Website design terms and conditions
By placing an order with Alex Lyons (The WordPress Consultant), you confirm that you are in agreement with and bound by the terms and conditions below.
Definitions
The Client: The company or individual requesting the services of Alex Lyons, The WordPress Consultant
The WordPress Consultant (“us” or “we”): Alex Lyons, Sole Trader
General
The WordPress Consultant will carry out work only where an agreement is provided either by email, telephone, mail or fax. The WordPress Consultant will carry out work only for clients who are 18 years of age or above. An ‘order’ is deemed to be a written or verbal contract between The WordPress Consultant and the client; this includes telephone and email agreements.
Website Design
Whilst every endeavour will be made to ensure that the website and any scripts or programs are free of errors, The WordPress Consultant cannot accept responsibility for any losses incurred due to malfunction, the website or any part of it.
The website, graphics and any programming code (unless provided by The Client) remain the property of The WordPress Consultant until all outstanding accounts are paid in full.
Any site customisations, and creation or adjustments to scripts, cgi applications, php scripts, or software (unless specifically agreed) written by The WordPress Consultant remain the copyright of The WordPress Consultant and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of The WordPress Consultant. Untouched open source or GPL/GNU scripts are not subject to copyright of The WordPress Consultant.
The WordPress Consultant cannot take responsibility for any copyright infringements caused by materials submitted by the client. We reserve the right to refuse any material of a copyrighted nature unless adequate proof is given of permission to use such material.
Any additions to briefs provided will be carried out at the discretion of The WordPress Consultant and where no charge is made by The WordPress Consultant for such additions, The WordPress Consultant accept no responsibility to ensure such additions are error free and reserve the right to charge an according amount for any correction to these or further additions.
The client agrees to make available as soon as is reasonably possible to The WordPress Consultant all materials required to complete the site to the agreed standard and within the set deadline.
The WordPress Consultant will not be liable for costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the failure to meet agreed deadlines.
The WordPress Consultant will not be liable or become involved in any disputes between the site owner and their clients and cannot be held responsible for any wrongdoing on the part of a site owner. E.g. any disputes re content/images that have been provided to us for inclusion on the site.
The WordPress Consultant will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the work carried out on behalf of the client or any of the clients appointed agents.
The WordPress Consultant will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the unavailability of the site, its servers, software or any material provided by its agents.
A non-refundable deposit, typically of 50% is required with all of our projects before any design work will be carried out.
Once a website has been designed and completed the final balance of payment is then due in accordance with our payment terms. There are no exceptions to this, (e.g. if the client decides they no longer want the site) as they have commissioned the work and paid a deposit they are still obliged to pay for the work that has been done. Non payment will result in legal action being taken if necessary. Once full payment is received for a website, it is assumed that the project has been completed to the client’s satisfaction and no refunds can be offered. We will negotiate free updates for a month after completion on a case by case basis, to allow for any final amendments that may be required.
Database, Application and E-Commerce Development
The WordPress Consultant cannot take responsibility for any losses incurred by the use of any software created for the client. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure products are problem free and accurate, the ultimate responsibility lies with the client in ensuring that all software is functioning correctly before use.
Please note that most scripts used are under GPL licence from WordPress, Automattic, or other organisations which provide designs, themes, plugins and other elements used on WordPress sites.
Any other scripts, applications or software (unless specifically agreed) written by The WordPress Consultant remain the copyright of and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of The WordPress Consultant.
Where applications or sites are developed on servers not recommended by The WordPress Consultant, the client is expected to provide or seek any information, additional software, support or co-operation pertaining to the server required in order for the application to be correctly developed. Where large applications are to be developed, it is the client’s responsibility to provide a suitable testing environment which is identical to the final production environment.
The client is expected to test fully any application or programming relating to a site developed by The WordPress Consultant before being made generally available for use. Where “bugs”, errors or other issues are found after the site is live, The WordPress Consultant will endeavour (but is not obliged to) to correct these issues to meet the standards of function outlined in the brief
Compatibility
The WordPress Consultant will endeavour to ensure that any developed/designed site or application will function correctly on the server it is initially installed in and that it will function correctly when viewed with the web browsing software Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers and to an acceptable level with Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 9. The WordPress Consultant can offer no guarantees of correct function with all browser software.
Website Hosting
Whilst The WordPress Consultant provides hosting and also recommends 3rd party hosting companies to host websites, no guarantees can be made as to the availability or interruption of this service by The WordPress Consultant cannot accept liability for losses caused by the unavailability, malfunction or interruption of this service, or for loss of turnover, sales, revenue, profits or indirect, consequential or special loss.
The WordPress Consultant reserve the right to refuse to handle in any way, material which may be deemed offensive, illegal or in any way controversial, and also to terminate the hosting service should the necessity arise.
All website hosting will be invoiced or billed on an annual or monthly basis unless agreed otherwise.
Website Optimization
Due to external factors, such as changes to the way search engines rank websites, we cannot offer any guarantees regarding the position we will achieve for websites. The process of optimizing websites itself will bring in more traffic and hits and you’ll see visits increase to your site naturally. We cannot accept liability for any change in rankings, or drop off in the position of your website due to changes in the algorithms of the search engines or the factors that they use to rank websites.
The WordPress Consultant reserve the right to refuse to handle in any way, material which may be deemed offensive, illegal or in any way controversial.
Payment of Accounts
A deposit is required from any new client before any work is carried out. It is the The WordPress Consultant policy that any outstanding accounts for work carried out by The WordPress Consultant or its affiliates are required to be paid in full, no later than 30 days from the date of the invoice unless by prior arrangement with The WordPress Consultant.
Once a deposit is paid and work completed you are obliged to pay the balance of payment in full. We will contact clients via email and telephone to remind them of such payments if they are not received when due.
If accounts are not settled or The WordPress Consultant have not been contacted regarding the delay, access to the related website may be denied and web pages removed, we will then pass such cases to the Small Claims Court to pursue payment, non-payment can result in county court judgements (ccj’s) being added to the client’s credit rating.
Following consistent non-payment of an invoice our Solicitors will contact the client in question, with a view to taking the matter further and if need be to seek payment through legal procedures, and if necessary court summons.
Footer Credit
All sites will have be given a small text link back to the designer’s site crediting The WordPress Consultant for the site build.
Your Privacy
We do not share or sell any of your details with third party companies, without your express permission and we will only email you or contact you about work related matters.
Complaints Procedure
Informal procedure
Anyone who experiences a problem with their web service provided by The WordPress Consultant should raise the matter directly using our online contact form to do so, giving sufficient information to locate the material (such as an url) and clearly outlining the grounds for complaint.
The WordPress Consultant will approach the individual responsible for the material in question with a view to resolving the matter to the satisfaction of the complainant.
Formal complaints procedure.
The formal complaints procedure should only be used where the complainant feels that the nature of the complaint is too serious to be dealt with informally, or where a satisfactory conclusion has not been reached after following the informal procedure.
A formal complaint should be made in writing to The WordPress Consultant, who will acknowledge receipt and ensure that the matter is looked into as soon as possible.
An initial response to any complaint can be expected within seven days of its receipt; a full and considered response to the complaint should be completed within 30 days and any subsequent remedy implemented with the minimum of delay.