Terms and Conditions
Always good to read the small print!
When you have a website designed or redesigned by us, you are agreeing to these Terms and Conditions as outlined on this page. You should read these Terms and Conditions carefully as they will form a legally binding contract between us and you, and your acceptance of them is agreed from your first payment for our contracted services. At this moment, we are currently only accepting orders from customers who either have residence within the United Kingdom or Europe. If you cannot verify your residence or country of residence, then unfortunately we will be unable to proceed with any orders made by yourself. 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.
We will always do our best to fulfil your needs and meet your goals, but sometimes it is best to have a few simple things written down so that we both know what is what, who should do what and what happens if stuff goes wrong. In our contract you won’t find complicated legal terms or large passages of unreadable text. We have no desire to trick you into signing something that you might later regret. We do want what’s best for the safety of both parties, now and in the future. In short, you (the Client) will be asking us (First Class Web Design, and hereinafter referred to as the Company), to design and build a website for you or redesign and rebuild an existing website, as agreed via email, written or verbal communications, for an agreed monthly fee depending on the level of service and complexity of the site. These fees are displayed prominently on our website.
What do both parties agree to?
As the Client, you have the power and ability to enter into this contract on behalf of your company or organisation. You agree to provide us with everything that we need to complete the project including text, images and other information as and when we need it, and in the format that we ask for. You agree to review our work, provide feedback and sign-off approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways and you will also be bound by any dates that we set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule laid out on our prices page. We have the experience and ability to perform the services you need from us and we will carry them out in a professional and timely manner. Along the way we will endeavour to meet all the deadlines set but we can’t be responsible for a missed launch date or a deadline if you have been late in supplying materials or have not approved or signed off our work on-time at any stage.
Confidentiality:
The Client and the Company may disclose confidential information between themselves regarding any work under this agreement, in order to facilitate and complete the web design project. Such information will be identified during the course of any email, written or verbal communication between both parties, and shall be safely retained and not disclosed to any other third parties by either the Company or the Client.
Description of The Work:
A summary of the project and additional tasks or features will normally be sent to the Client via email which will outline the work that is to be undertaken by the Company.
Payment Schedules:
We have tried to make the payment terms uncomplicated and refreshingly straightforward. All projects incur a monthly fee which is payable for a minimum of 12 months from the launch of your website. Normally the website will not launch until a standing order or BACS payment has been set up. The first payment date will be mutually agreed and normally start within 1 month from the launch date. Additional costs for extra features and/or additional design costs not covered by our standard packages will be payable in full before the website goes live.
Beyond the 12 month mandatory period:
At the end of the initial mandatory 12 month period you will be contacted by email to discuss the various options open to you. We offer a basic business support contract, bespoke support contracts and hosting only deals. Details of these can be found on our website (http://www.firstclasswebdesign/contracts).
If you wish to switch to another hosting provider after the mandatory period please let us know on or before the last monthly fee is due to allow sufficient time to complete the transfer process. A small admin fee is payable for this procedure. If you do decide to switch to a hosting only plan, any further changes or updates to your website after the contract period will be charged at our normal hourly rate.
Website Design:
Normally your monthly fees include the basic website design for your site. However, in some cases the design may be charged as a separate up front cost if we deem it necessary, either due to the complexity of the project or if the project contains special design features. You will be informed of this before any contracts are agreed. If you wish to use an external design agency for the design, that's fine but these costs will be additional to your monthly fee.
Website Development:
The site will be developed to work primarily across all major browsers including other platforms such as mobile devices and touchpads. However, we cannot guarantee complete compatibility across every major browser as these are constantly being updated by their respective vendors. Sites are normally tested however in all the 4 main browsers, and usually will work with no complications. We do test all the markup and CSS in these browsers using the latest versions. We cannot guarantee compatibility in old or redundant browser software.
Content Management Systems:
All packages with the exception of our basic package (Start Up) will be developed using a Content Management System (CMS). We employ a range of popular solutions ranging from Wordpress, Expression Engine, Joomla, Drupal or Shopify. However, in some instances, we may decide to build a bespoke solution depending on your requirements. Any associated or additional fees, such as installation, setup, testing etc are covered within your chosen package.
Text Content:
We are not responsible for writing or inputting any text copy unless this has been specified by you, but we will be happy to help wherever possible. If you are not happy writing your own content (which is very different from writing for print!), we have access to a specialist web author for an additional agreed fee (charged on a ‘per page’ basis).
Photographs and Images:
Any images or photographs that you may supply us with must be in a digital format, usually no smaller than 1024x768 pixels, with a suitable resolution that will allow them to be resized and used on a webpage
display. Any images that we are asked to obtain from third party photographers or stock photography will be charged as an additional cost. You have must also ensure that any images that may be provided by yourself are either royalty free, or that you have obtained the necessary permissions to use those images on a website. Please do not ask us to use images that you know are copyrighted as this will infringe copyright laws and be rather embarrassing for all parties concerned!
Changes and Revisions:
We know from experience that sometimes customers do not really know what they want until they start to see design concepts. This is quite normal. We are happy to make revisions to the design, layout, colours etc until you are completely happy with the design. Once the artwork has been converted into HTML there is less flexibility in altering the design substantially without re-working the code. If you decide to change the design radically after coding work has commenced there may be an additional fee payable up front, to cover extra time spent - this will be discussed with you as and when the need arises.
Once the website is live you will have been allocated a certain amount of revisions per month. We will try our utmost to make these changes within a couple of days, quite often much quicker! However, large scale changes or additional features, that we do not consider as updates, will take much longer and may be subject to an additional fee depending on the scale of the change. Any additional costs will always be discussed with the Client before any such undertaking and agreed in writing.
Hosting:
All our clients websites are hosted on a high speed, state of the art dedicated server that provides superior performance and reliability. We have found that using cheaper 'shared' hosting solutions does not provide the reliability and performance that our clients demand. All clients pay a hosting fee either as part of their monthly agreement or through a separate hosting only package. Minimum term for hosting is 12 months paid monthly or annually via standing order or BACS.
Offsite Technical Support:
You may already have web site hosting in place, but if not, we recommend our hosting solutions for all new customers and strongly recommend those with existing hosting arrangements transfer to our servers. If you are hosting the website elsewhere, we cannot guarantee that the site may be fully compatible with all hosting providers, especially any contact forms, Content Management Systems, database driven websites, etc. If the website is to be hosted elsewhere, then you will still pay the same monthly fee as agreed. We 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). However, if you do require some help, then please do ask, we’ll try our best.
Legal Bits:
We cannot guarantee that the functions contained within any web page (or part of your website design), will always be error free, and therefore we 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. 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.
The Copyright:
You guarantee to us that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork that you provide us for inclusion in the web site are either owned by you, or that you have permission to use them. After the initial 12 month period, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:
1. You 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 this web design project.
2. We maintain copies of all the files used in connection with your web design project and if you require a disc copy of all the files used in connection with your project (this may not include all the source files), then we 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 servers.
3. The copyright to the markup, CSS files, other code that may have been used by us for you, or certain images that we 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.
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. We do however reserve the right as the Design Company to put a link showing that the site has been designed by us, or is hosted by us, and this link will be usually small and unobtrusive, thereby not hindering or distracting from your own website.
As the design company we also reserve the right (because it is good to tell or show other people what we may have done), 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.
The Small Print:
Just the same as a fine, you cannot transfer this contract to anyone else without our consent or permission. This contract remains in force and need not be renewed. If for any reason, one part of this contract becomes invalid, or unenforceable, the remaining parts of the contract still remain in place. Although we 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
First Class 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.
If you have any queries about these Terms and Conditions please call us on 07894943444 or leave your message here