HIA Web Design – Terms & Conditions

Please read these Terms and Conditions carefully as they will form a contract between us and you; your acceptance of which is agreed from the moment a deposit is paid and the website build commences.

We have tried to keep these Terms and Conditions brief, easy to understand, and as straightforward as possible. If you have any questions however, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Terminology:

You / Your (‘the Client’)

Us (HIA Web Design, and hereinafter referred to as ‘the Company’)

The Project – the body of work that is being undertaken, normally consisting of several connected parts, such as consultation, graphic design, website development and/or hosting.

What do both parties agree to?

1. The Client agrees to:

a)    Provide the Company, within a reasonable timescale, everything that is requested from you to complete the Project including text, images and other information.

b)   Provide the Company with text and images in the format as stated below (see photographs and images)

c)     Review the Company’s work, provide feedback, and signoff approval in a timely manner.

d)    Make every effort to adhere to all agreed deadlines.

e)    Adhere to the payment schedule laid out in section 4 of these Terms & Conditions, or agreed separately for bespoke work.

f)      Advise, in advance, of any confidential information to be presented by email, written, or verbally, between both parties. Also, for this to be marked as ‘confidential’ in the subject of the email, or clearly on any written documents.

g)    Provide a minimum of one months notice in writing, or by email should you wish to cancel any contract.

h)    Provide the Company with access to your domain name records in order for Us to update them when required so that any hosting with Us can be maintained.

2. The Company agrees to:

a)   Carry out services in a professional and timely manner.

b)   Make every effort to adhere to any deadlines agreed between us and you.

c)   Make a reasonable number of revisions to the design, layout, colours etc, until you are satisfied with the design concept or such time as both parties feel an agreement is likely to be reached but no more than 2 major revisions. Additional revisions or design work outside the scope of the project will be charged separately.

d)   Endeavour to complete requested website revisions or updates within 48 hours, wherever possible. Revision entitlement per month is dependent on your support package – see https://hiawebdesign.co.uk/website-hosting-support-maintenance-manchester/

e)   Maintain up to date skills and knowledge through regular training and research.

f)    Contact you before the end of the first 12 month period, to discuss the various options open to you for continuing website maintenance and support and/or hosting.

3. Website Development:

a)    All websites are developed to work primarily across all major browsers and platforms including other devices such as mobile phones and touchpads. However, the Company cannot guarantee complete and/or long term compatibility across every major browser, platform or handheld device due to updates/upgrades by their respective vendors.

b)   The Company cannot guarantee compatibility in old or redundant browser software.

4. Payments and Contract Lengths:

a)    All agreed fees for website design services / projects totalling £500 and over are payable in 2 payments, namely a 50% deposit before the website build can commence and the remaining 50% balance upon completion of the website. All accounts must be paid in full before a website can be made live and all invoices are payable upon receipt. All websites will be made live within 24 hours of the final 50% balance payment being received.

b)   All agreed fees for website design services / projects totalling £499.99 and less are payable in full before the website build can commence.

c)   The company has the right to charge the client up to 90% of the total web development costs, should the client cancel the website agreement after the design concepts have been agreed but prior to the website going live or if the client does not adhere to agreed or reasonable timescales for the completion of the project. The scale of the charge will be dependent on what stage the project is at when the cancellation takes place.

d)   The company has the right to charge the client up to 90% of the total web development costs should the website build take longer than 6 months from the commencement of the project, due to the client failing to provide the company with content and/or approval for the website; or, should the website development be at such a stage that at least 90% of the website is complete but the client does not want to, or is unable to, go live with the website for an unspecified amount of time.

e)     Alterations to standing order mandates to reflect new or changed contracts are the sole responsibility of the client. Overpayments to the Company as a result of not updating a standing order mandate will not be reimbursed to the Client. Underpayments or missed payments, however, shall be backdated to the point at which the underpayment or missed payment was discovered and the Client shall be responsible for bringing their account up to date within a reasonable period of time.

f)    Initial contract lengths are normally 12 months unless agreed beforehand between the Client and the Company. The Company requires a minimum 30 days notice to cancel a support or hosting contract.

g)   After the initial 12 month contract, the Client may, with a minimum of 30 days notice, cancel a support or hosting contract.  Please note that in this instance any prepaid yearly hosting will not be refundable.

h)  If, after the initial 12 month contract, the Company find it necessary for any reason to terminate the contract with the Client, a minimum of 90 days notice will be given and any pre-paid hosting or SSL certificates will be refunded on a pro-rata basis from the date of termination as specified by the 90 notice period given by the Company.

i)  If, upon moving the hosting of a website, the Client requires the Company to supply the new hosting company with the relevant website files and database(s), there is a fixed admin charge of £50 payable in respect of chargeable hours to facilitate the moving and transferring of files.

5. Content Management Systems:

a)    All packages will be developed using a Content Management System (CMS).

b)   In order to maintain compatibility between clients the company now uses the WordPress Platform exclusively as our CMS of choice. Ecommerce stores use different management systems depending on the scale and complexity of the Project.

c)     However, in some instances, the company may build a bespoke solution, depending on the exact requirements of the Project.

d)    Any associated or additional fees, such as installation, setup, testing and introductory training pertaining to Content Management Systems or Ecommerce Management Systems are covered within your chosen package.

6. Photographs and Images:

a)    Any images or photographs that you supply should be in digital format, usually no smaller than 1024×768 pixels, with a suitable resolution that will allow them to be resized and used on screen. Traditional paper photographs requiring scanning are acceptable, however, there may be additional costs incurred due to time spent scanning and retouching the images. This depends entirely on the project and the number of images involved.

b)   Any images that the company are asked to obtain from third party photographers or stock photography will be charged as an additional cost.

c)     The Client guarantees that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork furnished to the Company for inclusion in their website, or other design, are owned by the Client, or that the Client has permission from the rightful owner to use each of these elements, and will hold harmless, protect, indemnify and defend the Company and its subcontractors from any liability (including solicitors fees and court costs), including any claim or suit, threatened or actual, arising from the use of such elements furnished by the Client.

d)    Evidence of ownership or permissions may be requested by the Company.

e)     Where the Company sources or selects images on the Client’s behalf (including free-to-use, Creative Commons, or stock imagery), this is done in good faith based on the information presented at the time by third-party platforms. The Company does not warrant, guarantee, or provide legal indemnity for the licensing accuracy of any third-party image source, including images mislabelled by Google or other search engines. The Client, as the publisher of the website, accepts full legal responsibility for all images displayed on their website and agrees to indemnify and hold the Company harmless against any claims, settlements, or legal fees arising from the use of such imagery. The Company only guarantees image licensing where the Client has specifically commissioned and paid for licensed stock photography (e.g. Shutterstock, Adobe Stock), which will be itemised separately.

7. The Copyright:

a)    After the initial 12 month period, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:

b)   The Client will own, or have express permission to use, the text files, images, graphics and any visual elements, video or sound bytes, that you may have sent to us to use in connection with the project.

c)     The company will maintain copies of all the files used in connection with your project and if you require a disc copy of all the files used in connection with your project, then the company will be happy to supply this to you. Copies of the website files are maintained by us for a reasonable time (usually at least one year), and if you are hosting with us, then files are maintained both locally and on external servers.

d)    The copyright to the markup, CSS files, other code that may have been used by us for you, or certain images that the company may have supplied to or for you are licensed to you in connection with this web design project, and will be licensed solely to the domain name on which the website files reside. If you own the domain name, then you own the copyright.

e)    At the bottom of the website page(s) after payment has been completed, usually it will say Copyright and the name of your business or company. The company do however reserve the right as the Company responsible for the design and/or development to place a small and unobtrusive link at the bottom of your website, thereby not hindering or distracting from your own website design.

f)      As the design company the company also reserve the right to display and link to your completed project as part of our portfolio, and to write about the project on other web sites, in magazine or ezine articles, books, written or digital publications of any design and source. Please inform us in advance of the website going live if you DO NOT want us to add your site to our portfolio of work.

8. Hosting:

a)    To ensure superior levels of reliability and performance, all our clients websites are hosted on a high speed, state of the art managed dedicated server which utilises a guaranteed minimum uptime service availability level of 99.95%. Details of the exact specification of our servers are freely available to all our clients and will be given upon request.

b)    We shall not be liable for any of the following types of loss, regardless of whether they are direct, indirect or consequential, or whether we have notified you that you would incur any of these losses:

• Financial loss of any kind, including but not limited to loss of profits, earnings, business, goodwill, reputation, business interruption, clients or sales.
• Loss, corruption or amendment of any data or content stored on our Servers.

c)       Renewals of hosting services are billed annually, commencing 12 months after the initial website setup. The initial website setup is deemed to begin on the project commencement date, which is the date the initial deposit for the works is received.

Hosting renewal charges must be paid at least 1 calendar month before the renewal date to avoid service interruption. Hosting accounts unpaid on or before the renewal date will be suspended immediately. If payment is still outstanding 50 days after the renewal date, the hosting account (including all website files, data, and databases) will be permanently removed from our servers. We shall not be liable for any losses arising from the Client’s failure to pay hosting renewal charges.

9. Liability:

a)    The company will not be held liable for any missed launch date or deadline, if the Client has been late in supplying materials, or has not approved or signed off work ontime, at any stage.

10. Confidentiality:

a)    The Company adheres to all national and EU data protection, data transfer, data retention, and confidentiality regulations and always stores data sent to us in a secure manner within our security policy.

11. General:

a)    A website will not launch until the full 50% balance payment has been received, unless special agreement has been reached in advance.

b)   Additional costs for extra features and/or additional design costs, not covered by our standard packages, will be agreed and invoiced before the website goes live.

c)     Hosting only clients, will be charged at our normal hourly rate for any further changes or updates to their website.

d)    There may be an additional fee for any design changes requested after the initial agreed design has been signed off.

e)    The Company is not responsible for writing any text copy unless this has been specified by the client.

f)      If you are hosting the website elsewhere, the Company cannot guarantee that the website is fully compatible with all hosting provider’s server operating systems, especially any contact forms, Content Management Systems, database driven websites, etc.

g)    The company do not offer any technical support for any other web site hosting company that you may choose (if you elect not to host the website with us).

h)    The company cannot guarantee that the functions contained within any web page (or part of your website design), will always be error free, and therefore the company will not be liable in any way whatsoever to you for any third party damages, including lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of or inability to operate this web site and any other web pages, even if you have advised us of the possibilities of such damages.

i)      If any provision of this agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. Just the same as a fine, you cannot transfer this contract to anyone else without our consent or permission.

j)      This contract remains in force and need not be renewed.

k)    HIA Web Design may at any time terminate a contract with 30 days notice for non payment of charges, or where the Service is being used in an inappropriate manner, or you are unable, whether it be because of financial, personal or physical reasons, to continue running Your business.  The company may also terminate the contact if the behaviour of the client is deemed to be inappropriate, threatening, constitutes harassment or is unreasonable in regard to the demands they make that are outside the remote of the service they are contractually expected to receive.

k)     Although the company have tried to keep this contract language simple, the intentions are serious, and the contract is a legal document under the exclusive jurisdiction of English Law and Courts.

Changes to these Terms and Conditions:

HIA Web Design reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of these Terms and Conditions at any time without notice. Failure to receive notification of a change does not make those changes invalid. These Terms and Conditions will always be available to download or print from our website.