Terms of Use

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your use of the website at ohiowellreport.com and any report, data, or document it produces (together, the "Service"). The Service is operated by Ohio Well Report ("Ohio Well Report," "we," "us"), an independent business based in Ohio.

You accept these Terms by using the Service. If you do not accept them, do not use it.

These Terms cover use of the site as it exists today. Reports are not currently sold through this site. When purchasing is added, these Terms will be updated with the order, price, and refund terms that apply, and the version number above will change.

We do three things: we locate the address you enter, we retrieve records that government agencies have already published about that location and the area around it, and we lay those records out in a readable report that says where each item came from.

That is the entire service. We do not add findings, conclusions, opinions, ratings, scores, or grades. Where the report describes something, it is describing what a record states.

This section controls over any other statement, whether on this website, in marketing material, or in a report itself. Read it as the definition of the product.

It is not an inspection. No one from Ohio Well Report visits, enters, observes, photographs, or examines any property, structure, well, pump, tank, or water system. Nothing in the Service is a home inspection as that term is defined at Ohio Revised Code § 4764.01, and we do not represent any qualification to perform one.

It is not a water test. We collect no samples and analyze nothing. No statement anywhere in the Service describes the quality, safety, potability, or fitness for any purpose of the water at any property.

It is not an evaluation, assessment, or survey. We do not evaluate a well, a water system, an aquifer, a soil, a geologic unit, a flood condition, or a property, and we do not perform inspections, evaluations, or sampling of private water systems for hire.

It is not engineering, geology, hydrogeology, surveying, or well-drilling work, and it is not the practice of engineering as defined at Ohio Revised Code § 4733.01. We are not licensed to perform any of those services and we do not perform them.

It is not an appraisal, a title search, or a boundary determination. A report does not establish where a property line runs, who owns anything, or what anything is worth.

It is not legal, financial, real-estate, insurance, health, or environmental advice, and it is not a substitute for any of those.

It is not a recommendation to buy, sell, price, finance, insure, test, treat, drill, repair, seal, abandon, or do anything else.

It is not a professional opinion and creates no professional relationship. Using the Service does not make us your inspector, engineer, geologist, advisor, agent, or fiduciary.

Report content is drawn from records published by government agencies, currently including the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (water well log records, and oil and gas well records), the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service soil survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Flood Hazard Layer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Census Bureau, and county auditor and county GIS parcel records. Each report identifies the source of each item it presents.

We are an independent business. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, licensed by, or acting on behalf of any of those agencies, and nothing in the Service is an official government record, certificate, permit, approval, or determination.

We do not create, control, correct, or verify agency records. We reproduce what an agency published. If an agency's record is wrong, incomplete, mislocated, outdated, or missing, our report reflects that record as published. We have no way to independently confirm what a driller wrote on a well log in 1967, and we do not attempt to.

Records change. Agencies revise, add, remove, and re-map records without notice. A report describes the records as retrieved on the date printed on it, and nothing more. Agency names and trademarks are used only to identify sources.

To assemble a report we match the address you enter to a geographic point using parcel data and public geocoding services, in order of reliability. Where confidence in that match is lower, the report says so.

Records are then retrieved by proximity to that point. Proximity is not ownership. A well record shown near an address is a record located near that point. It is not a statement that the well is on that parcel, that it serves that property, that it still exists, or that it is in use. Distances are approximate and come from coordinates in the source records, which vary widely in precision.

If a report shows no record of something, that means no record was found. It does not mean the thing does not exist.

Ohio's well log file is incomplete. Well logs were not systematically filed with the state before roughly 1948, filing practice has varied by county and by decade since, some logs were never submitted, some were submitted and never digitized, some were digitized with errors, and some carry coordinates that place them a considerable distance from the property they describe. The same is true, in different ways, of every other source we use.

Accordingly, and without limitation:

No well log on record does not mean the property has no well. No oil or gas record nearby does not mean no oil or gas well exists nearby. No flood hazard shown does not mean the property does not flood. No underground storage tank record does not mean no tank is present. No record of contamination does not mean the water is safe or uncontaminated.

Absence of a record is absence of a record. Nothing else may be inferred from it, and we disclaim any inference drawn from it.

Because of everything in sections 3 through 6, a report is a starting point for inquiry and is not a basis for any decision on its own.

Before relying on the condition, capacity, safety, legality, or existence of any well or water system at any property, engage a qualified, licensed professional to examine that property directly — an Ohio-registered private water systems contractor, a certified laboratory for water testing, a licensed home inspector, an engineer, or your local health district, as appropriate to your question. If your question is a legal one, ask a lawyer.

You may use a report for your own business or personal purposes in connection with the property it names, and you may share the complete, unmodified report with parties to a transaction involving that property and with your own client, attorney, lender, insurer, or advisor.

You may not:

Alter, edit, crop, redact, or reformat a report, or remove or obscure any disclaimer, source attribution, reference number, date, footer, or logo. Quote, excerpt, screenshot, or summarize a report in a way that omits or contradicts its scope and disclaimers, or that presents an item from it as a conclusion, finding, rating, or professional opinion. Resell, sublicense, syndicate, republish, or redistribute reports as a product or service of your own, or build them into another product, without separate written permission. Present a report as your own work product, or as the work product of any government agency. State or imply that we inspected, tested, evaluated, certified, approved, or expressed any opinion about any property, or that we hold a license or qualification we do not hold. Use a report in advertising, or in litigation, arbitration, or an administrative proceeding as evidence of the condition of any property, or offer any of our personnel as an expert witness.

We retain all rights in a report's compilation, layout, design, text, charts, software, and trademarks. The underlying government records are not ours and we claim no rights in them. White-label and bulk use is available by separate written agreement only — contact us first.

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available."

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express, implied, and statutory, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.

Specifically, we do not warrant that any record is accurate, complete, current, or correctly located; that a report identifies every relevant record; that any well shown is on or serves the property named; that any figure in a source record is correct; or that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or relating to the Service, a report, or these Terms — whether the claim is in contract, tort, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, strict liability, statute, or any other theory — will not exceed the amount you actually paid us for the specific report giving rise to the claim, or one hundred dollars, whichever is greater.

We will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost business, lost opportunity, diminution in property value, cost of a substitute transaction, or cost of remediation, drilling, treatment, or repair, even if we were advised such damages were possible.

Any claim arising out of or relating to the Service must be brought within one year after the report's issue date, to the extent that limitation is enforceable.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud, willful misconduct, or any liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

A report is prepared for the person or organization that requested it. No third party may rely on a report. If you give a report to another person — a buyer, a seller, a lender, an insurer, an agent, an heir, or anyone else — you do so on your own responsibility, and that person receives it subject to these Terms, including sections 3 through 10. We owe no duty to any person who did not request a report from us, and we grant no third party any right of reliance.

If you provide a report to another person in connection with a transaction, you agree to provide it complete and unmodified, with these Terms accessible, and not to characterize it in any way inconsistent with sections 3 through 7.

You will indemnify and hold us harmless from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from your breach of section 8 or this section, or from your characterization of a report to any third party.

You may not access the Service by automated means — scraper, bot, crawler, or headless browser — except a well-behaved search-engine crawler obeying our robots file. You may not call our services directly, outside this website; circumvent or attempt to circumvent rate limits, access controls, or authentication; bulk-download, mirror, or build a competing database from our output; probe, scan, stress-test, or interfere with our infrastructure; or use the Service to harass, stalk, profile, or locate an individual, or for any unlawful purpose.

We apply a daily limit per visitor and an overall daily limit, and we may suspend or terminate access for violation of this section.

Our handling of personal information is described in our Privacy policy, which is part of these Terms. In summary: we store the address you search and the report built from it, and we log a one-way fingerprint of your network address for abuse prevention rather than the address itself.

Do not send us confidential or sensitive personal information. Property addresses searched through the Service are processed by third-party geocoding and mapping services, as listed in the Privacy policy.

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. We may change these Terms by posting a revised version with a new version number and effective date. We may suspend or terminate your access for breach of these Terms. Sections 3 through 12 survive termination.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. You and we consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts located in Ohio.

Notices to us go through our contact page.

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining provisions stay in full effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. These Terms, together with the Privacy policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service.