Chocolate Lime Web Design - Terms and Conditions

1. Contract: The client's approval for work to commence shall be deemed a contractual agreement between the client and Chocolate Lime Web Design. Important: Written approval for the work to commence and or payment of the advance fee indicates that the client accepts the terms and conditions outlined in this document.

2. Chocolate Lime Intellectual Copyright: Chocolate Lime holds intellectual copyright of any material, including source code and original images created for the client until payment of the final invoice. At this time we will transfer this intellectual copyright to the client. 

3. Clients Responsibilities with Regard to Copyright: In situations where the client provides images, text, animations, layouts or any other content for their website they are legally responsible for ensuring that this material does not infringe any copyright.

Certain images provided by Chocolate Lime Web Design may have been purchased under licence from stock image suppliers. These images are generally only licensed for use on a website. The licence may not permit them to be used in publicity material. The website owner is legally responsible for ensuring that this does not happen. If you wish to use any images from the site for other purposes please contact us for clarification.

4. Registration Charges: All third party costs arising from the registration of a domain name shall be met by the Client. CHOCOLATE LIME recommend that clients register their own domain names so that they have full ownership of these but where we have registered a domain name on the client's behalf we agree to transfer this domain name to the client immediately upon request and without charge.

5. Search Engine Promotion: If Search Engine Optimisation has been agreed as part of the contract the client must be aware that CHOCOLATE LIME are not responsible for ongoing web site promotion. Should the client require the site to be promoted on an ongoing basis a separate contract must be agreed. The order in which websites are ranked in the natural search results is controlled by the search engines. While we can optimise your site initially for this by making it search engine friendly, it is impossible to make any guarantees on ranking position.

6. Cancellation: Should the client wish to cancel at any point during the process they shall remain liable for the work that has taken place and shall be invoiced accordingly.

7. Failure to Provide Required Website Content: You must ensure that we are not delayed as a result of late delivery of the material and content required to complete your website.

This is why we ask that you provide all the required information in advance. On any occasion where we are delayed because you have not provided this information, we reserve the right to impose a surcharge of 25% of the total cost of the work. Also, if your job involves Search Engine Optimisation, we need the text content for your site in advance so that the SEO can be planned and completed efficiently.

If you agree to provide us with the required information in advance and subsequently fail to do within four weeks of project commencement we reserve the right to close the project and the balance remaining becomes payable immediately. This will not be a problem provided that you do not give us the go ahead to start until you are ready to do so.

8. Quotations: All projects will be given a written quote of the cost in advance of the project commencing. The quote will be an estimate based on how long we expect the project to take, and will also include the expected cost of bought-in and/or subcontracted goods and services.  Further project scope including design work or website functionality can be added by the client at an agreed additional rate.

9. Conceptualising: Conceptualising is the process of producing website concepts for clients. Concepts can include site mock ups, graphics and design proposals. This clearly takes a lot of time and for higher cost graphic / website design projects it will be included. You should therefore ensure that you let us have your preferred colour scheme and design requirements beforehand by completing any design questionaires supplied. If you don't do this we will design the logo / website appropriately.  All design works based upon a completed client brief will have 2 sets of revisions included in the original quotation.

If it is not to your taste following delivery of the requirements outlined in any design questionaires following the 2nd revision, we may not be able to rework the graphic / website design without additional charges. This is why it is often best to show us another logo / website that you like as an example of what you require.

10. Payment - Advance Fee: An advance fee of 30% of the total cost of the project is required before work can start. Clients should only pay this advance fee if they agree to our terms and conditions. Payment of the advance will be taken as agreement. 

11. Payment - Refund Policy: After work on a website commences advances are not refundable.

12. Payment Methods: Unless otherwise agreed, payment is only accepted by BACS, cheque or by prior agreement PayPal in UK Pounds Sterling. If your cheque is returned by the bank as unpaid for any reason, you will be liable for a "returned cheque" charge of £35.

13. Payment of Balance: You must pay our invoices in full within 14 days of the invoice date. Accounts that have not been settled within 14 days of our final reminder will incur a late payment charge of 10% of the amount outstanding. We reserve the right not to launch a website until full payment has been received. Additionally, any websites previously launched may be removed if payment is not forthcoming. When this occurs an additional minimum charge of £50 will be required to have the site restored.  This also applies to hosting invoices that have been unpaid.

14. Warranty: Clients have 28 days from the date of invoice to report any issues they may have. Any issues raised after this date are subject to our future support terms.

15. Future Support: Your website will be handed over as a fully functioning, completed work. Unless it has been agreed beforehand CHOCOLATE LIME is not responsible for future support. Support can be provided upon request for an agreed fee. Your website is offered as a single contract and no guarantee of the availability of future support from Chocolate Lime Web Design is offered unless an ongoing support package has been agreed. Support is charged at £25 per hour of work.

16. Access to Client Hosting Space: We may require ongoing access to our client's hosting space to allow us to support and monitor their websites. This access is via a user ID and password combination, which the client may change after the website is handed over. If the client chooses to change the password we will no longer have access to the website and further support will not be possible. We cannot be held responsible for any changes made to the website by the client or the client's agents.

17. Validity of Quotation: Unless otherwise agreed any quotation provided will be valid for 14 days from the date of receipt.

18. Footer Link: Chocolate Lime will place a small link back to our site on the footer of clients pages. This will be styled in line with clients own content.  This link can be removed by prior agreement or for a fee of £75.