While you need to agree to all of these terms and conditions if you employ our web design and SEO services, we’re very aware that it’s a lot to take in in one go. The main points to understand are:

  • Quotations are valid for 30 days.
  • We require a 50% deposit before we begin, with the balance payable when your website is finished.
  • The free hosting and domain name offers are for a period of one year only, after which fees apply.
  • You must own the copyright for – or have permission to use – any artwork you supply to us.
  • You are responsible for the accuracy of any text you supply for the website.
  • We will do our best to make sure your website is optimised for improved search engine ranking, but we make no guarantees – the search engines make up their own rules!
  • You mustn’t do anything with your website that will get either you or us in trouble.
  • We will do our best to ensure that your website is always available but, in exceptional circumstances, things are sometimes beyond our control.

In these terms and conditions, unless the context requires otherwise:

  • “We” and “us” means Oaktree Web Design.
  • “You” and “Client” means the company, firm, body or person purchasing the Services from Oaktree Web Design.
  • “Order” means the agreement by Oaktree Web Design to provide web design services to the Client.

 

Fees, Payment & Ordering

  • Fees are as stated on the Price List.
  • Any quotation given for a website design will be valid for a period of 30 days from the date of submission.
  • We reserve the right to have promotional special offers available from time to time.
  • A deposit of 50% is payable by the Client prior to any work being undertaken. The remainder of the fees are payable upon completion of the website ordered.
  • After acceptance of a quote, charges relating to subsequent changes to the design brief by the Client, or unforeseen costs encountered during development, will be discussed with the Client and added to the final invoice.
  • Non payment after 14 days from the first date of an invoice being issued will entitle us to charge a late payment fee and/or to remove your website from service until payment is made.
  • Once the Client has instructed Oaktree Web Design to begin design work the Client should supply any content or images within 14 days of that date.

Website content

  • The Client unconditionally guarantees that any element of text, graphics or other artwork supplied to Oaktree Web Design for inclusion in the web design project are owned by the Client, or that the Client has permission from the rightful owner to use each of these elements.
  • The Client is responsible for all claims arising from any breach of copyright or content inaccuracy.
  • All websites are designed to be compatible with the most common modern browsers. Websites will work on other browsers but some features may not always be supported by these browsers.
  • You agree that the content provided by you and used in any design by Oaktree Web Design will not in any way be unlawful, misleading, abusive, offensive, prejudicial or is likely to expose us to claims, lead us into prosecution, criticism, disrepute or cause us embarrassment.
  • We reserve the right to remove websites without refunding any fees for publishing any of the following:
    • Libellous statements
    • Pornographic or offensive material
    • Spam emails
    • viruses, worms, trojans, unlicensed software (available to the public) or promote copyright infringement or any other illegal activity.
  • The Client is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of all information on the website.

Design approval

  • When We submit materials to the Client for approval the Client will have 15 business days to approve the completed materials or provide corrections and comments.
  • We will have 15 business days after receiving the Client’s comments and corrections to submit a revised version of the materials to Client.
  • Client will review the revised version within 15 business days of receipt and either approve the corrected version or make further changes.
  • If the Client fails to provide approval or comments during any of the approval periods, those materials will be considered to be approved.

Website completion

  • Oaktree Web Design will make every effort to meet the agreed completion date. Sometimes, circumstances change and if for any reason We cannot meet the agreed completion date We will endeavour to notify you in plenty of time.
  • Upon full payment, ownership rights of the website will be transferred to the Client. This excludes any elements where copyright exists, such as, but not limited to; stock photography, scripts & software, graphics, video, audio or multimedia. Copyright for these will remain with their respective owners.
  • Upon full payment, any websites provided by Oaktree Web Design are deemed complete and any subsequent work may be charged for. It is the Client’s responsibility to ensure that the website or web application they have received works to the specification they requested.
  • Any requests for extra work or changes to the project must be supplied in writing (eg email).
  • Requests for extra work or changes to the project specification after the specification is agreed, or are requested after the project has started, will affect the agreed completion date and agreed price.
  • Any requests for extra work or changes to the project will be quoted for and, if agreed, will be invoiced in advance as an interim payment.
  • If, for whatever reason, the Client wishes to move the completion date to an earlier time than agreed, a fee may apply.
  • Oaktree Web Design will provide the Client with an opportunity to review the appearance and content of the website during the design phase and, also, once the overall website development is completed. At the completion of the project, such materials will be deemed to be accepted and approved unless the Client notifies Oaktree Web Design otherwise within seven days of the date the materials are made available to the Client.
  • After site completion, a Client or a third party of their choosing may wish to edit their website code themselves to make updates. However, the Client agrees that in so doing they assume full responsibility for any issues which occur as a result of changing the code themselves.
  • If the Client or a third party of their choosing edits the website code and this results in functionality errors or the page displaying incorrectly, then Oaktree Web Design reserves the right to quote for work to repair the website.

Order cancellation

  • If the Client cancels their Order for any reason, We shall be entitled to compensation on a time and materials basis at an hourly rate of £30 per hour plus expenses to the date of cancallation.
  • We shall submit an invoice detailing our time and expenses.
  • If the invoice amount is less than the amounts paid to Us prior to cancellation, We shall return the excess to the Client within 28 days of the date of the cancellation.
  • If the invoice amount exceeds the amounts paid to Us prior to cancellation, the Client shall pay We the difference within 14 days of the date of the invoice.

Domain Names & Hosting

  • Domain names will be registered in your name and/or business name through Fasthosts. The registration of a domain name is subject to availability and to their terms and conditions.
  • Oaktree Web Design will retain administration rights for domain names while we provide hosting for those domains. Legal ownership of domains remains with the Client.
  • We will send the Client a reminder via e-mail approximately 6 weeks before domain names and hosting subscriptions are due to expire.
  • The free domain name offer only applies to the first year of registration for a single .co.uk or .uk domain name. Thereafter the Client will be responsible for continued registration of the domain name.
  • The free website hosting offer is available for one year only, thereafter continued website hosting fees are payable.
  • The free SSL security offer is only available where the website is hosted by us and may be discontinued at any time.
  • Our free hosting offer gives you 100MB disk space / 1GB monthly bandwidth for a single-page site and 300MB disk space / 2GB monthly bandwidth for a multi-page site. If your website requires more disk space or bandwidth, we reserve the right to charge an additional fee to continue hosting. We will always endeavour to provide you with the best value hosting solution.
  • Oaktree Web Design are reseller partners for website hosting and mailboxes through Siteground Hosting Ltd. The hosting of a website or registering of mailboxes on behalf of the Client is subject to their terms and conditions.
  • In rare cases, if we find you to be using server resources to such an extent that you may jeopardise server performance and resources for other clients we reserve the right to suspend your site immediately. This policy is only implemented in extreme circumstances and is intended to prevent the misuse of our servers. you may be offered an option whereby we continue to host the website for an additional fee.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

  • Whilst Oaktree Web Design will try to improve the position of your website in Search Engine results in response to a search request, we do not warrant that this effort is in any way guaranteed.
  • Oaktree Web Design cannot be held responsible for any changes to the position of you Web Site in the Search Engine results in response to a search.

Website maintenance

  • Any website maintenance or repair work will be carried out at our discretion.
  • We will endeavour to complete website maintenance projects within the following timeframes (and usually do), but we offer no guarantee that we be able to do so.
  • Less than one hour of design work: up to two working days.
  • One to three hours of design work: up to five working days.
  • Up to one day of design work: up to ten working days.
  • Timescales for larger projects will be discussed with the Client prior to work being undertaken.
  • Expected completion times are measured from the time at which we receive all the material required to complete the work. This may include text, imagery, video, or any other information needed to complete the job, such as answers to queries, FTP access to hosting, etc. If we haven’t received all the information we have requested, we may not be able to start work on the project.
  • If You require work to completed earlier than the stated timescales, we reserve the right to charge an additional fee.
  • Maintenance work will usually only be carried out during normal working hours (Monday – Friday, 10am – 5pm).
  • Work carried out outside of these hours will only be done at our discretion and will incur an additional fee.
  • Our website maintenance service covers only one website per subscription.
  • CMS updates as part of our website maintenance service will only minor and patch updates; eg version x.5 to x.6 or x.x.1 to x.x.2. If an update necessitates further work to be done, we will discuss this with the Client to determine the best course of action.
  • If there is a financial cost required to download and install an update, the Client will be responsible for paying this before we perform any updates.
  • While we will do our utmost to prevent any problems arising from the installation of updates, Oaktree Web Design will not be liable for any problems arising from the installation of any updates to the Client's website.
  • Rollover of inclusive design time as part of the website maintenance service is for one month only. For example, if no design time is used in a particular month, you will be entitled to twice the amount of design time the following month. No more than 1 month's allocated design time will be carried forward to the month after that.

Interruption to Services

  • If it is necessary for us to interrupt services (eg take your website offline for maintenance), we will give you reasonable notice where this is possible and when we judge the down time is such as to justify telling you.
  • You acknowledge that services may also be interrupted for many reasons beyond our control.
  • You agree that we are not liable to you for any loss, foreseeable or not, arising from any interruption to services.

General

  • Whilst we carry out regular virus checks on our systems we make no warranties that files sent from Oaktree Web Design are free from virus infection and recommend you virus check all files received from us prior to opening or executing.
  • We accept no liability for any loss or damage howsoever arising as a result of use or reliance on our website design products.
  • We reserve the right to change our prices and Terms & Conditions without prior notice.
  • We reserve the right to display details and images of the final product for use in our portfolio and advertising except where doing so would violate any Client confidentiality agreement in place.
  • We reserve the right to provide a discreet link back to our web site from your own.

Limitation of liability

  • We accept no responsibility for any consequential loss resulting from the malfunction of software or systems provided by us.
  • We accept no responsibility for any consequential loss resulting from a domain not being renewed.
  • Hosting is provided by us through third party servers and network providers. we can accept no liability for any loss accruing to the Client as a result of any downtime experienced or loss of service.
  • We are unable to predict or plan for all possible security exploits/insecurities that may at some time in the future occur on your website. Should your website be compromised/exploited we accept no liability for any resultant losses to data or sales. Where a website has been compromised, we reserve the right to disable the website should it present a risk to our other clients or to the browsing public. If data has been lost/altered, we will endeavour to recover your data should you wish us to do so and will charge you for the time taken to do this. Following an exploit, it is highly likely we will need to make changes to your website or its server environment to ensure that there is not a repeat of the exploit.

You indemnify us

  • you agree to indemnify us against all costs claims and expense arising directly or indirectly from:
    • your failure to comply with the law of any country;
    • the posting by you of any content on your website;
    • a breach of the intellectual property rights of any person;
    • the posting by any third party with or without your knowledge of any material on your website;
    • any action taken or omitted by any third party in relation to your website;
    • any use of your website for a purpose forbidden by this agreement.

Force majeure

  • Neither party shall be liable for any breach of its obligations resulting from causes beyond its reasonable control.
  • If a default due to force majeure continues for more than 6 weeks then the party not in default shall be entitled to terminate this agreement. Neither party shall have any liability to the other in respect of the termination of this agreement as a result of force majeure.

And finally

You should probably get yourself a nice, strong cup of tea now. You deserve it!

Date of last review: January 2020