Terms and Conditions
Terms and Conditions Flat Earth Communications Ltd (also known here as Flat Earth)
Website Design Terms & Conditions:
By placing an order with Flat Earth Communications Ltd, 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 Flat Earth Communications Ltd.
Flat Earth Communications Ltd:
Primary designers/programmers/site owner & employees or affiliates.
General:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd will carry out work only where an agreement is provided either by email or mail. An 'order' is deemed to be a written or verbal contract between Flat Earth Communications Ltd and the client, this includes telephone and email agreements. The acceptance of a commission shall be deemed as a contractual agreement between the client and Flat Earth.
Flat Earth cannot always guarantee to start work immediately on a commission but will arrange a date mutually with the client as to when work can commence.
Website Design:
Whilst every endeavor will be made to ensure that the website and any scripts or programs are free of errors, Flat Earth Communications Ltd cannot accept responsibility for any losses incurred due to malfunction, the website or any part of it.
Property:
The website, graphics and any programming code remain the property of Flat Earth Communications Ltd until all outstanding accounts are paid in full. Terms are 30 days strict. Payment will be accepted by cheque or electronic transfer (both National and International)
Client copyright:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd cannot take responsibility for any copyright infringements caused by materials submitted by the client. All material, both text and images, supplied by the client and used in the construction of the client's web site, will remain the client's property.
Flat Earth copyright:
Any scripts, cgi applications, php scripts, or software (unless specifically agreed ) written by Flat Earth Communications Ltd remain the copyright of Flat Earth Communications Ltd and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of Flat Earth Communications Ltd.
The copyright for material provided by Flat Earth , such as HTML code, graphics, photographs and text, will remain their property until such time as payment has been made in full whereupon they will become the property of the client.
Extras:
Any unplanned additions to the brief will be carried out at the discretion of Flat Earth and where no charge is made for such additions Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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.
Deadlines:
The client agrees to make available as soon as is reasonably possible to Flat Earth Communications Ltd all materials required to complete the site to the agreed standard and within the set deadline. Flat Earth will not be liable for costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the failure to meet agreed deadlines.
Development Process:
Flat Earth will initially and during the development process place the client's website on their demonstration servers during in order that the client may view and comment upon the website's progress. In the case of CD Rom work this may take the form of sample CD's. When both Flat Earth and the client agree that the work meets the criteria agreed during the commissioning process, Flat Earth Communications Ltd will publish the website on the client's server, or provide the source code for the site via a download (or cd-rom disk) for the client to upload.
Payments:
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 Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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 clients credit rating.
With large projects deposit of 25% is required before any design work will be carried out.
Liability:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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.
Database, Application and E-Commerce Development:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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.
Where applications or sites are developed on servers not recommended by Flat Earth Communications Ltd, 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 clients 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 Flat Earth Communications Ltd before being made generally available for use. Where "bugs", errors or other issues are found after the site is live, Flat Earth Communications Ltd will endeavor (but is not obliged to) to correct these issues to meet the standards of function outlined in the brief
Compatibility:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd will endeavor 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.
While Flat Earth makes every effort to design pages which display acceptably in the most popular current browsers, they cannot accept responsibility for pages which do not display acceptably in new versions of browsers released after pages have been designed.
Search Engines:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd will if requested submit a client's website to
several of the major search engines as part of a commission making every reasonable effort to promote the website effectively but cannot guarantee high placings in search engine results.
Website Hosting:
Whilst Flat Earth Communications Ltd will itself host or recommend hosting companies to host websites, no guarantees can be made as to the availability or interruption of this service and Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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.
Maintenance:
Flat Earth does not undertake to maintain or update a client's website as part of the design commission.If a client wishes Flat Earth to maintain or update a web site as a separate commission, Flat Earth will negotiate with the client a maintenance contract appropriate to the amount of work required. Web site maintenance may also be undertaken on a time and materials basis if the client so wishes. Flat Earth reserves the right to alter prices at any time without notice. If a client has commissioned any services from Flat Earth prior to a change in prices, that commission will not be subject to any increase, but any subsequent commission may be subject to an increase.
By agreeing to these terms and conditions your statutory rights are not affected.
Offensive Material:
Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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 free hosting service should the necessity arise.
Complaints Procedure:
Anyone who experiences a problem with their web service provided by Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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.
Flat Earth Communications Ltd 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.
Privacy Policy:
Your privacy is important to us, Flat Earth Communications Ltd believes your right to privacy is important. However sometimes however you may wish or need to contact us. Submitting personal information on our site is optional.When you submit an enquiry we ask for information such as your name, email address, phone number and criteria specific to your enquiry. This information will only be used by us in relation to your contact query.
If you register yourself as interested in joining our mailing list then that is the only use to which your email address will be put.
Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy.
We monitor customer traffic patterns and site usage in order to help us develop the design and layout of our website and the services we provide.
We will not rent, trade or sell your data to others.
