Terms of Service

CandlePaws is operated by Global Investment Consulting BV, Alfons Servaislei 96b bus 7, 2900 Schoten, Belgium (KBO/BTW BE 0755.799.452, RPR Antwerp) (“we”, “us”). These terms are the agreement between you and that operator. How we handle personal data is covered separately in our Privacy Policy.

CandlePaws lets you create a memorial page for a pet you have lost: their story, their photos, a gentle animated setting, and a link you can share. Anyone with the link can visit, light a candle, and leave a memory in the guestbook — no account needed for visitors. Creating and caring for a memorial requires an account, which works with emailed sign-in links.

• You sign in with a link sent to your email address — keep that address current and its inbox secure, since anyone who controls it can access your account.
• You are responsible for what is done through your account.
• You must be at least 16 to create a free account. To buy Premium you must be of full legal age, or have your parent's or guardian's consent.

A free memorial page stays up. We will never take down a free memorial because it is free, and we will never move an existing free page behind a paywall. Two honest caveats:

• We may remove or restrict content that violates these terms or the law (see acceptable use and moderation).
• If we ever had to discontinue the service entirely — we intend not to — we would give you reasonable advance notice and a way to save your memorial's content first.

Premium is a one-time purchase of €49 per memorial (our launch price — it will later rise to €59). It is not a subscription — you pay once, and that memorial keeps its Premium features. Premium unlocks the extras described on our pricing section at the time of purchase.

Payment is handled by Stripe. Prices are shown in euros at checkout and include VAT; no further costs arise. The contract is concluded when we confirm your payment — you get that confirmation by email.

Premium is digital content that is delivered immediately: the moment your payment completes, the upgrade is live on your memorial. As a consumer you normally have a 14-day right of withdrawal on a distance contract (Directive 2011/83/EU; in Belgium, Art. VI.47 ff. of the Code of Economic Law).

When the right ends early

Your right of withdrawal only ends early if, at the payment step, you expressly confirm two things: that we should begin delivery immediately, and that you know this means losing your right of withdrawal once delivery has begun. Unless you have given that express confirmation, your right of withdrawal stands for the full 14 days.

None of this touches your statutory rights if something is actually wrong: if Premium is faulty or not as described, the digital-content rules (Directive (EU) 2019/770) apply in full. Write to us and we will make it right — no forms, no argument.

This is a place for remembering beloved animals, and everything about how it may be used follows from that:

• A memorial must be for your own pet, or one you have a genuine connection to with the owner’s blessing.
• Only upload photos and text you have the right to use.
• No unlawful content, and no content that harasses, threatens, demeans, or impersonates anyone — this applies to memorials and guestbook tributes alike.
• No spam, no advertising, and no technical abuse of the service (such as scraping, probing, or attempting to disrupt it).

You keep all rights to what you create and upload. So that the service can work, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, and technically process your content — for example, showing the memorial page to visitors and generating link previews when it is shared. It goes no further than that: we do not sell your content, do not use it for advertising, and do not pass it on. The licence ends for content you delete, except for the short time backups take to cycle out.

We may remove or hide content that violates these terms or the law — including guestbook tributes on any memorial. We do this with care: memorials are precious, and moderation exists to protect them, not police them. If a tribute on your memorial hurts rather than helps, tell us.

If you believe something on CandlePaws is illegal, you can report it to us at any time under Art. 16 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (the Digital Services Act). How to do that, what a report should contain, and what happens next are set out in our legal notice, under “Reporting content”. Every guestbook entry also carries a “Report” link.

We run CandlePaws with reasonable skill and care, but like any online service we cannot promise it will be available without interruption every moment. We may improve and evolve features over time; we will not remove Premium features you have paid for from your memorial without offering something at least equivalent.

Kept fair, and within what consumer law allows:

• Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability that cannot legally be limited — including liability for intent and gross negligence, for death or personal injury, and your mandatory rights as a consumer.
• Where we are only slightly negligent, we are liable only for breaching an essential obligation — one without which this contract cannot sensibly work and on whose performance you may rely — and then only for the foreseeable damage typical of this kind of contract.
• Content posted by users — memorials and tributes — is the responsibility of the person who posted it. We act on violations as described under moderation.
• One last honest note: please keep your own copy of photos and words that matter to you. We back our systems up carefully, but no online service can replace your own archive.

This contract is governed by Belgian law. If you are a consumer habitually resident in the EU, you additionally keep the protection of the mandatory consumer-law rules of the country where you live, and nothing in these terms takes that away (Art. 6(2) Rome I Regulation).

For the courts, the law simply applies, and it favours you: as a consumer you may sue us either in the courts where you live or in the courts at our seat in Belgium, and we may sue you only in the courts where you live (Arts. 17–19 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012). We make no jurisdiction agreement with you that departs from this.

Out-of-court dispute resolution: we are not required to take part in proceedings before a consumer arbitration body, and we have not committed to doing so. Please write to us directly first — nearly everything can be settled that way. Independently of that, as the customer of a Belgian company you may turn to the Belgian Consumer Ombudsman Service; the address is in our legal notice. The EU's online dispute resolution platform was discontinued on 20 July 2025 and no longer exists.

We may update these terms as the service evolves. The current version always lives at this address with its date at the top.

If a change meaningfully affects your rights, we will tell account holders by email at least 30 days beforehand. If you do not agree with a change, you may object before it takes effect or delete your account; and for a Premium purchase you have already made, the terms in force at the time of purchase continue to apply.

Questions about these terms? Reach us at support@candlepaws.com. The full provider particulars, the route for reports, and the model withdrawal form are in our legal notice.