or security of the Websites, or if you have not signed in to the platform for a particular period of time determined by us, as well if we esteem the user not suitable for this community.

We will cancel the membership of any user if he/she harasses, stalks, intimidates, threatens, attacks or defames other users of 55PlusExplorers or our customer service agents, management or any other employee of 55plusExplorers. If the User intentionally or fraudulently makes false statements in their profile, 55plusExplorers will cancel, remove and block the member. In any of the here mentioned cases no refund for any fees paid is given.

If your membership is cancelled or you cancel it yourself, your profile will no longer be visible on the website. Your messages to other members and anything you created or commented on in the blog pages, the Forums or local groups will still be visible. We reserve the right to keep removed data on backup files for security reasons, to prevent a denied user from creating another account.

4. Liability:

55plusExplorers is a communication platform, in agreeing to the Terms and Conditions you accept that 55plusExplorers is not involved in the communication between members, and is not involved in any agreements made between members. Use of any of the platform and any information obtained from this website is at your sole risk.

55plusExplorers is not responsible for and cannot guarantee the success of User's communicating with each other, nor for establishing contact between members. Members are expected to proactively engage to meet new people through this platform. Proactively engaging does not guarantee that the other User is interested in communicating, this has to be respected. 55plusExplorers and its employees, managers and owners cannot be made responsible if no contact between members is established, nor for the communication between members, nor for the decisions members make based on their communication with each other, nor for any resulting travel plans between members.

55plusExplorers cannot guarantee that the information members provide is accurate. 55plusExplorers will not publish your photos in social networks or out of the boundaries of this website without your consent, at the same time 55plusExplorers is not liable for any non-authorized republishing of any of your listing by a user of this website, including images, text, and content. 55plusExplorers is not responsible, nor liable for any dispute between members or any action by a member. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to monitor interactions between members.

55plusExplorers does not warrant and cannot ensure the security of any information that you transmit to this website and cannot be held responsible for undelivered messages. If you access or transmit any content through the use of our website, you do so at your own discretion and your sole risk. You are solely responsible for any loss or damage arising out of such access, transmission, or interpretation.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless 55plusExplorers, its employees and agents against all claims, expenses, liabilities, losses, costs, and damages, including reasonable attorney's fees that you may incur in connection with your use of this website.

5. Member Disputes:

Any disputes arising from the use of this platform must be settled between the members, 55plusExplorers cannot be held responsible. Members shall use best and amicable efforts to resolve any disputes. If this is unsuccessful, 55plusExplorers may volunteer to assess the arguments of the members and make suggestions for settlement, but it has no obligation to do so and any recommendation by 55plusExplorers has no binding authority. If you have a dispute with one or more of our Members, you release us (and our officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures and employees) from any claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such dispute.

6. Fees:

The membership is free of charge in 2024. As of 2025 it is to be expected that the membership fee per year will be USD 120.

A member can terminate the membership at any time, however the yearly fee is paid for 1 year in advance and is not reimbursed.

The 55plusExplorers online community is an alternative to social media, because we do not sell any personal data and we do not allow any advertisement on our website. This enables our members to be authentic and engage in an open manner.

When booking a tour or co-living or any other services offered, the indicated fees for these services are charged and paid via Credit Card or paypal on the site 55plusExplorers.com. The Credit Card transactions are handled by a qualified third party payment gateway. You agree to review the charges and information you supply prior to finalizing any and all transactions. You will be responsible for all charges and taxes incurred through your transactions. If you discover a billing error or have questions about any transaction, please contact us immediately.

7. Cancellation policy:

The member has the right to cancel the membership at any time. The cancellation is made in the Personal Profile section: My Profile/Membership/Delete. Cancelling your membership implies that you lose the access to your account and all data in the profile.

8. Services and Availability:

The 55plusExplorers platform is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. However we cannot guarantee any server availability rates.

The 55plusExplorers Site may include communication or marketing messages, service announcements, administrative and news messages.

55plusExplorers reserves the right to amend the General Terms and Conditions at any time. We will notify you about any changes by changing the 'Last Updated' date at the top of the Legal Notice and Terms and Conditions page. We encourage you to review this page for the latest information.  The changes are accepted by the User unless the User objects within 1 month after being informed of such changes.

55plusExplorers may at our discretion and with no liability regarding its members, with or without prior notice and at any time, add, remove, modify or completely discontinue, temporarily or permanently, any portion or all of its Services.

9. Proprietary Rights:

You grant to us an irrevocable, non-exclusive and royalty-free right and license (but not obligation), in perpetuity throughout the world, to use, copy, perform, reproduce, promote, publish, display and distribute any intellectual property and all copyright, in and to, each and every photograph, video, and all information related to your account. You grant these rights to us free of charge and without any commitment of an attribution as to authorship, ownership or other similar reference. You represent and warrant that you have the right to grant the rights and license in this paragraph.

10. Intellectual Property:

This Website and all intellectual property rights included in or related to this Website and its content are duly protected by applicable law, copyright laws, trademarks, service marks. All right, title and interest in the Site and the intellectual property rights remain 55plusExplorers property. All rights are reserved. Without the prior written consent of 55plusExplorers you may not copy, communicate to the public, modify, distribute, or make any use of the information, content and materials appearing on this Website.

11. Feedback:

We welcome and encourage you to provide feedback, comments and suggestions for improvements to the 55plusExplorers platform. You can easily do this after sign in by going to the Footer of each page and selecting and submitting the button "Feedback to this page" or by contacting us through the Contact Form. Any Feedback you submit to us will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary to you. By submitting Feedback to us, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sub-licensable, perpetual license to use and publish those ideas and materials for any purpose, without compensation to you.

12. Applicable Law:

The applicable law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies exclusively. Any legal action will be brought exclusively to the court of Cologne, Germany.

13. Legal disclaimer:

The contents of these pages were prepared with utmost care. Nonetheless, we cannot assume liability for the timeless accuracy and completeness of the information.

Our website may contain links to external websites. As the contents of these third-party websites are beyond our control, we cannot accept liability for them. Responsibility for the contents of the linked pages is always held by the provider or operator of the pages.

14. Changes to this Legal Notice and Terms and Conditions

This Legal Notice and Terms and Conditions might be changed from time to time. We will notify you about any changes by changing the 'Last Updated' date at the top of the Legal Notice and Terms and Conditions page. We encourage you to review this page for the latest information.