Terms of Business

These terms apply to every website project and monthly plan you buy from Solent Web. They're written in plain English, but they are a legal agreement, so please read them before you accept a quote. If anything isn't clear, just ask.

1. About us and these terms

Solent Web is the trading name of Cameron Croucher, a sole trader providing web design and development services from Southampton to clients across Hampshire, Dorset and the rest of the UK. In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean Cameron Croucher trading as Solent Web, and "you" means the person or business buying from us.

You can contact us by email at hello@solentweb.com or by phone or WhatsApp on 07888 291651. Our geographic postal address is given on your written quote and on every invoice, and we'll give it to you at any time on request.

Business or consumer? Some parts of these terms apply differently depending on whether you're buying as a business (including a sole trader, partnership, company or charity buying for its work) or as a consumer (an individual buying wholly or mainly for personal purposes). We'll ask which applies before we send your quote. Where a section says it applies only to business clients or only to consumers, that's why. If you're a consumer, nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights.

These terms, together with your written quote, make up the whole agreement between us. If the quote and these terms conflict, the quote wins.

2. Quotes and how our contract is formed

• After we've discussed your project, we'll send you a written quote setting out the work, the price, the payment stages and an estimated timescale. It will name the version of these terms that applies.
• Quotes are valid for 30 days unless they say otherwise.
• A contract is formed when you accept the quote, either in writing (for example by replying to our email or signing electronically) or by paying the deposit, ticking the terms box on our payments page, or setting up a Direct Debit for a monthly plan.
• For monthly plans bought on their own, the contract is formed when you set up the Direct Debit or confirm by email that you'd like to start.

3. Payments

Payment stages for website projects

• Projects under £1,800: 50% deposit before work starts, and the remaining 50% before your site is launched, your domain is pointed at it or the files are handed over.
• Projects of £1,800 or more: 40% before work starts, 30% when you sign off the design, and the final 30% before launch, domain switch-over or handover.

Your quote will show the exact amounts. Prices are fixed for the work described in the quote. We'll tell you on the quote whether VAT applies.

How to pay

One-off payments can be made on our payments page by PayPal or debit or credit card, or by bank transfer using the details on your invoice. Monthly plans are paid by Direct Debit through GoCardless (see section 9).

When invoices are due

Invoices are due within 14 days of the invoice date unless the invoice says otherwise.

Deposits

• Business clients: your deposit is non-refundable once work has started, because it covers time we've reserved and work we've done for you.
• Consumers: if the contract ends before the project is finished, we'll only keep the part of your deposit that reflects work reasonably done and costs reasonably incurred up to that point, and refund the rest. This doesn't affect your right to cancel.

Late payment

• If any payment is overdue, we may pause work on your project and hold back launch, the domain switch-over or handover of files until it's paid. We'll tell you before we do this. Any timescale in your quote is extended by the length of the pause.
• Business clients: we may claim statutory interest and fixed compensation on late payments under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

Refunds

Any refund will be made to the payment method you originally used, usually within 14 days of us agreeing it.

4. Scope, revisions and changes

• We'll deliver the work described in your quote. Anything not in the quote isn't included.
• Two rounds of revisions are included at each stage (for example design and build). A round means one consolidated list of changes from you, which we then make.
• Changes requested after you've signed off a stage, extra revision rounds, or anything outside the quote are change requests. We'll quote the cost and any effect on the timescale in writing first, and only do the work once you've agreed.

5. Your responsibilities

• Content on time: you'll supply the text, images, logos, logins and other information we need, by the dates we agree. Delays in getting these to us will delay the project (see section 6).
• Rights to your content: you confirm that you own, or have permission to use, everything you give us to put on your site, and that it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights.
• Lawful content: you're responsible for making sure the content of your site, and the way you run your business through it, is lawful. That includes your own privacy policy, cookie notice, terms and any other legal pages your site needs. We can set these pages up for you, but you're responsible for what they say and should take your own advice if you're unsure.
• Business clients only: you agree to compensate us for any claims, losses and reasonable costs we suffer because content you supplied infringes someone else's rights or is unlawful.
• You'll check the work we send for review and give us feedback promptly.

6. Delays and paused projects

• If we haven't heard from you for 30 days when we need something from you to carry on, we'll pause the project and may invoice for the work done so far.
• If we still haven't heard from you after 60 days, we may close the project. If you'd like to restart it later, we'll send a new quote for the remaining work, taking account of what you've already paid.
• If your site is ready but you'd like to delay the launch, the final payment is still due 14 days after we deliver the finished site to you for review.
• We'll always try to stick to the timescale in your quote, but it's an estimate. If something outside our control delays us (for example illness or a third-party outage), we'll tell you as soon as possible and agree a new date.

7. Launch and the 30-day fix period

For 30 days after launch, we'll fix free of charge any defect where the site doesn't work as described in your quote or agreed specification, as long as you report it within that period.

This doesn't cover new features, changes to content or design, problems caused by changes made by you or anyone else, or problems caused by changes to third-party services, browsers or devices after launch. We're happy to help with those as paid work or through a care plan.

If you're a consumer, this is in addition to your statutory rights, which include the right to have services performed with reasonable care and skill.

8. Ownership and intellectual property

• Once you've paid in full, we assign to you the copyright in the bespoke design and content we created specifically for your site. You own your domain, your content and your site files, and you can take them to another provider at any time.
• Until you've paid in full, we give you a licence to use the work, which we may withdraw if payment isn't made.
• Our own tools: we keep ownership of the code, components, templates and know-how we had before your project or that we reuse across projects. We give you a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use them as part of your site, including if you move it elsewhere.
• Third-party items such as fonts, stock images, icons and plugins are used under their own licences, which we'll tell you about where relevant. Any paid licences are included in your quote or charged at cost with your agreement.
• Domains are registered in your name wherever possible. If we have to register one for you, we'll transfer it to you on request once you've paid in full.
• Portfolio: we may show your site in our portfolio and include a small credit link in its footer. Just tell us if you'd rather we didn't, and we'll remove it.

9. Care & hosting and Growth plans

Our Care & hosting plan and Growth plan are monthly services. What each plan includes is described on our services page and in your quote.

Price and payment

• The price is the one in your quote, or the one shown on our website at the time you sign up.
• Plans are billed monthly in advance by Direct Debit through GoCardless. Your first month may be collected when you sign up.
• GoCardless will tell you the amount and date of each payment in advance. Your payments are protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee, which entitles you to a full and immediate refund from your bank if an error is made in the amount or date of a payment.
• We may change the price of a plan by giving you at least 30 days' notice by email. If you don't want to continue at the new price, you can cancel before it takes effect.

Small changes

The Care & hosting plan includes up to one hour of small changes each month, such as text or image updates. Unused time doesn't roll over to the next month. Larger jobs are quoted separately.

No minimum term and easy cancellation

• There's no minimum term. You can cancel at any time by giving one month's notice by email to hello@solentweb.com. We'll confirm by email and tell you the date of your last payment.
• Cancelling the Direct Debit with your bank on its own doesn't count as notice, because we won't know you want to leave, so please email us too.
• When your plan ends, we'll help you move your site elsewhere, and give you a copy of your site files on request.

Founding-client offer

If your project includes free months of the Growth plan under our founding-client offer, they start once your project has been paid in full. They have no cash value and can't be exchanged for money or other services. We'll remind you at least 14 days before the free months end. If you don't want the plan to continue at the normal price, just tell us and nothing more will be charged.

If a payment fails

1. We'll send you a reminder and try to collect the payment again.
2. If it's still unpaid 14 days after the reminder, we may suspend your hosting and plan services.
3. You'll then have 30 days to pay what's owed, or to ask for a copy of your site files.
4. After that, we may close the plan and permanently delete your site from our hosting. We'll warn you before we do.

10. Acceptable use of hosting

If we host your site, you must not use it to publish or store unlawful, defamatory or infringing content, to distribute malware, to send spam or phishing, or to do anything that harms our hosting, our other clients or anyone else. If this happens, we may suspend your site immediately and will tell you why. We'll restore it once the problem has been resolved, where it's lawful to do so.

11. Third-party services

Your site will rely on services run by other companies, such as Netlify (hosting and forms), PayPal and GoCardless (payments), domain registrars and Google (for example Google Business Profile). We choose reputable providers, but we don't control them, so we're not responsible for their outages, errors or changes to their services, pricing or policies. We'll help you deal with any issue that comes up.

If a provider increases the cost of something included in your plan or quote, we may pass the increase on to you with at least 30 days' notice, and you can cancel the affected service before it applies.

12. Data protection

How we handle your personal information as our client is explained in our privacy policy.

When we build, host or look after your site, we may process personal data on your behalf, such as messages sent through your contact forms or the details of your customers. For this data, you are the controller and we are your processor under the UK GDPR, and the following terms apply, as required by Article 28:

• What we process: contact details, messages and other information submitted by your site's visitors and customers, for as long as we provide services to you, only for the purpose of building, hosting, maintaining and supporting your site.
• Your instructions: we'll only process that data on your documented instructions (these terms and your quote count as instructions), unless the law requires otherwise. We'll tell you if we think an instruction breaks data protection law.
• Confidentiality: anyone who processes the data for us is bound by a duty of confidentiality.
• Security: we'll take appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep it secure, as described in our privacy policy.
• Sub-processors: you authorise us to use the sub-processors needed to run your site, including Netlify for hosting and form submissions. We'll make sure they're bound by equivalent data protection terms, tell you before adding or replacing one so you can object, and remain responsible for them. Where data is transferred outside the UK, we'll rely on safeguards recognised under UK law.
• Assistance: we'll help you, taking into account the nature of the processing, to respond to requests from people exercising their data protection rights, and to meet your obligations on security, breach notification and data protection impact assessments.
• Breaches: we'll tell you without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting your data.
• At the end: when our services end, we'll delete or return the data, as you choose, unless the law requires us to keep it.
• Information and audits: we'll give you the information you reasonably need to show these obligations are being met, and allow and contribute to reasonable audits.

13. Confidentiality

We'll each keep confidential any non-public information we learn about the other's business, including logins, customer data, prices and plans, and only use it to carry out our agreement. This doesn't apply to information that's already public, that we're required by law to disclose, or that we share with professional advisers who are bound to keep it confidential. This obligation continues after our contract ends.

14. Our liability

Business clients

• Our total liability to you under or in connection with our contract is limited to the total fees you've paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.
• We're not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or data.

Consumers

We're responsible for loss or damage you suffer that's a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. We're not responsible for loss that wasn't foreseeable. If you use our services for business purposes, we're not liable to you for loss of profit or business. Your statutory rights are not affected.

For everyone

• Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that can't be limited or excluded by law.
• We'll use our skill and experience to help your site perform well, but we can't guarantee particular search engine rankings, visibility in AI search tools, levels of traffic or enquiries, or uninterrupted availability, because these depend on things outside our control.
• You should keep your own copy of important content. Our care plan includes daily backups, but we recommend you also keep your own records.

15. Your right to cancel

If you're a consumer

Because our contracts are usually made at a distance (by email, phone or online) or away from business premises, you have the right to cancel within 14 days without giving any reason. The cancellation period ends 14 days after the day the contract is formed.

To cancel, tell us clearly before the cancellation period ends, for example by email to hello@solentweb.com. You can use the model cancellation form below, but you don't have to. It's enough to send your message before the 14 days are up.

• If you cancel, we'll refund all payments received from you without undue delay, and no later than 14 days after the day you tell us, using the same payment method you used (unless you agree otherwise). You won't be charged a fee for the refund.
• If you ask us to start work within the 14 days, you'll need to pay an amount proportionate to the work we've done up to the time you tell us you're cancelling, compared with the full contract.
• If you ask us to start within the 14 days and we complete the service within that period, you'll lose the right to cancel, and we'll have asked you to acknowledge this before we start.

Model cancellation form

Complete and return this form only if you wish to cancel the contract.

If you're a business client

You can cancel a website project at any time by email. You'll need to pay for the work done up to the date of cancellation, and your deposit isn't refundable once work has started (see section 3). Monthly plans can be cancelled as described in section 9.

16. Ending the contract

• Either of us may end the contract by email if the other seriously breaks these terms and, where it can be put right, doesn't do so within 14 days of being asked to.
• We may end the contract if you don't pay an amount that's overdue within 14 days of us reminding you.
• If the contract ends, you pay for work done up to that date, and the ownership rules in section 8 apply to what you've paid for. Sections on payment, ownership, data protection, confidentiality and liability continue to apply after the contract ends.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Each version has a number and an effective date shown at the top of this page. The version named in your quote applies to that project for its whole life. For monthly plans, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice by email of any change that affects you, and you can cancel before it takes effect if you don't agree.

18. Complaints and the law

If you're unhappy with anything we've done, please email hello@solentweb.com first. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and do our best to put things right quickly.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you're a consumer living in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your local courts, and you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the law where you live.

19. Contact us

Cameron Croucher, trading as Solent Web

• Email: hello@solentweb.com
• Phone or WhatsApp: 07888 291651 (message on WhatsApp)
• Website: solentweb.com
• Postal address: given on your written quote and invoice, or on request.