Terms of use

Important notice

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) describe how the LocalWheels Albania website and related services work, including how trip prices and card payments are calculated. They are written for transparency and to reflect how our software operates today. They are not personal legal advice. If you need advice about your specific situation (tax, insurance, immigration, or court proceedings), consult a qualified professional. Nothing here limits rights you may have under mandatory rules of the Republic of Albania, the European Union (where applicable), or any other country whose laws apply to you.

What LocalWheels is (and is not)

LocalWheels Albania operates an online marketplace that connects people who wish to rent a vehicle (“renters”, “you”) with private or small-business vehicle providers (“hosts”, “owners”). We are not a car-rental company and we do not own the vehicles listed. The rental / handover agreement for the vehicle itself is between the renter and the host. We provide the platform (listings, search, booking requests, in-app messaging context, and — where enabled — card payment processing for specific platform-related charges through Stripe).

By registering, accessing, or using the service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

Contact for general questions about these Terms or the Privacy Policy: use the contact details published on our website (e.g. the Contact page). Operational emails may be sent from system addresses such as noreply addresses; substantive data-rights requests should be sent to a published contact email.

Accounts, roles, and eligibility

You must provide accurate registration information and keep it up to date where the product allows. You are responsible for all activity performed while logged in to your account. Accounts may be “renter”, “owner” (host), or “admin” (platform staff).

You may not use the platform to circumvent applicable fees, to misrepresent a vehicle, to list a vehicle you are not entitled to rent out, to harass other users, or to exchange contact details in ways that undermine trust and safety controls (see messaging rules below).

We may suspend, restrict, or close accounts that violate these Terms, pose a security or fraud risk, or are required by law enforcement / court order, subject to applicable procedural rules.

How the trip rental total (“rental subtotal”) is calculated

When you request a booking, the platform computes a rental subtotal for the selected pickup and return instants. That subtotal is stored on the booking (and used for vouchers and checkout) as the trip rental amount before any promotional voucher discount is applied at payment time.

For transparency and stability, the platform may also store a structured snapshot (JSON) of key listing pricing and policy fields at the time of your request. After a host accepts, later edits by the host to the live listing do not retroactively rewrite the economics captured on your booking row; checkout and support use the merged snapshot rules where present.

Core rental: the subtotal is derived from the host’s daily pricing for each billed rental day in your trip window. A “rental day” follows the platform’s billing rules (each billed day is up to 24 hours from pickup, with partial periods rounded up to the next billed day — as implemented in our pricing engine).

Seasonal and period pricing: a listing may have a base daily rate, optional peak-season fields, and/or multiple dated “pricing periods”. For each billed calendar day of your trip, the platform selects the applicable daily rate and the strictest applicable host rules (for example minimum rental days, free-cancellation lead time, and no-show hold percentage) from among the vehicle defaults and any pricing period that covers that calendar day. Calendar-day boundaries for peak/period logic use the platform’s configured rental pricing time zone (environment-driven; intended to align with Albania/Europe where supported by the runtime).

Length-based adjustments on the rental portion: if the host has configured them, the rental subtotal may include (a) a percentage surcharge on short trips up to a configured number of days, and/or (b) percentage discounts for longer trips. These are applied to the rental portion according to the same engine used at booking creation and at checkout previews.

Per-day optional insurance-style add-on: if the listing offers “full insurance” / bundled protection options in the product, the rental subtotal may include a per-day amount combining a fixed EUR add-on and/or a percentage of that day’s effective daily rate, as configured on the listing.

Distance: if the listing sets a daily kilometre limit with an extra charge per km, that is part of the listing’s commercial terms with you; overages are not automatically added to the stored trip subtotal unless the product explicitly does so — clarify amounts with the host.

Flat add-ons selected at booking (added to the rental subtotal as whole-trip surcharges, not per day): (1) Child seats — if the listing offers them, you may request up to the configured maximum; the platform multiplies the listing’s flat price per seat by the number of seats for the whole rental. (2) Driving outside the country — if the listing allows it, you may select this option; the platform adds the listing’s configured flat outside-country surcharge for the whole rental. (3) Outside working-hours delivery — if the listing defines working-hours presets other than “flexible” or “24/7”, and your pickup and/or return local-time instants fall outside the stated window, the trip requires the listing to allow outside-hours delivery and to have a positive configured fee; the platform charges that fee once for each affected leg (pickup outside the window counts as one leg; return outside the window counts as one leg). Working-hours windows are evaluated in the same rental pricing time zone used for seasonal/period day boundaries. Boundary rule: each window is treated as half-open in local clock time (for example 08:00–20:00 means from 08:00 inclusive up to but not including 20:00 — an event at exactly 20:00 local is outside the window).

Cross-border cash deposit add-on (not part of the card checkout subtotal split below): if you select outside-country driving and the listing defines an extra security deposit for that, that extra amount is due in cash at pickup together with the base listing deposit (see “Cash at pickup”).

Advertised “from €X / day” on search or cards may be the lower of base and peak rate; your actual trip subtotal can be higher if your dates include higher-priced days or add-ons.

Card payment after the host accepts (Stripe Checkout)

When your booking request is accepted by the host, you may be invited to pay certain amounts online by card through Stripe Checkout. The primary booking checkout is composed only of: (A) a prepaid percentage of your net trip rental (after any valid voucher discount applied at checkout), (B) a separate fixed booking service fee in EUR, and (C) an optional refundable “no-show guarantee” card hold, if the effective hold percentage for your listing/trip is greater than zero.

Prepaid commission (A): the percentage is taken from the net trip rental (trip rental subtotal minus valid voucher discount). The platform default percentage is read from platform settings (historically aligned with 4% unless changed by administrators). An individual host may have a higher or lower override within allowed bounds (the software clamps host overrides to a minimum and maximum range — currently between 4% and 50% of net rental). The EUR amount is rounded to cents. If the computed prepayment would fall below the minimum Stripe line-item rules, checkout may be rejected until amounts are valid.

Booking service fee (B): a fixed amount in EUR cents from platform settings (default in the database schema: €1.00 = 100 cents). Administrators may change this; the value used is the one in effect when you complete checkout. The software clamps unreasonable values to a safe band.

No-show guarantee hold (C): if enabled for your trip, the platform charges a temporary card hold (authorization/capture model as implemented with Stripe) equal to the lowest of: (i) the configured percentage of your net trip rental (aggregated from listing and pricing-period rules), (ii) a very high internal platform EUR ceiling encoded in the application (so it is not the limiting factor in normal trips), (iii) any stricter EUR cap the host configured on the listing (stored in cents), and (iv) 100% of your net trip rental — so the hold never exceeds the net rental. If the effective hold percentage is zero or the computed hold rounds to zero, this line item is omitted.

What is not in the primary card checkout: the listing’s security deposit is not charged on the primary Stripe checkout in the current product configuration; it is expected to be paid in cash to the host at pickup (see below). Separately, after certain return disputes, the platform may open additional Stripe flows to collect further deposit amounts up to applicable caps.

Currency: card charges are processed in euro (EUR) unless otherwise stated at checkout.

Stripe records: we store Stripe session/payment identifiers, cents breakdowns of the primary checkout (prepay, service fee, hold), payment status fields, and timestamps needed for refunds and accounting.

The platform retains the prepaid commission and the booking service fee as platform revenue once successfully collected; they are not treated as part of the cash rent owed to the host at pickup. The hold is subject to refund / release rules below.

Cash at pickup: rent and security deposit

Unless you and the host agree otherwise in writing outside the platform (which we do not supervise), you should assume the following cash components at vehicle handover:

Security deposit: the listing shows a deposit amount. That amount (plus any configured extra deposit for cross-border trips if you selected outside-country driving) is treated as a security deposit to be paid in cash to the host at pickup in the current product flow. The deposit belongs to the rental relationship between you and the host; the platform may provide tooling and dispute flows but is not the owner of that cash.

Remaining net rental: the checkout preview and terms copy describe an estimated cash amount to pay the host at pickup calculated as: net trip rental (after voucher) minus the prepaid commission you already paid on card, minus an estimated card-processing cost attributed to the no-show hold (derived from configurable percentage and fixed cents in platform settings — defaults in the schema are illustrative and may be updated). This estimate is for transparency; actual agreement on counting instruments still happens between you and the host within the law.

Fuel and other local charges (fines, tolls, cleaning) follow the listing’s stated fuel policy and Albanian law unless contractually agreed otherwise between renter and host.

Refunds, hold release, deposit top-ups, and disputes

No-show hold: when charged, it is intended as a refundable guarantee tied to good-faith attendance / handover, subject to the listing settings and platform policies. When trips complete without an open return issue, the platform initiates release/refund of remaining hold amounts via Stripe according to internal procedures. If a host reports a return issue, automated full refund of deposit/hold paths may be paused while the case is reviewed.

Deposit top-ups: if the host reports a return issue, the product may allow additional deposit collection via Stripe (off-session charge with 3-D Secure where required, or a checkout link) only within the listing’s deposit cap and operational rules shown in the owner/admin tools.

Pickup disputes: renters may open pickup-related cases during defined windows; hosts may respond with claims. Administrators may record a binding ruling for platform-managed money flows (for example refunding prepaid fees and releasing holds to the renter, or crediting part of a hold to an internal host wallet balance when the host was in the right under platform rules). Wallet credits are internal accounting for amounts owed to hosts — not a substitute for regulated payment services where those apply.

Nothing in these Terms forces you to waive mandatory consumer rights under Albanian consumer-protection legislation where they apply to you.

Promotional vouchers

We may issue promotional voucher codes. A valid voucher reduces the rental subtotal used to calculate the net trip rental at checkout (and therefore reduces the prepaid commission base and the no-show hold base). Unless we explicitly state otherwise, a voucher does not change the cash security deposit you owe at pickup.

You may enter a code when submitting a booking request; we may store a normalized code on the booking for reuse at checkout. Codes are validated again when you pay; expired, exhausted, or non-applicable codes will fail and must be corrected or removed.

Vouchers are not legal tender, may expire, and may carry minimum rental values, maximum redemption counts, and per-checkout limits. Unless stated, only one voucher applies per checkout and stacking is not allowed.

Cancellation by the renter

You may cancel from your account subject to the rules below. All times are interpreted against the scheduled pickup instant unless stated otherwise.

Hard floor: you must always cancel more than twenty-four (24) hours before the scheduled pickup time to benefit from any “free cancellation” window described here.

Listing-specific calendar rule: when the host (or a pricing period) sets a number of whole calendar days before the pickup date, free cancellation for accepted bookings is available only while both are true: (a) the pickup calendar date (in the platform rental pricing time zone) is at least that many full calendar days after the current calendar date in that same zone, and (b) more than twenty-four (24) hours remain before the scheduled pickup instant.

When no listing-specific day count is set, platform default calendar rules apply: if your booking request was submitted more than ten (10) days before scheduled pickup, you may cancel without penalty only while more than ten (10) days remain until pickup; if your request was submitted within ten (10) days before pickup, you may cancel without penalty only from the start of the calendar day after you submitted the request until twenty-four (24) hours before pickup (same-day requests and cancellations in the last twenty-four hours are outside the free window).

If you cancel inside a free window and you had already paid the primary card checkout, we refund the captured card payment via Stripe where technically and legally possible. Outside the free window, you may still cancel, but we do not refund online payments (including separate deposit top-ups) unless a mandatory law requires otherwise or we elect to make a goodwill exception.

Messaging and contact details

The platform may provide booking-scoped messaging. To reduce circumvention and fraud, automated checks may block phone numbers, email addresses, social handles, and external links in certain messages (for example the first booking note). Do not attempt to bypass these controls. Arrange handover details cooperatively using permitted channels.

Reviews

After a completed trip, a renter may leave a rating and short textual review about the host’s service. Reviews are tied to the booking and displayed in connection with the host’s profile across listings, so they reflect the host’s service rather than only one vehicle.

Promoted listings (hosts)

Hosts may purchase increased search visibility for a listing for a limited time. Default commercial parameters in the database include a promotion fee on the order of twenty euro (€20) and a visibility extension on the order of seven (7) days — administrators may change defaults; the purchase flow shows the live price and duration. Promotion affects ordering/visibility only; it does not change the rental contract, pricing engine, or review logic.

Identity verification (where offered)

We may offer flows to upload identity documents or selfies for verification. Those files are processed to operate trust and safety and may be stored with our image processor (e.g. Cloudinary) as described in the Privacy Policy. Refusal or failure to complete verification may limit certain actions on the platform.

Disputes between users, liability, and applicable law

Renter and host should first try to resolve disagreements about the vehicle, timing, or charges in good faith, using platform messaging when available.

To the maximum extent permitted by mandatory law, LocalWheels Albania and its operators are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from marketplace use, rentals between users, or reliance on third-party services (including Stripe, hosting providers, or CDNs). Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where Albanian or other applicable mandatory law forbids such exclusion.

For consumers habitually resident in Albania, provisions of Albanian consumer-protection legislation (including Law No. 9902/2008 and its amendments, together with implementing acts) may confer rights that prevail over conflicting clauses in these Terms. For persons to whom the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, data rights are described in the Privacy Policy.

Venue and jurisdiction clauses may be governed by Albanian law for contracts with our company; however, mandatory consumer jurisdiction rules may give you the right to sue in your place of residence — seek advice if unsure.

Changes to the Terms and contact

We may update these Terms to reflect product, legal, or security changes. The “Last updated” date will change; for material changes we will use reasonable efforts to provide notice (for example banner, email, or in-app message) where feasible.

If you close your account, we may cancel pending booking requests. We may retain booking and payment metadata as required for tax, accounting, anti-fraud, and legal obligations — see the Privacy Policy.