Terms and Conditions

Please read the following important terms and conditions before accepting our quotation and check that they contain everything you want and nothing that you are not willing to agree to.

These terms set out: your legal rights and responsibilities; our legal rights and responsibilities; and certain key information required by law.

In this contract:

‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ means Susie Faulkner Planning & Design, a sole trader, of 98 Station Road, Great Bowden LE16 7HN.
‘quotation’ means the written document sent by email to you by us containing details of the services and the price.
‘services’ means the provision of space planning design services, production of design drawings and (if applicable) the submission of planning applications, as set out in detail on the quotation.
‘you’ or ‘your’ means the person buying services from us.

Introduction
1. If you place an order for services from us you agree to be legally bound by these terms and conditions.
Information we give you
1. By law we must give you certain key information before a legally binding contract between you and us is made, this includes:
  1. the main characteristics of the services you want to buy;
  2. who we are, where we are based and how you can contact us;
  3. the total price of the services including any taxes (or where this cannot reasonably be worked out in advance, the manner in which we will work out the price);
  4. the arrangements for payment, carrying out the services and the time by which we will carry out the services;
  5. how to exercise your right to cancel the contract and the costs of doing so;
  6. our complaint handling policy.
2. We will give you most of this information in a clear and understandable way on our quotation and some of this information is also set out in this contract.
3. The key information we give you by law forms part of this contract (as though it is set out in full here).
4. If we have to change any key information once a legally binding contract between you and us is made, we can only do this if you agree to it.
Your privacy and personal information
1. Our Privacy Policy is provided at the end of these terms.
2. Your privacy and personal information are important to us. Any personal information that you provide to us will be dealt with in line with our Privacy Policy, which explains what personal information we collect from you, how and why we collect, store, use and share such information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us and supervisory authorities if you have a query or complaint about the use of your personal information.
Ordering services from us

Below, we set out how a legally binding contract between you and us is made.

A quotation given by us to you in writing is an offer to supply the services specified for the price quoted.
A legally binding contract is formed between us and you when you confirm in writing (which includes email) that you accept the quotation.
Quotations are valid for a period of 14 days from the date of sending, whereafter they may not be accepted by you unless we agree this in writing.
Services will not commence until we have received written confirmation of your acceptance of our quotation.
If ordering services from us in respect of a site, you must be the owner of the site, or have the express permission of the owner of the site. When we are attending the site, you must ensure that the site is safe for us to access.

Carrying out of the services
1. We will endeavour to attend your premises to carry out a detailed site survey within 3 weeks of the contract being formed. The site survey will take approximately 2 hours for an average-sized 3 bed house, larger premises will require a longer survey time.
2. We will endeavour to provide the first draft of the design drawings to you within 3 weeks of the site survey having been completed. Drawings will be provided in PDF format.
3. Having provided the first draft design drawings to you we will arrange a time to meet with you to review and refine the designs. The updated design drawings will be provided to you in PDF format by email within 2 weeks of this appointment.
4. ‘Additional services’: Any significant changes to your initial requirements, or further rounds of review beyond that specified in 7.3 above, will incur additional charges. We will notify you of these additional charges and obtain your agreement of the charges before proceeding with further work.
5. In order for us to provide the Services there may be certain information, consent or approvals we require from you, you must provide such information as soon as possible after our request. We shall rely on information provided by you.
6. Please note that our services are for aesthetic designs only, and our site survey will only review the visible parts of the site. We do not provide construction drawings and we do not warrant that our drawings will not be sufficient alone for the purposes of obtaining building regulations or other statutory approvals, save for planning permission. You accept that changes to designs may be required at the engineering or building stage of a project which may make our initial designs unviable.
7. Our carrying out of the services might be affected by events beyond our reasonable control. If so, there might be a delay before we can start or restart the services, having made reasonable efforts to limit the effect of any of those events and having kept you informed of the circumstances, but we will try to start or restart the services as soon as those events have been fixed. Examples of events which might be beyond our reasonable control include:
  1. you change your instructions or scope of the services required (and this means we have to do extra work or wait for extra information from you);
  2. we cannot access the site at the times we agreed with you or we are unable to access certain areas of the site or you have not prepared the site in the way we agreed with you;
  3. you have not provided information we request from you in accordance with 5.5 above;
  4. poor weather conditions;
  5. staff illness.
Planning Permission
1. Where we are submitting a planning application on your behalf, you will be asked to confirm in writing that you approve the design drawings and you are happy for the application to be submitted. No planning application will be made until we have received your written approval.
2. The owner of the property must be named on the planning application. The name and the address of the property will be publicly available on the council’s planning portal.
3. We will use our reasonable endeavours to ensure that planning applications we submit are likely to be approved, based on our experience. However, you accept that we are not planning experts and whether or not planning permission is granted is often a subjective matter. As such, we do not warrant that planning permissions will be granted, or if granted, will be granted in accordance with any anticipated timescale.
4. If your planning application is rejected we will discuss the reasons for the rejection with the planning officer and will provide our recommendations to you.
5. If revisions to the plans are required in order to appeal a planning rejection, additional charges will apply. We will discuss and agree the additional charges with you before proceeding.
Charges and payment
1. We will let you know the basis of calculating the charges for the services and related deliverables to the fullest extent we can in the quotation.
2. We will carry out the services at the price specified in the quotation subject to any amendments for additional services agreed with you as detailed at clause 5.4 above.
3. You will pay all invoices in full in cleared funds within 7 days of the date of each invoice. We accept payment by bank transfer to the bank account details specified on the invoice we send to you. We do not accept payment by any other means.
4. You will be invoiced for the services at the same time as the updated design drawings are sent to you pursuant to clause 5.3. Any additional services will be invoiced to you on a periodic basis.
5. If your payment is not received by us in accordance with clause 7.3, we may charge interest on any balance outstanding from the due date of payment until the actual date of payment at the rate of 4 percentage points a year above the Bank of England base rate. Interest shall accrue on a daily basis. Additional charges may be levied on you to cover the costs of administration and legal representation in relation to the recovery of such outstanding fees.
6. All prices are in pounds sterling (£)(GBP) and exclude VAT (if applicable). You must pay any applicable VAT to us on receipt of a valid VAT invoice from us.
7. If the services we are providing include submitting a planning application, you will be required to pay the planning administration fees directly to the council. We will be unable to submit your planning application until you have paid the relevant administration fee and all of our invoices have been paid in full.
8. If this contract is ended it will not affect our right to receive any money which you owe to us under this contract.
Intellectual Property
1. For the purposes of this section, ‘deliverables’ means the deliverables ancillary to the supply of the services, including without limitation the design drawings and any media on which the results of the services are supplied.
2. Ownership of all copyright and other intellectual property rights in the deliverables remains with us.
3. In consideration of the price paid under the contract we grant to you a royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the deliverables for your personal use. In the event of non-payment this licence shall immediately terminate and you shall have no further rights in respect of the deliverables and you should delete and destroy all copies of the deliverables.
4. We will have no liability in respect of any use made of the deliverables for purposes other than those for which they were provided.

Right to cancel
1. You have the right to cancel a contract within 14 days of the date the contract was formed without giving any reason. However, you do not have the right to cancel if you requested for us to start providing the services during the cancellation period and the services are fully performed (i.e. the work is completed) during this period.
2. To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us of your decision to cancel this contract by a clear statement (e.g. an email) using the contact details at the top of this contract.
3. To meet the cancellation deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right to cancel before the cancellation period has expired.
4. If you cancel this contract and you had requested for us to start providing the services during the cancellation period, we will invoice you as soon as reasonable possible after we receive your notice of cancellation and you must pay us:
  1. for the services we provided up to the time you told us that you want to cancel this contract, which will be an amount in proportion to the services performed up to that point in comparison with the full price under this contract; or
  2. the full price under this contract, if you lost your right to cancel this contract because the services were fully performed (ie the work was completed) during the cancellation period.
Nature of the services
1. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives you certain legal rights (also known as ‘statutory rights’). The services that we provide to you must be carried out with reasonable care and skill. In addition, where the price has not been agreed upfront, the cost of the services must be reasonable; and where no time period has been agreed upfront for the provision of the services, we must carry out the services within a reasonable time.
2. For more detailed information on your rights and what you should expect from us, please visit the Citizens Advice website www.citizensadvice.org.uk or call 0808 223 1133.
3. Nothing in this contract affects your legal rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (also known as ‘statutory rights’). You may also have other rights in law.
4. If the services we have provided to you are faulty, please contact us using the contact details provided on the quotation.
Limitation on our liability
1. Except for any legal responsibility that we cannot exclude in law (such as for death or personal injury) or arising under applicable laws relating to the protection of your personal information, we are not legally responsible for any:
  1. losses that were not foreseeable to you and us when the contract was formed;
  2. losses that were not caused by any breach on our part;
  3. business losses; or
  4. losses to non-consumers.
2. Subject to 11.1, our total liability arising under or in connection with this contract and the services is limited to the price paid for the services.
3. On your request, we may provide to you the contact details of other contractors to support with your project, such as builders, structural engineers and planning consultants. These details are provided on a goodwill basis only, and we accept no liability for the services provided by these contractors. It is your responsibility to ensure that such contractors are suitable for your requirements.
Third party rights

No one other than a party to this contract has any right to enforce any term of this contract.

Disputes
1. We will try to resolve any disputes with you quickly and efficiently. If you are unhappy with the services we have provided or any other matter, please contact us as soon as possible using the contact details set out in the quotation.
2. The laws of England and Wales apply to this contract and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

We take your privacy very seriously. This privacy policy contains important information on how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. In this policy ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual and ‘data subject’ means the individual who the personal data relates to.

Personal data we collect about you

We will collect information about you if you make an enquiry about our services or if we enter into a contract with you. The personal data we collect is: your name; your contact information, including email address and telephone number; your residential address and (if different) the address of the site; any other personal data you choose to share with us and provide consent for us to use, such as details of any specific medical needs or disability you have and which need to be taken into account when we are providing the services.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this personal data directly from you - in person, by telephone, text or email and/or via our website. However, we may also collect information from publicly accessible sources, such as HM Land Registry.

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, e.g.: where you have given consent; to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations; for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.

We use your personal data to provide our quotation and our services to you, this includes: responding to your enquiries where you have chosen to be contacted, corresponding with you about your project, filing planning applications on your behalf. We may also use your personal data to enforce our legal rights, to check your identity and your ownership of the site, for fraud prevention and to meet our legal obligations.

Where you have consented, we may use your personal details and photographs of your premises on our website to market our services.

Who we share your personal data with

We will share personal data with third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, e.g. payment service providers and the council when a planning application is being submitted. We may also share your information when we believe it appropriate to comply with the law, or protect other rights, property or safety.

Other than specified, we will not share your personal data with any other third party.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used.

Where you have requested a quote from us, but not contracted with us we will delete your personal data after 12 months.

Where we have contracted with you, we will delete or anonymise your personal data after seven years.

Your rights

You have various rights in respect of your personal data. For more information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights. If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us and let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it.

How to complain

Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data. We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner in the UK at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this privacy policy

We may change this privacy notice from time to time – the most recent version will be available on our website.

Last updated March 2023