Terms and Conditions

Definitions:
The Client : The company or individual requesting the services of Sims Designs.
Sims Designs: Primary designer/site owner & employees or affiliates.

General
Sims Designs will carry out work only where an agreement is provided either by email, telephone, mail or fax. Sims Designs 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 Sims Designs 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, Sims Designs cannot accept responsibility for any losses incurred due to malfunction, the website or any part of it.

The website, graphics and any programming code remain the property of Sims Designs until all outstanding accounts are paid in full.

Any scripts, cgi applications, php scripts, or software (unless specifically agreed) written by Sims Designs remain the copyright of Sims Designs and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of Sims Designs.

Sims Designs cannot take responsibility for any copyright infringements caused by materials submitted by the client or used by the client in the future on their website. We reserve the right to refuse any material of a copyrighted nature unless adequate proof is given of permission to use such material.

Any coding additions to website briefs provided will be carried out at the discretion of Sims Designs and may carry an additional cost. Where no charge is made by Sims Designs for such additions, Sims Designs 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 Sims Designs all materials required to complete the site to the agreed standard and within the set deadline.

Sims Designs will not be liable for costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the failure to meet agreed deadlines.

Sims Designs 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. eg. Any disputes re content/images that have been provided to us for inclusion on the site.

Sims Designs 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.

Sims Designs 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.

Sims Designs will not be liable for any costs or charges incurred as a result of a malicious attack by a third party re any malware, hacked site or loss of personal or financial details, including credit/debit card details or any resultant fraudulent behaviour. We always advise clients to ensure that client websites are kept up to date with the latest protocols, plugins and versions of WordPress, javascript and php. Quotations and emails may be sent to you to this effect re any updates that may be required to your website or application. It is usually strongly recommended that you reply to any such emails to avoid any potential vulnerabilites that could be exploited in a malicious way as outlined in this paragraph.

In no event shall Sims Designs be liable for any direct, indirect, consequential, special and exemplary damages, or any damages whatsoever, stemming from the use or performance of a client website or from any information, products and services provided through client sites, even if this website has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

•  In the absence of any negligence or other breach of duty by us, your use of our client website’s is entirely at your own risk.

•  If we are in breach of the arrangements under this agreement, we will not be responsible for any losses that you suffer as a result.

•  We do not have any liability of any sort (including liability for negligence) for the acts or omissions of providers of telecommunication services or for faults in    or failures of their networks and equipment.

A non-refundable deposit of 50% is usually required with all of our projects before any design work will be carried out, unless agreed otherwise with Sims Designs.

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, i.e 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 clients satisfaction and no refunds can be offered. We do offer free updates for a month after completion to allow for any final amendments that may be required.

Database, Coding, Applications and E-Commerce Development
Sims Designs 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.

Any scripts, applications or software (unless specifically agreed) written by Sims Designs remain the copyright of Sims Designs and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of Sims Designs.

Where applications or sites are developed on servers not recommended by Sims Designs, 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 Sims Designs before being made generally available for use. Where “bugs”, errors or other issues are found after the site is live, Sims Designs will endeavour (but is not obliged to) to correct these issues to meet the standards of function outlined in the brief.

All right, title and interest of every kind and nature, whether now known or unknown, in and to any Intellectual Property created, written, developed, furnished or produced by us during the term of the agreement / project, whether alone or jointly with others and whether or not during work hours, that are within the scope of the agreement or any applicable Statement of Work shall be the exclusive property of the client.

Compatibility
Sims Designs 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 Microsoft Internet Explorer/Edge, Safari, mobile web browsers and with Mozilla browsers, such as Firefox. Sims Designs can offer no guarantees of ongoing correct function with all browser software as they constantly change and site owners may add their own content that we have no control over.

Website Hosting
Whilst Sims Designs recommends hosting companies to host websites, no guarantees can be made as to the availability or interruption of this service by Sims Designs 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.

Sims Designs 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 any web hosting service we provide for clients should the necessity arise. Web hosting payments are non-refundable.


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.

We use ‘white hat techniques’ when optimizing websites and always aim to achieve a top ten ranking for your website within six months of undertaking the optimization process. Due to the work involved payment is generally required in advance and we are unable to offer a refund of any monies to clients in relation to this type of work.

Sims Designs 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 Sims Designs policy that any outstanding accounts for work carried out by Sims Designs 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 Sims Designs.

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 Sims Designs 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 judgments (ccj’s) being added to the clients 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.

Informal complaints procedure

Anyone who experiences a problem with their web service provided by Sims Designs 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.

Sims Designs will approach the individual responsible for the material in question with a view to resolving the matter to the satisfaction of the complainant.

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 Sims Designs, 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.