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Using KnownAfrique

Terms and conditions

These terms explain your rights and responsibilities when using KnownAfrique to find or provide legal services, communicate, share documents, and make or receive payments.

Last updated
October 1, 2026
Applies to
Customer and lawyer accounts on our website and apps

KnownAfrique is a technology platform. Independent lawyers, not KnownAfrique, provide legal advice and remain responsible for professional conduct.

Customers are responsible for accurate instructions, lawful document uploads, payment authorization, and joining consultations on time.

Lawyers must provide accurate professional credentials, keep approvals current, protect client confidentiality, and follow applicable law and professional rules.

Payments, subscriptions, wallet activity, escrow, refunds, and payouts are processed through platform workflows and supported payment providers, including M-Pesa and card payments processed by Stripe.

Use of the platform is also governed by the Privacy Policy, which explains how account, location, consultation, payment, device, and support data are handled.

1. Who We Are And What These Terms Cover

KnownAfrique connects customers around the world with lawyers in African countries. Customers can request legal help, speak with a lawyer, share documents, and pay for services through our website and Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps.

These Terms & Conditions apply whenever you create an account, sign in, browse public pages, request legal help, offer legal services, join a call, upload a document, send a message, use wallet or subscription features, or receive a notification through KnownAfrique.

2. Eligibility And Account Responsibilities

  • You must provide accurate registration details, keep your email and any phone number you provide current, and protect your password, verification codes, and devices. A phone number is required for lawyer accounts, but not for customer registration.
  • You may not create an account for another person unless you have legal authority to do so.
  • Customers must be legally capable of requesting legal services or must use the platform through an authorized representative.
  • Lawyers must provide a valid practice number and any requested professional information. KnownAfrique may review, approve, reject, suspend, or re-verify lawyer profiles before they appear in customer discovery or accept paid work.
  • You are responsible for all activity under your account until you sign out, revoke a session, or notify KnownAfrique of unauthorized access.

3. KnownAfrique Is Not A Law Firm

KnownAfrique does not itself provide legal advice, represent customers, appear in court, hold itself out as a law firm, or guarantee legal outcomes. Legal advice is provided by independent lawyers who use the platform.

A lawyer-client relationship, if any, is formed between the customer and the lawyer who accepts or conducts the consultation. Providing the website, apps, payment services, and support does not make KnownAfrique your lawyer.

  • Information in the website or apps, maps, payment confirmations, and support replies is not legal advice.
  • Lawyers remain responsible for conflicts checks, competence, confidentiality, professional independence, records, client-care duties, and any jurisdiction-specific obligations.
  • Urgent deadlines, court filings, limitation dates, arrests, domestic violence, or safety emergencies should be handled through appropriate emergency, court, law-enforcement, or professional channels.

4. Using KnownAfrique As A Customer

  • Customers may request consultations, use services on the go, share documents, pay through supported payment methods, join private calls, receive notifications, and create support cases.
  • You must provide truthful instructions, upload only documents you have the right to share, and avoid sending illegal, harmful, defamatory, or unrelated content.
  • We use your selected location to look for nearby lawyers. Maps and place suggestions may be approximate.
  • A request may be reassigned, cancelled, delayed, or closed if no eligible lawyer is available, if payment fails, if a lawyer declines, if the request violates these terms, or if safety or compliance review is required.

5. Using KnownAfrique As A Lawyer

  • Lawyers can set their availability, areas of law, services and prices; review requests; consult with customers; and manage their earnings. Subscriptions and withdrawal options are available where supported.
  • Lawyers must keep practice details accurate, use only lawful and ethical pricing, accept work only when competent and available, and respond promptly to accepted customer matters.
  • Lawyers must not misrepresent credentials, evade platform payment flows, solicit off-platform payment for platform-originated work where prohibited, misuse customer information, or upload unauthorized material.
  • KnownAfrique may show approval, availability, profile, pricing, and service information to customers and administrators to support discovery, compliance, payments, and dispute handling.

6. Consultations, Calls, Messages, Documents, And Recordings

  • Audio and video call quality depends on your internet connection, device, permissions, and the networks and services involved.
  • Chats and shared documents remain linked to the relevant consultation so both parties can find them on the website and in the apps.
  • Where recording controls are available, the recording is created through platform-approved call infrastructure and stored in controlled storage. Participants should comply with applicable consent and professional rules before recording.
  • KnownAfrique may check file details, size, type, sender, and source to protect the service and prevent unauthorized uploads. These security checks do not mean we have reviewed a document or message for legal accuracy.

7. Payments, Wallet, Subscriptions, Escrow, Refunds, And Payouts

Payments may include customer wallet top-ups, services on the go, direct consultations, lawyer subscriptions where enabled, platform fees, escrow holds, refunds, and lawyer payouts. Available payment providers include M-Pesa, card payments processed by Stripe, and other providers supported by KnownAfrique.

Each lawyer prices their services in one currency. The customer sees and pays the lawyer's price in that currency.

A price in Kenyan shillings (KES) can be paid by M-Pesa or card. A price in any other currency is paid by card.

The platform fee is deducted from the lawyer's price. The customer pays exactly the price shown, and the lawyer receives the price minus the platform fee. The fee is never added on top of the price.

  • You authorize KnownAfrique and its payment providers to initiate, verify, reconcile, reverse, or refund payment transactions that you request or approve.
  • An M-Pesa payment may remain pending until M-Pesa confirms it. Receiving a payment prompt does not mean the payment has completed.
  • Payments for services on the go may be held until the consultation is complete, any dispute is reviewed, and the applicable withdrawal conditions and waiting period are met.
  • Lawyer payouts reflect the price minus the platform fee and may be further reduced by reversals, chargebacks, taxes, penalties, refunds, dispute outcomes, or payment-provider costs.
  • Lawyer KES balances can be withdrawn to M-Pesa. Balances in other currencies are settled on a weekly payout schedule, through bank settlement or an equivalent payout provider where supported. A balance below the applicable minimum rolls over to the next payout run.
  • Lawyer subscriptions are priced and billed in KES.
  • Refunds and adjustments are reviewed according to payment status, service delivery, dispute evidence, legal obligations, and provider rules.

8. Notifications, Email, SMS, And Support

  • KnownAfrique sends account, consultation, payment, and support updates by email and app notifications, not routine SMS. Lawyers may receive SMS codes for registration, sign-in, or verifying a new phone number. M-Pesa may send its own payment messages to the phone number used for the transaction.
  • You can manage supported notification preferences, but security, legal, payment, and service-critical notices may still be sent where necessary.
  • Support messages and attachments may be reviewed by authorized KnownAfrique personnel to resolve account, payment, consultation, safety, or technical issues.

9. Acceptable Use

  • Do not use KnownAfrique for fraud, harassment, hate, threats, impersonation, illegal services, unauthorized legal practice, spam, scraping, credential sharing, malware, reverse engineering, payment abuse, or attempts to bypass platform controls.
  • Do not upload documents or media that you do not have the right to share, that contain malicious code, or that expose another person's information without lawful authority.
  • Do not bypass or interfere with usage limits, security checks, calls, file storage, payment processing, or account reviews.
  • KnownAfrique may remove content, block actions, suspend accounts, preserve evidence, or notify affected parties, regulators, payment providers, professional bodies, or law enforcement when necessary.

10. Platform Availability And Changes

KnownAfrique may be unavailable or interrupted because of maintenance, incidents, internet connections, device limitations, app-store policies, or problems with services we rely on for payments, calls, messages, maps, and storage.

KnownAfrique may update features, eligibility rules, pricing, limits, security controls, supported platforms, or these terms. Material changes will be communicated through reasonable channels such as in-app notices, email, release notes, or updated policy pages.

11. Intellectual Property And Feedback

  • KnownAfrique owns or licenses the platform software, brand assets, designs, documentation, workflows, and analytics systems.
  • You keep ownership of your lawful user content, but you grant KnownAfrique the limited rights needed to host, transmit, secure, process, display, back up, troubleshoot, and support that content for platform purposes.
  • Feedback, suggestions, and bug reports may be used to improve KnownAfrique without compensation, while respecting the Privacy Policy and confidentiality obligations.

12. Suspension, Termination, And Account Deletion

  • You may stop using KnownAfrique at any time. Signed-in web and native app users can request account deletion from Settings > Account > Delete account, and all users can request data handling assistance through support or privacy channels.
  • Requesting deletion from your account signs you out on that device. We review the request to verify ownership and check outstanding payments, consultations, disputes, and any legal or professional recordkeeping obligations before deleting or de-identifying data.
  • KnownAfrique may suspend or terminate access for security risk, non-payment, policy breach, suspected fraud, professional misconduct, repeated disputes, unlawful activity, or legal requirement.
  • Some records may be retained after account closure where needed for legal obligations, dispute resolution, fraud prevention, accounting, professional complaints, security logs, or enforcement of these terms.

13. Disputes, Complaints, And Governing Law

Please contact KnownAfrique support first so we can investigate platform, payment, technical, or safety issues. Lawyer professional-conduct concerns may also be referred to the relevant professional or regulatory body. Privacy concerns may be raised through the privacy contact listed below.

Unless a mandatory law says otherwise, these terms are governed by the laws of Kenya, and disputes will be handled through competent Kenyan forums after reasonable good-faith escalation. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any mandatory consumer rights or protections available to you under the law of your country of residence.

14. Contact

For account, payment, support, or platform questions, contact support@knownafrique.africa. For privacy or data-rights questions, contact support@knownafrique.africa.