Terms of Business? Service Agreement? Terms & Conditions? ...?

[Perenius]

Hi All

We provide services to our clients. Currently one main type of service, but plan to diversify.

We do not have a written service agreement with the clients. I think the clients know what to expect from us, but no written agreement/contract for the provision of services. I am also thinking about stting up a website and have noticed that sites have Terms & Conditions of Use, Site Terms, etc.

I have come accross quite a variety of phrases:

Terms and Conditions
Terms of Business
Service Agreement
Site Terms
Etc

I suppose most of the names in use refer to the same type of documents (i.e. similar content), but some may be specifically about using the website, and other more about the provision of services.

Who would be the right people to deal with these matters? An accountant or a lawyer? How much should I expect to spend on developing these documents?

Thanks

Pery

 

[Geoff T]

Hi Pery,

I always get "terms and conditions" for my clients from Law Hound (member on here)...

For me they can't be beat on either quality or price!

HTH

 

[Perenius]

Hi Geoff

Thanks for the suggestion.

Regards

Pery

 

[Steve Sellers]

Hi Pery. A lawyer would be the best person to speak with.

It is a service that I do offer, if you would like me to provide some initial basic advice and provide you with a fixed fee quote then please feel free to drop me a pm, or invite me to pm you and I would be happy to provide.

Regards

Steve

 

[BustersDogs]

I use 'terms and conditions'. A solicitor who checked them for me when I started didn't comment, although when I had my Trading Standards audit for Buy With Confidence I was told they weren't really terms and conditions, but a service agreement but it wasn't really important what they were called.

I don't see how anyone can have 'terms of use' of a website because you're on the website before you've even had a chance to look at them! Signing up for something is different.

 

[termsandconditions]

I use 'terms and conditions'. A solicitor who checked them for me when I started didn't comment, although when I had my Trading Standards audit for Buy With Confidence I was told they weren't really terms and conditions, but a service agreement but it wasn't really important what they were called.

I don't see how anyone can have 'terms of use' of a website because you're on the website before you've even had a chance to look at them! Signing up for something is different.

Giving your Terms and Conditions to a Trading Standards Officer (TSO) is like putting dracula in charge of the blood bank. TSO's act in the sole interest of the consumer, not your business. As a a general rule, the weaker your terms the happier they are.

Terms of Use are useful for two reasons:
i) search engines look for them (amongst many other factors) and for Privacy Policies) when deciding how to rank your site; and
ii) you can cross refer to your trading terms and conditions in them so that you only need share them with your clients/buyers - helps stop the rampant plagiarism of a document you have sweated blood to create.

Happy to offer a free review of either.

Best Regards

 

[BustersDogs]

Giving your Terms and Conditions to a Trading Standards Officer (TSO) is like putting dracula in charge of the blood bank. TSO's act in the sole interest of the consumer, not your business. As a a general rule, the weaker your terms the happier they are.

Terms of Use are useful for two reasons:
i) search engines look for them (amongst many other factors) and for Privacy Policies) when deciding how to rank your site; and
ii) you can cross refer to your trading terms and conditions in them so that you only need share them with your clients/buyers - helps stop the rampant plagiarism of a document you have sweated blood to create.

Happy to offer a free review of either.

Best Regards

They made barely any changes to my terms and in fact encouraged me to charge more cancellation fees - although he changed the wording to 'may be charged' rather than 'will' to give me more flexibility if I didn't want to charge a fee. Of course he was on the side of the consumer - I hope more consumers will now consume me because they know they are safe with me.

Thanks for the other explanation, it makes sense.