Terms of Service
Legatus is a free, pre-launch digital legacy vault operated by one person. These terms set out what the service does, what it explicitly does not promise, what you are responsible for, and the limits of liability — including the limits that Indian law does not allow anyone to disclaim.
Who you are contracting with
Legatus is operated by Suman Debnath, trading as House of Namus, an unregistered sole proprietorship in India. House of Namus is a trading name, not a registered company. By using Legatus you agree to these terms with that proprietor.
The service is pre-launch, free, and unaudited
Legatus is offered free of charge, has no paid tier, and is pre-launch software. It has not undergone a third-party cryptographic audit or penetration test. It is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied.
Specifically, and without limiting the above, Legatus does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, that it will be free of defects, that stored data will always be retrievable, or that the service will continue to exist. It is operated by an individual with no subscription revenue guaranteeing its continuation.
Do not let a Legatus vault be the only copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. It is intended as one component of an estate plan alongside a will and, for substantial assets, offline backups you control. The full threat model is published at what Legatus does not protect against.
What Legatus does not decide
Legatus determines who can technically open a vault. It does not determine who inherits its contents. Designating a nominee in Legatus is not a will, not a codicil, and not a testamentary instrument. Entitlement to your assets is governed by your will and by Indian succession law.
Nothing on this site is legal, financial or tax advice. The content pages describe Indian law as understood on their stated review dates, with sources linked, and are general information only. Consult a qualified advocate about your own circumstances.
Your responsibilities
You are responsible for choosing and remembering your master passphrase, for the accuracy of the nominees you designate, for keeping your account details current, and for the lawfulness of what you store. Legatus cannot recover a lost passphrase, and no support request can change that.
You must not store material that is unlawful to possess, and you must not use Legatus to facilitate an offence. You must be 18 or over to hold an account.
Nominee responsibilities
Nominees must accept their role, keep the cryptographic material issued to them secure, and report a vault owner’s death honestly and accurately, supplying a genuine death certificate for administrative review.
Submitting a false expiry claim or a fabricated death certificate, or coordinating with another nominee to open a vault improperly, will result in immediate and permanent account termination. Depending on the conduct, it may also constitute an offence under Indian law, including forgery and cheating provisions, and may be reported to the appropriate authorities.
Limitation of liability, and its limits
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Legatus and its operator are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, goodwill or opportunity, arising from your use of or inability to use the service. Because the service is provided free of charge, aggregate direct liability is limited to the amount you paid for it, which is nil.
Indian law does not permit everything to be excluded, and stating otherwise would be misleading. This clause does not exclude liability for fraud, for wilful misconduct, or for gross negligence. It does not override rights you hold under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, which cannot be contracted away. It does not waive statutory obligations or penalties under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Any part of this clause found unenforceable is severable, and the rest continues to apply.
Known limitations you are accepting
By using Legatus you acknowledge the specific weaknesses it publishes rather than hides. These are stated in full on the limitations page and summarised here so that acceptance is informed rather than assumed.
| Limitation | Consequence |
|---|---|
| A lost passphrase is unrecoverable | Vault contents are permanently inaccessible, including to Legatus |
| Two colluding nominees | Can jointly confirm a transition that has not occurred |
| Coercion | Legatus cannot distinguish a passphrase given freely from one given under duress |
| Certificate review is human | A convincing forgery may pass; a genuine document may be delayed |
| No third-party audit | Sound primitives, independently unverified implementation |
| Service discontinuation | Server-side vault contents would become unreachable |
Suspension and changes
Legatus may suspend or terminate access where these terms are breached, and may change the service or these terms. Where a change materially reduces what the service does, notice will be given to the email on your account before it takes effect, so far as is practicable.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of India and disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of Indian courts. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
Questions: defy@houseofnamus.com.