Refund & Cancellation Policy

1 How payments are held

GreenHand is a marketplace that connects South African homeowners ("Clients") with independent garden service professionals ("Gardeners"). When a Client accepts a quote and pays for a booking, the funds are collected securely through our payment provider and held in escrow.

Money is not released to the Gardener at the time of payment. It is held safely until the Client confirms the job has been completed to their satisfaction, or until the job is auto-confirmed as described below. This protects both parties and is the basis for the refund rules that follow.

            In short: you never pay a Gardener directly in advance. Your money sits in escrow, you inspect the work, and it is released only when you say so. If you are not happy, you raise it before confirming and the funds stay where they are while we look into it.
        

2 Client cancellations

If you cancel a booking you have already paid for, the amount retained depends on how much notice you give before the scheduled start. The more notice, the less is retained. This keeps the fee fair and gives the Gardener a chance to fill the slot:

More than 48 hours before the scheduled start: no fee. You are refunded in full (only the non-refundable payment-processing fee is not returned).
24 to 48 hours before: 10% is retained, 90% is refunded.
Less than 24 hours before: 20% is retained, 80% is refunded.

The refund is processed automatically at the time you cancel a paid booking. You do not need to request it separately.
Cancelling a booking before you have paid is free of charge.
Any amount retained already includes the non-refundable payment-processing fee (see section 5). You are never charged it twice.
A same-day cancellation or no-show (the Gardener arrives but cannot access the property) is treated as less than 24 hours' notice.

By law, no cancellation fee applies where the cancellation is due to the death or hospitalisation of the person the booking was made for (Consumer Protection Act, section 17). Contact us and we will refund you in full.

You can cancel a booking from your GreenHand dashboard, or by contacting support@greenhand.co.za.

3 Gardener cancellations

If a Gardener cancels, or fails to attend without reasonable cause, you receive a full refund of the amount paid.
Wherever possible, GreenHand will help you find a replacement Gardener so your job can still go ahead.
Repeated cancellations by a Gardener may result in suspension of their account.

4 Job completion & escrow release

After the Gardener marks a job complete (with photos and GPS check-in/out records), you will be asked to confirm the work. Funds are released from escrow to the Gardener only once you confirm completion.

If you do not confirm or raise a dispute within 72 hours of the Gardener marking the job complete, the booking may be auto-confirmed and the escrow released. If something is wrong with the work, raise a dispute before this window closes (see section 6).

This 72-hour auto-confirmation is a payment-release mechanism only. It does not remove your rights under the Consumer Protection Act to a remedy if the work is not performed to a reasonable standard.

5 How refunds are processed

Approved refunds are returned to your original payment method.
Refunds are typically processed within 3–10 business days of approval, subject to our payment provider's and your bank's timelines.
GreenHand's platform service fee is only charged on completed jobs; where a full refund is due, no service fee is retained.
GreenHand is not liable for delays caused by third-party payment processors or banks.

Payment-processing fee. Our payment provider charges a processing fee on every successful payment and does not return it when a payment is refunded, so it is non-refundable. For paid Client cancellations this fee forms part of the 20% already retained; where a full refund is due because the Gardener cancelled or a dispute is resolved in your favour, GreenHand absorbs this fee so you receive 100% of what you paid.

6 Disputes & unsatisfactory work

If a job is not done to the agreed standard, open a dispute from your dashboard before confirming completion. Our team reviews the evidence from both parties (messages, photos, GPS records) and issues a fair determination, which may include a full refund, a partial refund, release of funds to the Gardener, or a split of the escrow amount.

            Your money stays protected in escrow for the entire time a dispute is open. Nothing is released to the Gardener until the dispute is resolved.
        

7 Contact us

For any refund or cancellation query:

Support: support@greenhand.co.za
Website: www.greenhand.co.za

This Refund & Cancellation Policy forms part of, and should be read together with, our Terms and Conditions and Delivery Policy.