Terms & Conditions

1. About these terms

These terms apply to website design and development services provided by HJ Studio to you, the client.

They apply alongside the quotation and project agreement for your specific project. Where the quotation or the agreement says something different, the quotation or agreement takes precedence.

You can contact us on WhatsApp at +44 7594 924988.

Website: www.hjstudio.life

2. Services

Depending on what has been agreed, HJ Studio may provide:

• website design;
• website development;
• responsive and mobile design;
• website deployment and launch;
• help with domains;
• help with hosting;
• website maintenance;
• implementing content you provide;
• basic technical SEO setup;
• any other service specifically agreed in writing.

Only the services listed in your quotation are included in your project. Anything not listed is outside the agreed scope.

3. Quotations and proposals

We will give you a written quotation setting out what is included, the price, an estimated timeline and the number of revision rounds.

• Unless otherwise agreed, a quotation is valid for the period stated in that quotation.
• A quotation is an offer, not a contract. The agreement forms when you accept it and we confirm.
• The price is based on the requirements described to us at the time. If those requirements change, the price and timeline may change.
• Work outside the agreed scope will be quoted separately and will not begin until you have agreed to it.

4. Payment: 50% upfront, 50% before launch

Our standard payment structure is two equal payments.

50% upfront deposit

You pay 50% of the total agreed project price before development work begins. Work does not start until this payment has been received.

50% final payment

The remaining 50% is due once the website has been completed and approved by you, and before the website is launched, transferred or handed over, unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.

For example, on a project priced at £1,000:

• Upfront deposit: £500
• Final payment: £500
• Total: £1,000

That example illustrates how the split works. It is not a price.

5. Payment methods

Our preferred payment method is Stripe. We will send a payment link with your invoice, and you can pay by card without creating an account.

We also accept bank transfer. The account details and the reference to use will be shown on your invoice.

Payment is treated as confirmed when the funds have cleared into our account, and we will confirm receipt to you. Card payments normally confirm immediately. Bank transfers may take longer.

6. Invoicing

We issue an invoice for each payment. Every invoice states the invoice number, the date, your details, the project, the amount, whether it is the deposit or the final payment, the due date, and both payment options.

Please quote the invoice number as the reference on any bank transfer, so we can match your payment.

7. Late payment

If an invoice is not paid by its due date we may, having given you reasonable notice:

• pause work on your project;
• delay the launch date;
• withhold handover of files, access or credentials;
• decline to start further work until payment is received.

Where you are contracting as a business, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives us a statutory right to claim interest and a fixed sum in compensation on overdue commercial invoices. We would always rather talk to you than rely on it. If there is a problem paying, please tell us.

8. Revisions

The quotation will state how many revision rounds are included in the project.

An included revision means a reasonable adjustment to the design or content we have produced, such as changing colours, moving a section, correcting wording or swapping an image.

The following are not revisions and will be quoted as additional work:

• a new design direction after one has been approved;
• additional pages beyond those quoted;
• new features or functionality;
• changes needed because the requirements you gave us have changed;
• repeated rounds of change beyond the number included.

9. Your responsibilities

To keep your project on schedule, you are responsible for providing, in a timely way: your logo and brand assets, business information, text, images, product or menu information, prices, contact details, any legal or policy wording your site needs, and your feedback and approvals.

Projects stall most often on content. If material or feedback is delayed, the timeline moves accordingly, and we may need to reschedule your project around other commitments.

10. Content and copyright in what you supply

You confirm that you own, or have permission to use, everything you give us, including text, images, logos, video, fonts and any other material, and that using it on your website will not infringe anyone else's rights.

You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from material you have supplied. If we source material on your behalf, we will tell you what licence applies and any restrictions or ongoing cost that comes with it.

11. Third-party services

Your website may rely on third-party services such as Stripe, hosting providers, domain registrars, APIs, fonts, plugins, software libraries and analytics tools.

These have their own terms, prices, renewal dates, availability and restrictions, which we do not control. We are not responsible for outages, price changes, feature changes or discontinuation by a third party, or for losses caused by them, beyond taking reasonable steps to help you find an alternative.

12. Domains and hosting

• Ownership. Your domain belongs to you. Where we register one on your behalf, we do so as your agent and will transfer control to you on request, subject to any outstanding payment.
• Recurring costs. Domain and hosting fees are ongoing and are payable by you unless your quotation expressly says we cover them, and for how long.
• Renewals. You are responsible for keeping your domain and hosting renewed. A lapsed domain can be lost and may be expensive or impossible to recover.
• Where we manage hosting for you under an agreed arrangement, we will keep it running for as long as you keep paying for it. If payment stops, we will give you reasonable notice before the site is suspended, and a reasonable opportunity to move it.
• Moving elsewhere. You can move your website to another provider at any time. We will provide the files and access you are entitled to, once your account is settled.

13. Approval

When the website is complete, we will send it to you to review. Please check it carefully, including text, images, prices, contact details, links and how it looks on your own phone.

You approve the website by telling us in writing, including by WhatsApp message. Approval means you are satisfied it matches what was agreed. Changes requested after approval, and outside the agreed scope, will be treated as additional work.

14. Launch

The final payment must normally be received before the website is launched, transferred or handed over. Any exception must be agreed in writing beforehand.

15. Intellectual property

• Your existing material, including your logo, text, images and brand assets, remains yours throughout.
• Our pre-existing material, including the tools, components, frameworks, templates, code libraries and techniques we had before your project or develop generally, remains ours. We reuse these across projects, and nothing in these terms transfers ownership of them.
• The custom work produced for your project, meaning the specific design and build of your website, transfers to you once you have paid in full. Until then, we retain ownership.
• Reusable components that we include in your site come with a licence to use them as part of that website, rather than a transfer of ownership. You can use, host and modify your website freely. You cannot extract our underlying components and resell them as your own.
• Third-party and open-source software is licensed under its own terms, which continue to apply to both of us.

16. Portfolio and marketing

We may show completed work, including screenshots, a link and a short description, in our portfolio, on our website, on printed materials and on social media.

If you would prefer we did not, tell us and we will not. If your project is confidential, say so before we start, and we will agree that in writing.

17. Maintenance

Ongoing maintenance is not included unless your quotation specifically says so. If you would like us to look after your website, including updates, backups and small changes, we will quote for that separately.

18. Post-launch support

Any included post-launch support period will be stated in the quotation.

During that period we will fix, at no extra charge, faults in what we built, meaning things that are broken, do not work as agreed, or display incorrectly.

The following are not covered and will be quoted as new work: new features, new pages, new designs, changes to your content, problems caused by changes someone else has made, and problems caused by third-party services.

19. Cancellation

If you cancel

• Tell us in writing as soon as possible.
• The deposit covers work already carried out and time reserved for your project, and is generally non-refundable once work has begun.
• If work completed to that point exceeds the deposit, we will invoice the balance for that work.
• Third-party costs already incurred on your behalf, such as domains, licences and paid assets, remain payable.
• Material you supplied will be returned or deleted on request.
• Website files remain our property where they have not been paid for.

If we cancel

We may end a project if payment is not made, if we cannot get the content or decisions we need to continue after reasonable requests, if the work required turns out to be materially different from what was described, or if communication becomes abusive.

Where we end a project for a reason that is not your fault, we will refund any payment covering work we have not done.

20. Refunds and your statutory rights

Refunds are considered case by case and reflect the work carried out up to the point of cancellation.

Nothing in these terms removes or limits any statutory right that cannot lawfully be excluded.

If you are contracting as a consumer rather than as a business, you may have additional statutory rights, including a right to cancel a contract agreed at a distance within a set period under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, and rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Those rights apply in addition to these terms.

If you ask us to begin work before that cancellation period has ended, you may be required to pay for the work carried out up to the point you cancel.

21. Liability

We will carry out our services with reasonable care and skill.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded, including your statutory rights as a consumer if you are one.

Subject to that, and where you are contracting as a business:

• we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of anticipated savings, loss of data, or indirect or consequential loss;
• our total liability in connection with a project is limited to the total amount you have paid us for that project.

22. Search engines and results

We build websites to a sound technical standard, and will carry out any basic technical SEO setup listed in your quotation.

We cannot and do not guarantee Google rankings, search engine positions, visitor numbers, leads, enquiries, sales, revenue or conversion rates. These depend on many things outside our control, including your market, your competitors and continual changes to search engines.

Any guarantee of a measurable result would have to be a separate written agreement.

23. We do not provide legal or regulatory advice

Designing and building a website does not include legal, tax, financial, regulatory or industry-specific compliance advice.

You remain responsible for making sure your business and your website comply with the law that applies to you, including your own privacy policy, cookie compliance, accessibility obligations, consumer information requirements and any rules specific to your trade, unless we have specifically agreed in writing to help with something.

24. Events outside our control

We are not liable for delay or failure to perform caused by events outside our reasonable control, including serious illness, power or internet failure, failure of third-party services, fire, flood, industrial action, civil emergency or government restriction. We will let you know as soon as we can and agree a revised timeline.

25. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the law of the part of the United Kingdom in which you live, or of your right to bring proceedings there.

26. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The version that applies to your project is the one in force when you accepted your quotation. Changes do not affect a project already under way unless we both agree in writing.