Terms of Service - House and Home Sitters UK

Terms of Service

By using our website, you agree that:

House and Home Sitters Ltd, Company No. 09032097, registered in England and Wales and operating throughout the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, is the owner of this website (‘House and Home Sitters’, ‘our website’, ‘the owner of the website’, ‘the website’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ or ‘we’ or wherever the context makes grammatical sense), and provider of house sitting and pet care services in the United Kingdom only (unless agreed otherwise), against payment for said services by the Homeowner Client;
you have access to these Terms of Service (ToS) as amended from time to time with or without prior notice. (It is recommended you check the ToS each time you use our website). You further confirm you have read, accepted and will comply with the ToS both now and in the future, and you may lawfully enter into a house sitting services agreement. If this is not so or if you do not agree to the ToS, you are not permitted to use our website or any services.
the ‘Homeowner Client’ is the owner/occupier of the property (including pets) to be taken care of while away during any period, or the person representing the homeowner/occupier in his or her personal capacity, i.e. the party contracting with House and Home Sitters;
the ‘House Sitter’ is any person contracted to provide the house (and, if applicable, pet) sitting services (‘services’) after applying to be a house sitter for House and Home Sitters, interviewed and formally appointed as such by House and Home Sitters;
these ToS include our Privacy Policy below, whereby we do not share your information with anyone and handle all information according to UK law; you consent to the use of cookies; our website is GDPR-compliant and secure and if you do not accept or this is not so, you should not use our website and will have no claim if you choose to use this regardless;
we bear no responsibility for opinions or material on our website including reference to any external sites mentioned or linked to us;
you warrant all information or data of any kind, whether email, text, software, code, music, sound, images, video or otherwise (‘content’), introduced by you or on your behalf, belongs to you/the person providing this, will not/not be objectionable or offensive, infringe any copyright, moral or other rights, dishonest, unlawful, threatening, harmful, abusive, harassing, constitute stalking, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene or pornographic, infect this website via virus infection or otherwise, give rise to civil or criminal liability, or violate any law;
you will notify us via email at info@houseandhomesitters.co.uk if you believe your content has been used in breach of your copyright or intellectual property rights;
all our website’s proprietary rights including but not limited to copyright, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, content, goods or services, remain fully reserved and may not be used except with our prior written consent;
services or goods of third parties advertised, sold or provided on or via our website are subject to the policies and representations of such third parties, and no liability howsoever arising attaches to our website;
you will neither misrepresent your authority or association with any party, nor collect data of other users, nor use this website to introduce any external commercial content or service (other than promoting the business of House and Home Sitters or with our prior written consent), nor any form of spam, junk mail, chain letters, pyramid schemes, unauthorised advertising, or commerce;
you indemnify and hold harmless our website, its representatives, subsidiaries, affiliates or related parties, directors, employees, agents, independent contractors, advertisers, and partners, against any damages or claim arising, including but not limited to legal fees, a claim filed by any third party, as a house sitter or homeowner client or in connection with our website or the provision of our services (or not, as the case may be), your provision of material published, and any breach of the rights of a third party;
you do so and use our services at your sole risk, with all warranties either express or implied (other than those contained in these ToS) disclaimed, including fitness of purpose, that any part of our services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, accurate, reliable, or of any quality standard, error-free, virus-free, that any content on our website is safe for download, or that any advice or recommendations are accurate; if any implied or disclaimed warranties or other exclusions under these ToS may not be excluded under applicable law, the remaining ToS will, save for such exclusions, still remain valid;
our right is reserved to
refuse or remove any publication, statement or review by you deemed in our sole discretion to be unduly negative or destructive regarding our members or clients or website in any social or other media;
edit, remove or block access to any content you provide or publish elsewhere; terminate your website user access, remove what you or your agent provided, either temporarily or permanently, not provide (or allow in the case of a house sitter), change or discontinue or our services, without notice to you; and
you authorise any instruction by us to a third party publisher/forum to amend or remove any publication or social media post by you or any third party on your behalf, irrespective of its veracity, as final and binding on you;
any indulgence granted by (or failure to assert any right of) the website owner shall not constitute a waiver of such right;
you grant us a worldwide royalty-free perpetual and non-exclusive licence (including any intellectual property rights) to use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish or revoke from publication, distribute, perform, promote, archive, translate, or create derivative works and compilations, including photographs and videos, in whole or in part, from any content created, provided or published by you, your agent or sitter in relation to any house sitting assignment, either actual or proposed through House and Home Sitters Ltd. Said licence shall include any form of media publication or technology or methodology already known or developed in the future;
our services are provided ‘as they come’, with no representations or warranties express or implied binding on us; more especially there being no breach of contract arising from the unsuitability of any sitter provided, or any circumstances beyond our control such as vis major, ill health, death or similar family disaster, road traffic congestion or accidents, train or other travel delays, mechanical or other car problems, inclement weather, and any similar situations which may otherwise have caused us to be in breach of contract;
any civil claim being filed forthwith, and in any event within a reasonable time; no clandestine CCTV or telephone recording being used in evidence (except for any criminal act) unless prior written notification of such recording devices has been given upfront by/to the party concerned;
such claim is limited to the extent and greater of a) whatever insurance compensation may be paid out less any excess or first amount payable, subject to the claimant(s) facilitating and fulfilling all policy and other requirements in relation to the lodgement/processing of the claim against the insurer, or b) the daily basic rate as published on our Rates page on this website, multiplied by the number of days of the relevant house sitting assignment actually paid for by the homeowner client; this limitation of liability reflects the allocation of risk between the parties; the limitation will survive and apply even if any limited remedy specified in these terms is found to have failed its essential purpose and the limitation of liability inures to the benefit of House and Home Sitters; you shall neither publish nor permit to be published negative remarks, opinions, information, reports or images in/on social or other media concerning House and Home Sitters or its homeowner clients or sitter(s) pending any insurance claim or legal proceedings, in default whereof such claim shall automatically be nullified;
as the Homeowner Client, our website provides an invitation to treat i.e. to submit a house sitter request which is by its nature bespoke according to your personal requirements; any subsequent agreement is reached offline and does not constitute an online or distance services agreement since this will be concluded via “hard media” (which includes electronic mail according to UK law), when we submit our written quotation and you accept this; (in order to constitute a distance or online agreement, all components of such agreement must take place online, clearly not the case with our website which cannot, for example, take payments from you); accordingly our agreement reached with you on acceptance of our email quotation will not include any cooling off period; your acceptance verbally or in writing of our quotation/rates set forth on our website for the assignment times and date(s) agreed by you constitute a binding agreement; the said rates are also applicable to any extension of an assignment undertaken by us for whatever reason, e.g. illness, flight/traffic delays; any calculation or communication error in amounts be replaced by the applicable rates displayed on our website; you will cover all council taxes and utilities during an assignment (including, for example, landline telephone, internet and any cable or satellite television); you will provide on request, subject to our privacy policy, photos of your home interior and exterior, garden, and pet(s) if applicable, a written description of your property and pet(s), information on availability of parking, public transport, nearby attractions and facilities, i.e. whatever may be persuasive/relevant for us to secure the most appropriate sitter(s) for you; you will provide the sitter or your nominated nearby contact person with spare key(s) for your home for the sitter’s use; you will make every reasonable effort to ensure the good health and happiness of your pet(s) and cleanliness, comfort and safety of your home for our sitter(s) prior to the assignment commencing; you will provide sufficient food and treats for your pet(s) for the duration of the assignment, and authorise our sitter(s) to do so for your account if supplies run out; you will pay travel expenses and our basic daily rate if you require a face-to-face pre-assignment interview with the sitter, which shall be subject to the sitter’s availability and agreement and is non-refundable – that is if you opt not to conduct such interview at zero cost telephonically, via Skype, WhatsApp or similar media; the dates of the assignment being inclusive unless you require our sitter(s) to start before 10:00 on the first day, in which event this shall (depending on circumstances and in our sole discretion) commence the day before [and include your providing overnight accommodation to our sitter(s)], and/or you return home after 15:00 on the last day, when it shall be deemed to end the following day [again with your providing accommodation to our sitter(s)], and to your being invoiced accordingly; you will give us full and detailed instructions in writing regarding any specifics related to the assignment and more particularly any pets included; you will disclose upfront if any pet of yours may be considered a risk to our sitter or any third party, or if you have CCTV in your home and this may invade the privacy of our sitter(s); you warrant there will no other persons living in your home during the assignment period (unless with our prior written agreement); we may replace your appointed or agreed sitter(s) at any stage before or during an assignment in our sole discretion; our invoice is payable on presentation, in full and in advance of the house and (if applicable) pet sitting assignment(s), with no refund in the event of cancellation by you, or by ourselves on grounds of any breach of these ToS, or unilateral variation by you of assignment dates or terms agreed; the total amount quoted and accepted by you less any dog walking fees and the travel contribution in full (as our minimum agreed pre-liquidated damages) being immediately due and payable upon default or any other breach of these ToS or repudiation of liability on your part as homeowner client; any arrear amount bear interest at the compound rate of 1% per month, from due/default date till date of payment; you are not a party to para 21 below which is solely for the benefit of House and Home Sitters and applicable to its sitters as its subcontractors; you will neither (without our prior written approval) enter into any financial or “in kind” arrangements with our sitter(s), nor make any payments direct to our sitter(s), nor enter any private or direct arrangements with our sitter(s) for future house/pet sitting assignments with the intent to exclude House and Home Sitters (or you will be liable for payment of the full charges as set forth on our website rates page, plus interest as above from the assignment commencement date till date of payment to us); at all times your contract is with House and Home Sitters and not with our sitter(s), who is/are our subcontractor(s) in respect of every services assignment; we may publish a review or any comment(s) made by you concerning our services on our website or Facebook page or Twitter account or Trustpilot or Google or any media; you hereby authorise us to secure any veterinary, emergency or maintenance services considered reasonably necessary by our sitter(s) during your absence from home, for your account; you will ensure the completion of our Homeowner Checklist and give full instructions to our sitter at the commencement of an assignment when “handing over”, including (if applicable) full details pertaining to any pets included in the assignment, and provide your full cooperation to facilitate the assignment proceeding smoothly;
your appointment as a House Sitter for House and Home Sitters is as an independent (sub)contractor (not an employee); a mutually binding contract (and not simply a casual arrangement) with all its legal obligations and consequences arises between you and House and Home Sitters (and our homeowner client) upon your undertaking an assignment, whether verbally or in writing, including electronic mail; you will find someone to do so in your place if for any reason you are perhaps unable to carry out your assignment, which means you will not simply ‘turn your back’ on your contractual commitment; no lease or other such interest in the homeowner client’s property arises; you have only a licence to occupy the homeowner client’s property under these ToS; you must immediately vacate the homeowner client’s property on the termination of the assignment; there is no additional payment to you other than the daily subsistence allowance confirmed by email, travel expense contribution to a maximum of £60, plus the bank holiday surcharge of £10 and dog walking fees in full as paid by the homeowner client; there is no additional payment to you for pet care (including dogs, cats, birds, chickens, lizards, insects, fish and the like) undertaken by you as part of an assignment unless otherwise agreed by us in writing; any calculation or other errors made by us in relation to amounts due to you not being binding on us; you accept the terms of a contract may change, e.g. if the homeowner client cancels the dog walking or changes the assignment dates, and that such changes will be binding on you without any claim for any form of loss, i.e. you agree to be bound by whatever terms are arranged between our homeowner client and House and Home Sitters including cancellation of an assignment; you will be punctual and arrive in good time before the commencement of a house sitting assignment; you will not leave an assignment before its end-date and time except with the prior written approval of House and Home Sitters; you will be responsible for the act of any person invited onto the property by you; you will not cause a nuisance or allow a nuisance to be caused, use or allow the property to be used for any illegal purpose, not interfere or allow others to interfere with the reasonable peace and privacy of neighbours, not sublet the property or any part of this, neither allow any person to live or temporarily stay nor keep any animal at the property other than included in an assignment unless the homeowner client has granted prior permission in writing; you will neither block any sink/drain nor cause or allow any damage to be caused to the property; you will take care of all fixtures and fittings and regularly clean the property unless cleaners are provided by the homeowner client; you will deal with household rubbish and recycling as directed by the homeowner client, report any pest infestation of the property to the homeowner client and take reasonable steps to resolve any such problems, ensure all reasonable security measures are applied by you to safeguard the property and its contents; you will provide – as a material term of this agreement – a daily written progress report to House and Home Sitters by email or WhatsApp and the like, including photos of pets or whatever else may be relevant – and to the homeowner client as often as instructed; you will provide your own food and refreshments during the assignment, do your level best to not be absent from the home of the homeowner client for more than four hours before and more than two hours after sunset, take all reasonable care and follow all instructions of the homeowner client, in particular providing the utmost care and attention to their property, pets and furnishings, respect their privacy and confidentiality which includes not publishing any words or images on social media or otherwise publicising any information or voicing any opinions concerning the homeowner client or their pet(s) without prior written permission from the homeowner client and/or House and Home Sitters, neither publish nor permit to be published any negative comments, images or opinions regarding House and Home Sitters itself; you will notify us immediately of any damage, and not under any circumstances admit liability to any third party (including the homeowner) in respect of any damage, injury or death experienced during your house and/or pet sitting assignment since doing so might invalidate the insurance cover held by us – and may result in you being personally liable for any damages incurred; you will nevertheless as between you and ourselves accept personal responsibility if you/your partner’s/visitor’s negligence or recklessness caused such damages; you accept liability for any loss or damage we may suffer in respect of any breach by you of these ToS or any agreement with the homeowner clients; insofar as not covered by any insurance we hold, you indemnify us for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of a homeowner client or third party bringing any claim against us or taking any action as a result of any breach by you; you will provide honest information as tendered or requested and comply with all these ToS, any breach in this regard being a valid ground in our sole discretion and, as the case may be, for an urgent injunction and/or immediate termination of your house sitter status with or without a claim for damages, including as minimum agreed pre-liquidated damages any amount payable to you by us; this para 21 is solely for the benefit of the website and no other party; the ToS are binding on any person accompanying you as the named house sitter, warranting your authority to bind (as the authorised agent of) such other person(s) accompanying you, to these ToS; you will neither enter into any financial or “in kind” arrangements with our homeowner client, nor accept payment direct from our homeowner client, nor enter any private or direct arrangements with our homeowner client for any house sitting assignment, present or future, which excludes House and Home Sitters (and in default you will liable for damages plus interest thereon – such interest also applicable to any other amounts payable or refundable by you – at the compound rate of 1% per month from the date of commencement of any such house/pet sitting assignment or default date till date of payment); you will always act honestly and diligently in the very best interests of the homeowner client and their pets, uphold the high values and ethical standards of House and Home Sitters; you will always maintain a polite, friendly, service-oriented attitude towards our homeowner clients and their pets, be reliable and trustworthy, ensure towels and bed linen used are left clean (washed) and folded on departure – with the whole property left as clean and tidy as when you entered it; you will be present to hand back the property and pets to the homeowner client – unless otherwise agreed in writing – at the end of an assignment, ensure everything is in order and the homeowner is happy with your services; you will ask the homeowner client to please provide a review of your services for publication on our website and other forums as above; you will provide your bank details to House and Home Sitters for payment direct to your bank account (with any bank or other associated charges, e.g. for payment into an international bank account, being for your own account) at the end of each house sitting assignment – no payments will be made in cash – and, without exception, no payment will be due or made before an assignment has ended to the satisfaction of the homeowner client and ourselves; para 19 shall take precedence but if not applicable, our responsibility to you for any claim arising whilst you are carrying out services shall never exceed the total amount paid us by the homeowner client, or the insurance payout (if applicable and a claim is established) net of the excess, whichever is the greater; and warrant you are legally entitled to work in the United Kingdom;
you, in whatever capacity, have no claim for any indirect, special, incidental, actual, consequential, punitive or exemplary damages, including but not limited to damages related to injury or death (personal or other), loss of travel expenditure, medical or professional services, goods, profits, goodwill, use/loss of use of data or other intangible losses (even if our website, employee, house sitter subcontractor, agent, or homeowner client, has/have been warned against the potential damages), arising from the use of or inability to use our services, the cost of substitute services or goods for any transaction entered through us or our website, unauthorised access or alteration of computer or personal data, statements or conduct of any third party, or any claim relating to our services howsoever arising. Nothing shall exclude a claim based on fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or proved recklessness or gross negligence; you will mitigate any loss or damages;
these ToS constitute the whole agreement between you and our website, with no reliance to be made on any other express or implied representations, whether elsewhere on this website or otherwise (unless separately recorded in writing between the parties concerned);
the laws of England be applicable in the event of any dispute and any disputes shall be heard in the court having jurisdiction over our website; if the parties perhaps agree to arbitration or mediation the decision of the arbitrator or mediator shall be final and binding;
the website may assign any of its rights without notice to any affected party.

Privacy Policy

Introduction

House and Home Sitters Ltd have since inception always had the highest regard for our client, sitter and user data privacy, long before this became fashionable, politically correct, or a legal requirement. We use the very least amount of information required for doing business and making your next visit to our website quicker and easier. Our biggest commitment by far is that we do not, never have, never will, make a single penny from advertising revenue. We thus stay clear of the basic conflict of interest between gathering client info and fueling advertising earnings, with the inevitable compromises in client privacy that brings.

The objective of our policy is to make clear the information we collect on our users, just how we will use it, and also how we will not. This policy is, sadly, longer than we would like, but we must unambiguously deal with all the relevant instances. We have tried to keep the language as easy and direct as possible.

This privacy policy deals with your personally-identifiable information (referred to as ‘data’ below) that may be collected by this site. This policy neither applies to other entities not owned or controlled by our site editor, nor does it apply to persons not employees or agents of the site editor/website owner, or not under the site editor’s control. Please take time to read this website’s Terms of Service (ToS) above.

Collection of data

Our website complies with GDPR-requirements. We will never sell or share your personal data. We hate spam and do our utmost to ensure your privacy needs are always met. We will, however, naturally share your information, contact and other relevant details with our sitters (if you are a homeowner seeking a sitter) or our homeowner clients (if you are a sitter seeking a house and/or pet sitting assignment).

This site requires only what is requested in the registration forms, either as a homeowner requesting a sitter, or an applicant to become a sitter for us. You are not required to provide any other information if you do not wish to do so. As on most websites, the site editor may automatically receive general information that is contained in server log files, such as your IP address, and cookie information.

Use of data

Data may be used to customise and improve your user experience on this site. Efforts will be made to prevent your data being made available to third parties unless (i) as provided in this Privacy Policy; (ii) your consent is first obtained, such as if you choose to opt-in or opt-out for the sharing of data; (iii) a service provided on our site requires interaction with a third party, or is provided by a third party, such as an application service provider; (iv) pursuant to legal action or law enforcement; (v) it is found that your use of this site violates the site editor’s policy, terms of service, or other usage guidelines, or if it is deemed reasonably necessary by the site editor to protect the site editor’s legal rights and/or property; or (vi) this site is purchased by a third party, in which case that third party will be able to use the data in the same manner as set forth in this policy. In the event you choose to use links displayed on this website to visit other websites, you are advised to read the privacy policies published on those sites.

Like most websites, this site sets and uses cookies to enhance and speed up your user experience – to remember your personal settings, for instance.

Minors

The site editor does not allow persons aged eighteen or younger to visit or become members of this site. For more information, please contact the site administrator on info@houseandhomesitters.co.uk.

Editing or deleting your account information

To the extent available, you are able to edit the information stored for your account user information during registration. You can also request that your user account be deleted; to do so, please contact the site administrator as in 4. above. Content or other data you may have provided that is not stored within your user account, such as articles or photos published, may continue to remain on the site at the site editor’s discretion, even after your user account is deleted. Please see the site’s ToS for more information.

Changes to this privacy policy

Changes may be made to this policy from time to time. You may be notified of substantial changes to this policy either by through the posting of a prominent announcement on the site, and/or by a message sent to the email address you have provided, which is stored within your user settings.

No Guarantees

While this privacy policy states standards for maintenance of data, and while efforts will be made to meet the said standards, the site editor is not in a position to guarantee compliance with these standards. There may be factors beyond the site editor’s control that could result in disclosure of data. Consequently, the site editor provides no warranties or representations as regards maintenance or non-disclosure of data.

Contact information

If you have any questions about this policy or about this website, please feel free to contact the site administrator via our Contact Us website page, for attention the administrator.

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