Terms and Conditions
August 29, 2021
1.0 Introduction
General Terms and Conditions
YOUR ATTENTION IS PARTICULARLY DRAWN TO CLAUSE 1.5 WHICH SETS OUT OUR LIABILITY TO YOU AND CLAUSE 3.2 WHICH OUTLINES OUR EMAIL USAGE POLICIES.
1.1 Introduction
1.1.1 All Website Design, Hosting and other services (“Services”) provided by Steve Clarke, Virtual Villages and/or Villages Web Design (“VWD”) to you the Customer and/or Client (“You/you”) are subject to the following Terms and Conditions (“Conditions”).
1.1.2 These Conditions supersede all previous representations, understandings or agreements, unless otherwise confirmed by VWD in writing.
1.1.3 By instructing VWD to provide Services, you agree and accept these Conditions as governing the agreement between VWD and You. We are however under no obligation to provide services to you and only our acceptance of your instructions shall form the contract between us (the “Contract”).
1.1.4 An electronic copy of these Conditions can be found on our website, www.villageswebdesign.co.uk (“Our Website”).
1.2 Charges and Payment
1.2.1 Estimated charges for the Services are generally set out in an email or document provided to you (“Project Proposal”). These charges are subject to change. If there are any changes in these estimates we will contact you prior to providing the Services.
1.2.2 VWD will invoice for the Services provided. Payment is due within 14 days from the date of the invoice or before the service is instated or renewed, whichever is sooner. Payment can be made by cheque, payable to Virtual Villages, Internet Bank Transfer, or by BACS. Cheques should be made payable to Virtual Villages and sent to Steve Clarke, 97 Tonfield Road, Sutton, Surrey SM3 9JS. BACS details are set out on all invoices. Cheques returned for insufficient funds will be subject to a return charge of £25 and your account will be considered to be in default until full payment is received.
1.2.3 All charges payable by you to VWD shall be in accordance with the relevant scale of charges and rates detailed in the Project Proposal and are exclusive of Value Added Tax.
1.2.4 Without prejudice to our other rights and remedies under these Conditions, if any sum payable is not paid by the due date, VWD reserve the right, to suspend the provision of any Services to You. On settlement of any outstanding sums normal services will be reinstated subject to an administration fee of £35.
1.2.5 Accounts that remain unpaid 14 days after the date of the invoice will be subject to an interest charge of 8% per annum above the base rate of the Bank of England from time to time.
1.2.6 You agree that you are liable for any reasonable costs incurred by VWD (including legal fees and expenses) in seeking to recover outstanding sums owed by you.
1.2.7 Accounts unpaid 14 days after the date of the invoice will be considered in default. If you are in default and maintain any information or files on our web space, we will, at our discretion, remove all such material from our web space for so long as your account is in default. We are not responsible for any loss of data incurred due to the removal of the service in these circumstances. Removal of such material does not relieve you of the obligation to pay any outstanding charges assessed to your account.
1.3 Termination
1.3.1 Termination of any Services by you must be requested in writing with 7 days notice. For the avoidance of doubt, this does not include E-mail.
1.3.2 We may terminate this agreement upon written notice if you breach any of these conditions and you fail to correct the breach within 7 days following written notice from us specifying the breach, or if you are a company you go into insolvent liquidation, or if you are a person you are declared bankrupt. On termination of the Contract we shall be entitled immediately to cease to provide the Services and hold hosted equipment files until all outstanding invoices are settled.
1.4 Warranties
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we hereby exclude all conditions, terms, representations (other than fraudulent representations) and warranties relating to the goods and/or services that we supply to you under this agreement, whether imposed by statute or operation of law or otherwise, that are not expressly stated in these terms and conditions including, without limitation, the implied warranty of satisfactory quality and fitness for a particular purpose.
1.5 Liability
1.5.1 Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim in contract, tort, negligence or otherwise arising out of or in connection with this contract shall be limited to the charges paid by you in respect of the Services which are the subject of any such claim and provided that you notify us of any such claim within 1 year of it arising. In no event shall we be liable to you for any loss of business, contracts, profits or anticipated savings or for any other indirect or consequential or economic loss whatsoever. Nothing in these terms and conditions shall exclude our liability for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence.
1.5.2 You agree that you shall defend, indemnify, save and hold VWD harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable legal fees asserted against VWD, its agents, its customers, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by you, your agents, employees or assigns on your website. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless VWD against liabilities arising out of :
(a) any injury to person or property caused by any products sold on your website;
(b) any material supplied by a customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party;
(c) any defective products sold to customers from any website developed or hosted by us.
1.5.3 VWD will not be responsible for loss occasioned by computer viruses, whether introduced by VWD’s software or otherwise.
1.5.4 To protect your privacy VWD will not distribute your name or e-mail address to any third party.
1.5.5 VWD reserve the right to remove material deemed inappropriate from your web pages, without prior notice.
1.5.6 VWD shall not be held liable for any loss or damage caused by the use, misuse, unavailability or removal of Services.
1.5.7 VWD shall expeditiously seek domain registration and domain renewal – VWD shall not be liable in the event of the domain having been registered by some other person by the time VWD seeks registration or reregistration without any other liability on the part of VWD for loss by the client.
1.6. The Project Proposal
If you wish to change the scope of any of the Services set out in the Project Proposal you must notify us immediate in writing following which notification we shall advise as to whether we are able to accommodate the change and if so, whether this will affect the cost set out in the Project Proposal. If we are unable to accommodate any changes and/or you do not agree with the revised costs then you may terminate this agreement subject to payment in full of any outstanding sums due to us for the work done until the date of termination.
1.7 VWD’s obligations
1.7.1 VWD shall use reasonable endeavours to manage and complete the Project, in accordance in all material respects with the Project Proposal.
1.7.2 VWD shall use reasonable endeavours to meet the performance dates specified in the Project Proposal, but any such dates shall be estimates only and time shall not be of the essence of the Contract.
1.8 Your obligations
1.8.1 You shall: (a) co-operate with VWD in all matters relating to the Project;
(b) if necessary, provide access to your premises and data as is requested by VWD;
(c) provide such information as VWD may request, and ensure that such information is accurate in all material respects; and
1.8.2 If VWD’s performance of its obligations under the Contract is prevented or delayed by any act or omission by you or your agents, sub-contractors or employees, you shall in all circumstances be liable to pay to VWD on demand all reasonable costs, charges or losses sustained or incurred by it (including, without limitation, any direct or indirect consequential losses, loss of profit and loss of reputation, loss or damage to property, injury to or death of any person and loss of opportunity to deploy resources elsewhere), subject to the Supplier confirming such costs, charges and losses to you in writing.
1.8.3 You shall not, without the prior written consent of VWD, at any time from the date of the Contract to the expiry of six months after the completion of the Services, solicit or entice away from VWD or employ or attempt to employ any person who is, or has been, engaged as an employee or sub-contractor of VWD.
1.8.4 You shall provide VWD with material necessary for VWD to complete the Project Proposal. VWD can not be held liable should the necessary material required to design a website, or any other design project, is not forthcoming.
1.8.5 VWD may claim payment in full if after a period of three months from the start of any project the necessary material to complete said project has not been forthcoming. The commencement of a project is deemed to be the date that the account was created on a server.
1.9 Intellectual Property Rights
1.9.1 Until such time as full payment is made to VWD as per invoices supplied to you unless otherwise agreed in writing between the parties, all Intellectual Property Rights (patents, rights to inventions, copyright and related rights, trade marks, trade names, domain names, rights in get-up, rights in goodwill or to sue for passing off, unfair competition rights, rights in designs, rights in computer software, database rights, topography rights, moral rights, rights in confidential information (including without limitation know-how and trade secrets) and any other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered, and including without limitation all applications for, and renewals or extensions of, such rights, and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection in any part of the world) shall be owned by VWD. VWD hereby licenses all such rights to you free of charge and on a non-exclusive, worldwide basis to such extent as is necessary to enable you to make reasonable use of the Services as is envisaged by the parties. If VWD terminates the Contract this licence will automatically terminate.
1.9.2 You acknowledge that your use of rights in pre-existing materials is conditional on the VWD obtaining a written end-user licence (or sub-licence) of such rights from the relevant licensor or licensors on such terms as will entitle VWD to license such rights to you.
1.9.3 You shall indemnify VWD against all damages, losses and expenses arising as a result of any action or claim that the materials infringe any intellectual property rights of a third party.
1.10 Force Majeure
For the purpose of these terms and conditions a “Force Majeure Event” means any event arising which is beyond the reasonable control of the affected party (including any industrial dispute affecting any third party, governmental regulations, fire, flood, disaster, civil riot or war). A party who becomes aware of a Force Majeure Event which gives rise to, or which is likely to give rise to, any failure or delay in performing its obligations under this agreement shall forthwith notify the other and shall inform the other of the period for which it is estimated that such failure or delay will continue. The affected party shall take reasonable steps to mitigate the effect of the Force Majeure Event.
1.11 Confidentiality
For the purpose of these terms and conditions “Confidential Information” means all information, whether technical or commercial (including all specifications, drawings and designs, disclosed in writing, on disc, orally or by inspection of documents or pursuant to discussions between the parties), where the information is identified as confidential at the time of disclosure or ought reasonably to be considered confidential given the nature of the information or the circumstances of disclosure. Each party shall protect the Confidential Information of the other party against unauthorised disclosure by using the same degree of care as it takes to preserve and safeguard its own confidential information of a similar nature, being at least a reasonable degree of care. Confidential Information may be disclosed by the receiving party to its employees, affiliates and professional advisers, provided that the recipient is bound in writing to maintain the confidentiality of the Confidential Information received. The obligations set out in this clause shall not apply to Confidential Information which the receiving party can demonstrate is or has become publicly known other than through breach of this clause or was in possession of the receiving party prior to disclosure by the other party or was received by the receiving party from an independent third party who has full right of disclosure; or was independently developed by the receiving party or was required to be disclosed by a governmental authority, stock exchange or regulatory body, provided that the party subject to such requirement to disclose gives the other party prompt written notice of the requirement. The obligations of confidentiality in this clause shall not be affected by the expiry or termination of this agreement.
1.12. E-mail communication/spam mail
1.12.1 Please note that VWD will never contact you by e-mail to request personal information from you. Should you receive an e-mail of this nature which looks as if it has been sent by VWD, please do not respond to it. VWD cannot accept any responsibility for you responding to such e-mails and any responses sent will be at your own risk.
1.12.2 It is your sole responsibility to protect the security and confidentiality of any security details VWD provides you with, including those provided for you to access the Content Management System or other system or account. We cannot accept any liability for your failure to do this, or for any damage you suffer as a result of a third party hacker accessing accounts.
1.13 Notice
Any notice to be given by either party to the other may be sent by either email, fax or recorded delivery to the address of the other party as appearing in this agreement or ancillary application forms or such other address as such party may from time to time have communicated to the other in writing. If sent by recorded delivery it shall be deemed to be served 2 days following the date of posting.
1.14 Entire Agreement
These terms and conditions together with any document expressly referred to in them, contain the entire agreement between us relating to the subject matter covered and supersede any previous agreements, arrangements, undertakings or proposals, written or oral, between us in relation to such matters. No oral explanation or oral information given by us shall alter the interpretation of these terms and conditions. You confirm that, in agreeing to these terms and conditions, you have not relied on any representation save insofar as the same has expressly in these terms and conditions been made a representation and you agree that you shall have no remedy in respect of any misrepresentation (other than a fraudulent misrepresentation) which has not become a term of this agreement.
1.15 Third Party Rights
These terms and conditions are made for the benefit of the parties to them and are not intended to benefit, or be enforceable by any other person.
1.16 Severance
If any provision (or part of a provision) of these terms and conditions are found by any court or administrative body of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal, the other provisions shall remain in full force. If any invalid, unenforceable or illegal provision would be valid, enforceable or legal if some part of it were deleted the provision shall apply with whatever modification is necessary to give effect to the commercial intention of the parties.
1.17 Governing Law
These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and you hereby submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.
2.0 Web Site Design and Development Services
In addition to the general Terms and Conditions set out above, the following terms shall apply to all web design commissions provided by VWD to you.
2.1 Scope of Work
2.1.1 Charges for Services to be provided by VWD will be defined in the Project Proposal. Under normal trading circumstances, the Project Proposal will be issued by VWD following receipt of a request for quotation from you, which shall identify the scope of work intended.
2.1.2 VWD will then provide its quotation which will include the Project Proposal for acceptance or comment by you. Once the Project Proposal and these terms have been accepted, in writing, by you, they will then be deemed to be the sole documents which will specify the scope of work. At that time, VWD will do all it can to accurately set out the costs of providing the Services.
2.2 Your Review
VWD will provide you with an opportunity to review the appearance and content of the web site during the design prototype stage.
2.3 Your Acceptance
2.3.1 VWD will use its best endeavours to deliver your web site by the date specified in the Project Proposal, unless a delay is specifically requested by one Party and accepted by the other, in writing, however VWD will not be liable for any delay or loss incurred as a result of such a delay.
2.3.2 At the “sign-off” stage you will be presented with the completed design. Such materials will be deemed as acceptable and approved unless you notify VWD to the contrary within 10 working days of the date the materials were made available. It is the responsibility of the client to check the accuracy of the content of the site prior to going live.
2.4 Termination
2.4.1 Following termination the web site design and any associated system coding developed by VWD remains the intellectual property of VWD. Any web site content, i.e. text and images provided by, or entered into the system by you and/or your clients, remains your property. If you wish to terminate your account with VWD and transfer your web site information elsewhere, VWD will advise and assist with any data extraction and transfer work subject to VWD’s standard hourly rates.
2.4.2 Where VWD has registered domain names on your behalf, these can be transferred to either you or another web-hosting partner subject to an administration charge of £10 per domain name.
2.5 Website enhancements, upgrades and changes
Where VWD has been engaged to make any changes to a website whatsoever (including website code, or content) VWD will request this work is signed off on completion by you. Payment for this work will be considered acceptance that the work has been completed satisfactorily. VWD will not be liable for any mistakes, or errors missed by you at the time of acceptance. If at a later date, the changes made by VWD are disputed, then VWD reserves the right to charge additional fees to rectify this error.
2.6 Standard Media Delivery
2.6.1 Unless otherwise specified in the Project Proposal, the Contract assumes that any text will be provided by you in electronic format (ASCII text files delivered on disk or via e-mail) and that all photographs and other graphics will be provided physically and will be of sufficient or appropriate quality print suitable for scanning or, alternatively, electronically in .gif, .jpeg, .png or .tiff format.
2.6.2 Although every reasonable attempt shall be made by VWD to return to you any images or printed material provided for use in creation of your Web site, such return cannot be guaranteed and it is your responsibility to retain the original or a back-up copy or to employ suitable Disaster Recovery procedures.
2.7 Access Requirements
If your web site is to be installed on a third-party server, VWD must be granted temporary read/write access to your storage directories, and those directories must be accessible via FTP. Depending on the specific nature of the project, other resources might also need to be configured on the server.
Where possible and relevant, based upon the information provided by you, such other resources will be identified in the Project Proposal. However, in those circumstances whereby such resources cannot be reasonably identified at the Project Proposal stage, then VWD reserves the right to issue an amendment to the Project Proposal as soon as it becomes clear that additional resources might be required, which might include a re-evaluation of the costs quoted.
2.8 Post-Placement Alterations
VWD cannot accept responsibility for any alterations caused by any other party to your web site once installed. Such alterations include, but are not limited to additions, modifications or deletions.
2.9 Legal documentation
2.9.1 If requested by VWD you agree to provide any and all terms and conditions, privacy policies, terms of use and other relevant documents that you use, or will use, in respect of any website to be developed and/or hosted by VWD.
2.9.2 You hereby warrant and undertake that the documents shall comply with all applicable laws and regulations and that the documents are and will be reasonably sufficient for the purposes for which the Website is to be used.
3.0 Web Hosting (and Email) Services
In addition to the general Terms and Conditions set out above, the following terms shall apply to all web site support and hosting services provided by VWD to you.
3.1 Server Usage
3.1.1 Web site hosting service accounts are defined as those facilities provided to support and host your web site. Accounts are to be used by you only. You are not permitted to resell, store or give away web-hosting services of their web site to other parties. Exceptions to this include links, ad banners, classified ads, and personal ads.
3.1.2 VWD reserves the right to refuse hosting services to anyone should it decide that the account has been used inappropriately or otherwise. VWD will not allow any of the following content to be stored on its servers or its hosting partner’s servers:
- Illegal Material – This includes copyrighted works, commercial audio, video, or music files, and any material in violation of any International, National, or Local Government regulation.
- Adult Material – Includes all pornography, erotic images, or otherwise lewd or obscene content. The designation of “adult material” is left entirely to the discretion of VWD.
- Warez – Includes pirated software, ROMS, emulators, hacking, password cracking, IP spoofing, etc., and encrypting of any of the above. Also includes any sites which provide “links to” or “how to” information about such material.
This list is non-exhaustive.
3.2 Spam Guidelines
Unsolicited email (Spam) is considered an unacceptable use of a domain. Whether the unsolicited email originates directly from the client’s web-space area or otherwise, abuse reports received concerning a domain may result in suspension or closure of the service without refund. Spam email is considered to be in excess of 50 emails per hour, sent individually or in bulk.
3.3 Payment Policies
3.3.1 Initial deposit payments are requested at 50% of the design costs. Additional purchases that are made on your behalf and installed prior to the site going live will be in addition to the 50% initial fee and added to your initial invoice as separate items.
3.3.2 All accounts are set up on a prepay basis. Although VWD reserves the right to change prices of accounts or services at any time, pricing is guaranteed for the period of prepayment. Payment is due every 12 months following the date the account was established.
3.3.3 All renewal payments must be received at least 5 working days in advance of the renewal date to ensure that no disruption to the service is incurred. VWD reserves the right to suspend this and other services until any outstanding debt is cleared. Accounts will be terminated if payment is still outstanding two weeks from the date of suspension. VWD will not be responsible for any data lost due to closure of an account due to non-payment. You remain responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that you send a written cancellation request.
3.3.4 Where VWD have completed a project and requested either further information, or approval from the client, and neither is forthcoming, VWD reserve the right to invoice for the remaining sum due. Payment will be required within 14 days of the invoice date and will be subject to our terms in 1.2 Charges and Payment.
3.3.5 Minor content updates and smaller tasks associated with accounts will be charged in 15 minute increments based on an hourly rate of £44.00. Therefore we will charge £11.00 up to 15 minutes, £22.00 up to 30 minutes, etc.. This will only apply for clients that have occasional tasks or updates. Our clients that regularly update will be billed incrementally. This does not in any way affect our usual services covered within our annual renewals. Technical support, maintenance, software updates and providing daily back-ups on each site remain unaffected.
3.4 Refunds
Fees and deposits charged on a prepay basis are non-refundable.
3.5 Technical Support
3.5.1 Unless otherwise stated, the website hosting, email and ecommerce payment services shall be provided by a third party in partnership with VWD. VWD has no influence in relation to the hardware, software and technical support offered by the third party and is not responsible for any technical deficiencies or breaks in service when they occur. Should technical support be required by a client, an email should be sent to VWD at support@villageswebdesign.co.uk or via the form at our support centre. The matter raised will be discussed with the relevant third party partner.
3.5.2 Where VWD consider that the services offered by our hosting service do not meet your requirements or that an increased level of technical support is necessary, VWD will endeavour to find a suitable alternative service to host the your web site and provide email services.
3.5.3 You will not hold VWD responsible for any breach of security on the domain or website. You will have taken every measure offered to you to protect the site as provided by VWD.
3.5.4 The Client understands that in the event of the website being irretrievably compromised, the cost to reinstate the website, in it’s entirety, is placed on the Client.
3.6 Unlimited Use Policy
High bandwidth usage: VWD offers a high use policy by maintaining very large ratios of bandwidth per customer. In rare cases, VWD may find a customer to be using server resources to such an extent that he or she may jeopardise server performance and resources for other customers. In such instances, VWD reserves the right to impose the High Resource User Policy clause as stated below in order for VWD to provide equitable consideration of all its customers.
3.6.1 All Email accounts are offered with at least 400MB of server space per address dependant on the hosting you have been supplied. Additional space in increments of 2GB can be purchased at the rate advertised on our website or by agreement.
3.7 High Resource Policy
Resources are defined as bandwidth and/or processor utilisation. VWD may implement the following policy to its sole discretion: If a web site is found to be monopolising all the resources available to the detriment of other clients of VWD, then VWD reserves the right to immediately suspend that site. This policy will only be implemented in extreme circumstances. you may be offered an option whereby VWD continues hosting the website for an additional fee.
3.8 Data Backup
VWD will only backup all files necessary to recreate the original web site. Additional backups may be applied in the course of updating software or security. Additional backups are not guaranteed by VWD and clients should consider an additional backup service if appropriate.
4.0 SEO Services
In addition to the general Terms and Conditions set out above, the following terms shall apply to SEO Services provided by VWD to you where a payment has been received for such a service.
4.1.1 VWD will endeavour to use its best efforts to assist you to improve your website’s position on Google and on other Search Engines during the term of the SEO contract.
4.1.2 An SEO package does not automatically guarantee a specific ranking in search engines or guarantee that any established ranking enjoyed by you can be maintained.
4.1.3 VWD do not claim or guarantee that your URLs will achieve a favourable position, or any position within a particular search engine. Additionally VWD shall not be responsible for URLs dropped or excluded by a search engine for any reason.
4.1.4 VWD cannot be held responsible, nor can it be deemed as breach of contract or failure to perform by you if efforts to improve your ranking fail.
By sending this form I hereby agree to the terms and conditions on the date the form is submitted.