About urbex sales website and legality

 

A question often asked, a question to which it seems everyone has an answer.

Everyone is a lawyer, but not a psychologist apparently

We are surprised to see so many jurists and lawyers among urbex explorers and owners. The truth is that most of them have no experience / knowledge in private law.

Saying that the sale of coordinates is prohibited seems fair and legitimate. But why? Well, a person who doubts the validity of his or her opinions or behaviours may choose to look to others as a relevant source of knowledge and may be tempted to conform, for example, to the views of the majority. Deferring to the majority has the advantage of being a simple strategy for dealing with a situation of high uncertainty with greater confidence.

The psychologist Solomon Asch showed that subjects in an experiment preferred to publicly follow a wrong but unanimous response from their partners rather than risk possible social disapproval.

So it would be a strategic opinion rather than a considered one? I tend to think so. Not to categorise explorers and landlords all as nice sheep, but not to be fooled by the ability to construct one’s own opinion with facts close to objectivity and a necessary good faith.

EasyUrbex project

Like most people we prefer to live within the law, it’s always a safer situation in the long run. Before opening this website, we wanted to have no concerns about the legality of what we were going to do. Therefore we presented our project to a lawyer, and together we discussed the legality of our future business. We will not dwell here on the many points we have discussed together. Let us get to the point: there is nothing illegal about selling GPS coordinates, but under certain conditions:

Legal yes, but beware of its consequences

As such, the sale of GPS coordinates is not illegal, but some of its consequences can be controversial. Let me explain, let’s take the example of an explorer who is injured on a place whose coordinates have been sold to him on this website. Can he turn against my company? Yes he can try. Let’s take another example, if an explorer is arrested by the police and wants to sue me for compensation. We can’t stop him either. This is his right.

The most important guarantee: the T&Cs

As with any sale, there is a contract between the buyer and the seller. This contract, in our case, is the T&Cs. The customer must accept them before each purchase. He therefore agrees with the terms of the contract we are proposing, and it is this contract that allows us to protect ourself against all these dangers. For example, with regard to accidents that an explorer may have, our T&Cs state that : “In any case, the seller can not be held responsible for the harmful material and / or physical and / or psychological consequences of the practice of Urbex by the Customer.

You have understood the principle, the sale of GPS coordinates is not illegal. However, what the customer do can be. And by signing our T&C, he has accepted the clauses concerning the responsibilities of each party.