Definitions:
(1) Us or We - Bear Building & Services Ltd, a company incorporated under the Companies Act, registration number 04641346.
(2) You - [The customer]
(3) Collectively the parties .
PREFACE -
We do not advise on the suitability of any goods provided by a client. We do not take responsibility for it being fit for purpose, and inferior product failures leading to remedial works will be chargeable. If we agree to take on your works with you providing materials they shall arrive on site in due course and where necessary. Any delay in schedule due to goods not arriving will be chargeable by us to you at a cost of £480 inc VAT per day or part day where works could not continue due to the circumstances. If you have any deadline clauses with a third party builder/contractor/other acting agent, we shall not be liable to compensate you or them, for any delay in works where goods provided by yourselves have not arrived on site when requested or before commencement where necessary. Where goods are provided by the client and are not on site for reference when first fixing, we shall not be held liable if the product differs from any information/literature given to us by the client , the clients supplier in person or provided online by the supplier of the goods. Where goods are provided by us but cannot be ascertained due to unforeseen circumstances, we shall not be liable to compensate you for any delay. If provided goods are not fit for use immediately after being installed or where defects are found upon installation, additional charges to the quoted price will be applied.
1. By instructing us to carry out any services or to supply you with any materials, you are agreeing to be bound and for the relationship between us to be governed by our standard terms and conditions, such terms and conditions shall prevail over any other terms and conditions. The contract is entered into upon payment of the deposit, as per clauses 17 and 26 below, or in the event that no deposit is required, upon your written/verbal confirmation of acceptance of our quote. Prior to payment of the deposit as per clauses 17 and 26, below, we have no obligation to you to provide any services or otherwise.
2. In the event that any provision(s) or sub-provision(s) of these terms and conditions are held to be, void, illegal, unlawful or unenforceable, then any such provision(s) and/or sub-provision(s) shall be modified to the extent necessary to avoid the same being void, illegal, unlawful or unenforceable. In the event that any such provision or sub-provision cannot be so modified then it shall be severed from the agreement and/or main provision, and the rest of the terms and conditions and/or provision, shall remain binding on the parties and enforceable as if such provision(s) and/or sub-provision(s) had not been included within these terms and conditions.
3. We are not liable to you for, and you may not set off against any sums that you are liable to pay us under this agreement, any loss or damage (excluding death or personal injury) that you suffer as a result of:
(1) Breach by us of any implied term requiring us to perform a service with reasonable care and skill
(2) Breach by us of any implied term requiring any material supplied by us to be of satisfactory quality and/or fit for purposes
(3) Breach by us of any implied term requiring any material supplied by us to meet any particular description or comply with any particular sample supplied
(4) Breach by us of any implied term to perform the agreed services within a reasonable time or within an expressly agreed time
(5) Our negligence and/or breach of any duty of care Unless:
(A) You have notified us of the applicable problem(s) within a reasonable time
(B) In the event that we have responded to your notification and asked for the opportunity to investigate and/or rectify the applicable problem, you have provided us with reasonable co-operation, including but not limited to providing our employees, servants or agents access to the relevant property to investigate the problem, responding to our attempts to contact you in relation to the problem.
(C) You have provided us with evidence in writing, of any loss and damage suffered if requested to do so by us.
(D) We have refused to acknowledge that we have a liability to you or we have failed to make you a reasonable offer of compensation; a reasonable offer of compensation is an offer that is an amount (whether in money or monies worth) which is no less and no more than the amount that you are likely to be awarded by a Court if you commenced legal proceedings against us.
4. In the event that you complain to us about problems with the services and/or materials that we have provided you with, you agree to reimburse us for our costs and expenses in connection with investigating your complaint in the event that there is no genuine defect with the services and/or materials supplied and any one or more of the following apply:
(1) You have made your complaint in bad faith
(2) Your complaint was unreasonable
(3) Your conduct after making the complaint was unreasonable
In which case you agree to indemnify us for our costs (including but not limited to our legal costs) and expenses, this includes the following; £48.00 inc VAT per letter that we write, £144.00 inc VAT per visit that we make.
5. Any waiver of either of the party’s rights under this agreement, variation or addition to, these terms and conditions, must be mutually agreed in writing in order to be effective.
6. The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties Act) 1999 does not apply to this agreement.
7. We cannot accept liability of any work not carried out by ourselves should fittings fail, likely in the case of system upgrade or changes where gravity pressure is being converted to mains water pressure. Any loss/damages arising from such an incident will not be the responsibility of us, however, we can quote for remedial works arising whilst on site. Where other parties have carried out works an we take over from them, you are accepting that given the difficulty in proving who installed or supplied which fittings/pipework/materials that no liability for such can be placed with us. Any involvement of third parties in the services and/or materials that we provide you with and/or your eligibility or otherwise for any government (whether, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, European Union, UK Government, Local Authority) funding, will not affect your liabilities under this agreement and in particular your liability to pay our fees.
8. We will carry out the work set out in your quote for the price that is stated therein, in accordance with these terms and conditions. . Your quote is valid for a determined time specified on the estimate sent to you and we must begin the work within 30 days of this date. After this time your quote will no longer be valid and you will be required to ask for an updated quote, such quote and any work carried out in relation to such quote shall be governed by these terms and conditions.
The quote will specify the work that we have agreed to carry out and/or the services and/or the materials that we have agreed to provide you with; we are not obliged to provide you with any services, work, or materials or incur any disbursements that are not expressly referred to within the quote, save for removal of materials in accordance with the final paragraph of this clause.
Without prejudice to the above paragraph, the price we quote does not include the cost of removing any dangerous waste materials, such as asbestos, that we could not reasonably identify when we gave you your quote. A specialist contractor will remove these dangerous materials or we may be able to arrange for them to be removed at an extra cost. When asbestos is removed you will need to produce a 'site clearance for reoccupation' certificate, which you can get from the asbestos removal company, before we can continue to work at your property.
The price we quote includes removing all non-dangerous materials, including your old boiler and central heating parts we replace. This includes copper tanks and copper pipe and any scrap value therein. Any building work to be carried out by us shall be detailed within the quote.
Any changes to the above quote must be agreed in writing prior to the installation date or whilst on site in the event of emergency unforeseen circumstances, in which case automatically agree to waive your rights to a cooling off period in accepting the price quoted.
9. We may at our absolute discretion, carry out any work, provide you with any services or materials or incur any disbursements that are not included within the quote but which are necessary to enable us to carry out the work and/or provide the services and/or supply the materials, that are included within the quote. Should this occur then you must pay us the amount agreed for such work and/or services and/or materials and/or disbursements, or in the absence of any such agreement, a reasonable amount.
10. If you request and we agree, to, carry out any work, provide you with any services or materials or incur any disbursements that are not included within the quote, you must pay us the amount agreed for such work and/or services and/or materials and/or disbursements, or in the absence of any such agreement, a reasonable amount.
11. Save as is inconsistent with any of the terms and conditions above, these terms and agreements represent the entire agreement between the parties and neither party can rely on any statement or representation not included within these terms and conditions. Nothing in this clause will operate so as to exclude liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, deceit or any other form of dishonesty.
12. Any contract that you enter into with any third party whether to provide funding for our fees for our services or otherwise, does not impose any additional obligations on us nor does it affect your obligations or rights under this agreement.
13. Warranty
Our obligations pursuant to this clause are strictly limited to correcting boiler component failures where such correction is necessary to enable the boiler to function effectively and where it is possible to enable the boiler to function effectively through any such replacement. For the avoidance of doubt the warranty does not apply to any defects with system components other than the boiler, for instance, but not limited to; thermostats, time clocks and motorised valves.
The following are condition precedents for our obligations under this clause:
(1) That the boiler in question has been subject to a service no less frequently than once per year from the date of its installation.
(2) That all annual boiler servicing is carried out by Bear Building & Services Ltd.
(3) That no legal person other than our employee(s), servant(s) or agents, have, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, carried out any service, repair or inspection of the boiler in question.
(4) That you have fulfilled all of your obligations to us under this agreement and/or any other agreement(s) that you have with us.
(5) The Benchmark log book must have been completed by the installer at the point of installation and retained on site by the owner/occupier for inspection during an engineer visit.
(6) Any failure must not be caused by contaminated water or incidents arising from water pressure issue where the manufacturers literature states a purge cycle should be used on filling, if a purge cycle hasn’t been initiated as per the instructions on filling.
(7) You pay a deposit if requested to do so for an engineer visit, prior to any such visit. Such deposit will be repayable in full if the diagnosed fault is covered by the guarantee.
8) Any preventative works recommended by our servicing engineers are carried out within the timescale recommended (if applicable). It is our understanding that you have the benefit of a limited, specified warranty, commencing from the date of the installation of the boiler, provided by the manufacturer, but we give no warranty to you and have no obligations under this agreement in respect, of this; any such warranty is strictly between you and the manufacturer. This clause does not affect your statutory rights.
14. Change of work
If, after placing your order, you want to change the scope of work, you must consult with us first. We may, (but are not obliged to) be able to incorporate your changes into the installation provided that:-
it is technically possible;
we have the necessary resources;
the necessary permissions are in place. If we agree to this change of work you must:
confirm this in writing; and,
do so within 14 days of when you first tell us.
We will then adjust the price:
by written agreement beforehand, if possible; or if not then
by later written agreement; or if not then
by referring to any priced documents, if this applies; or if not then
by a reasonable amount for the work done or goods supplied.
Every change that means extra or revised work or calculations (as opposed to changes that leave something out) may mean extra costs. We will endeavour to keep those costs to a minimum but are aware that things can change from day to day with some jobs and the site specifics. Any changes to works will be charged as per our current pricing system. Currently labour is charged at a minimum of £90 per hour including VAT.
15. We are not liable to you for events or any failure to fulfil our obligations under this Agreement were such events or failure to fulfil our obligations are caused by events that are beyond our reasonable control such as severe weather, riot, civil war or an epidemic of any disease.
16. Deposits On acceptance of your Quotation
We will ask for and you will be required to pay forthwith, the deposit specified in the Quotation, as per clause 26 below. Should you decide to cancel the contract within the cancellation period as set out we will return the deposit, subject to the applicable provisions set out below.
17. Advance payments
We do not normally ask for advanced payments in addition to the deposit referred to above, however under certain circumstances we may require you to pay a further advance payment no more than three weeks before the agreed delivery or installation date. Where we make such a request then we are not obliged to commence work until you have made the full amount of the advanced payment requested. Such a further advance payment, taken together with the deposit, will under no circumstances be more than material cost of the total price in the Quotation and will only be used to carry out this installation, for example to purchase goods. We explain in detail in the Quotation when invoices will be sent and the amount due for each payment. We will not ask you to pay in advance more than the material cost of the total contract price set out in the Quotation.
18. Final Payment
The balance outstanding on the contract price is due on completion and commissioning of the installation. We will issue you with an invoice when the work is complete and has been commissioned.
19. Consequences of late payment or non-payment.
If you fail to pay the amount specified in an invoice by the due date then we may charge interest until the full amount is paid. The interest rate we charge will be 3% above the base rate set by the Bank of England. If you are in breach of this Contract because you have failed to make an agreed payment, we will seek recover any additional costs we incur to enable us to go through any other legal channel for payment. We may require you to return and deliver up the goods to us. Failing this we will take legal proceedings to recover the goods or their outstanding value. Failure to pay an invoice is acceptance that your warranty from us would be void and no liabilities shall arise for anything that may go wrong.
20. Your other obligations to us
You must obtain all relevant permissions (such as planning and building consents) that are necessary before we start work on the installation. If we ask to see those permissions (and related drawings and/or specifications) you must make those available.
We normally lift your carpets, however on some occasions we may need you to lift carpets or take up all or some other floor coverings, including tongue-and-grooved floor coverings and parquet hardwood, rubber or tiled floors, so we can complete the work. You will be notified at technical survey stage if we need you to do this. You can call a specialist contractor to do this work or we may be able to do it for you at an extra cost. If we do any of this work for you we will only not be responsible for any damage caused and it will be your responsibility to put the flooring back once the work is completed.
Your goods/furniture in the property remain the sole responsibility of yourselves. We cannot be held liable for damages arising from moving such furniture if it needs to be moved. Likewise any items left anywhere where they could be easily damaged, you will accept full liability for these. Given that our conditions for work can sometimes be more treacherous, no liability can be taken for items left anywhere where building work is taking place, or around or beneath any openings that we have to use for access to such a site. If there is any doubt about who remains liable for damage should it occur, you should ask us to clarify in writing what we would be responsible for should such events occur.
If you are a tenant, you will need your landlord's permission before you can allow us to start the work. We require the landlord to instruct the work directly with us before commencement for any works. If we carry out work at the landlord's property and you have not got permission or have given us false or inaccurate information, you will compensate us for any losses we suffer because of your failure to get your landlord's permission.
If your property is a listed building, it is your responsibility to make sure that you get any permission you need before we start the work, and we will need evidence from you that you have got this permission. If you do not get the permission you need, you may be prosecuted in the criminal courts. We will not be able to start any work if you have not got the appropriate planning permission or if you are unable to give us evidence that you have this permission. If we carry out work at your property and you have given us false or inaccurate information, you will compensate us for any losses we suffer because of your failure to get the permission you needed, which may include court fines and penalties.
You will need to have an adequate gas and electricity supply to your property before we can start the work. We can advise you on who the relevant people you need to talk to if you require to arrange for a gas meter to be fitted.
You will need to ensure that all responsible persons , tenants, agents, or you as the landlord or homeowner, equip themselves/yourself with the suitable knowledge of boiler filling which is classed as basic necessary maintenance and can typically be carried out by a non-registered person provided no room or case seal is breached in doing so. All of this information can typically be found in the literature and online for varying manufacturers. All calls to boiler failures where a fault code has been provided by the boiler and a purge cycle is required, shall be chargeable. We reserve the right to charge for refilling where a boiler fault code is not provided but where we attend site and carry out internal inspection for leaks within the boiler carcass. We can, however, meet a responsible person on site and demonstrate how to follow the correct procedure to avoid such further instances occurring either whilst installing the boiler or at a later date. We reserve the right to charge for meetings taking pace outside of the installation date where further travel to the site would be necessary. Filling of the boiler does not fall under out warranty as there may be many reasons why the pressure is low and suitable inspections should be carried out to ascertain if there is a cause.
Where appliances with filters, such as taps/showers are installed, we will not be held liable for warranty repair where scale is present within any filters that could have been cleared out by a lay person. Any damages arising from such will not be held accountable to us or our insurers.
21. Supply of services
You must agree to provide the following for our use free of any charge:
water, washing facilities and toilets;
adequate storage space;
safe and easy access to your property from the public highway;
easy access to the location within the property where the installation is to take place by removing all belongings.
You, or a contractor you employ, may need to carry out preparatory work before the installation described in the Quotation can start. If so, we will describe this to you in writing. This work must be finished before the agreed date on which installation work is due to start. This work must be undertaken by competent persons and must be of the necessary quality for the installation. If this preparatory work is not finished before the agreed date on which the installation is due to start, the following conditions will apply. We will seek to accommodate small delays without recourse to compensation.
However, if the work is delayed or lasts longer than expected for any reason within your control, we will adjust the price accordingly,
by written agreement beforehand, if possible; or if not then
by later written agreement; or if not then,
by referring to any priced documents, if this applies; or if not then by a reasonable amount for the work done or goods supplied
22. Using personal information
We may use your information to do the following:
Provide you with the services you have asked for (servicing or Care Plan )
Help train our staff.
Contact you in any way including by post, email, phone, text message or other forms of electronic communications.
When we contact you, we may use any information we hold about you to do so. If we are contacting you to tell you about any offers, we will, as far as possible, do this in line with how you have told us you would prefer to receiving marketing information (your recorded marketing preferences). You can ask us not to send you any information on our offers at any time. If you give us sensitive information about yourself or other people (such as health details) you must agree (and also confirm that the person the information is about has agreed) that we can use this information in the way set out in this document.
You are entitled to have a copy of the information we hold on you and to have any inaccurate information corrected. We may charge a small fee for providing a copy of any information we hold about you.
23. Right to Cancel
You have a right to cancel this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. The cancellation period will expire after 14 days from the conclusion of the contract. To exercise the right to cancel, you must inform us, Bear Building & Services Ltd, 111 Finch Lane, Knotty Ash, Liverpool, L14 9PY email: richard@bearservices.co.uk, telephone:07900498553, of your decision to cancel this contract via a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent by post, or email).
Cancelling a contract within a 72 hour period prior to the commencement of work may, at our discretion, result in the loss of your paid deposit, specified in the quotation.
You may use any attached model cancellation form, but it is not obligatory. 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.
Effects of cancellation
If you cancel this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, excluding the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you choose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us). We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is a result of handling by you, which is beyond what is necessary to establish the nature and/or characteristics and/or functioning of the goods, or, if we have a restocking charge placed upon us by our suppliers.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than –
(a) 14 days after the day we receive back from you any goods supplied, or
(b) (if earlier) 14 days after the day you provide evidence that you have returned the goods or
(c) If there were no goods supplied, 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to cancel the contract
We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of the reimbursement. This will exclude the cost of any items ordered with special terms placed upon is by our suppliers.
Cancellation less than 48 hours before commencement may result in the loss of any deposit.
Cancellations made within 24 hours of commencement will indefinitely result in the loss of deposit.
Cancellation of any jobs scheduled and agreed by the client or someone on behalf of the client, such as a tenant or other acting agent will result in a missed call appointment charge of £54 inc VAT where the appointment is not cancelled at least 24 hours before the appointment time and date. In the event of a property being tenanted, the landlord will be liable for the charge and must seek to claim this amount back from the tenant should they wish to recover it. This charge will not be limited and can be applied as many times as necessary where appointments are rescheduled by the occupant of the property in line with above stated policy. We will only seek missed appointment charges back from the landlord or via the acting agents of the landlords where applicable.
We may waive such charges at our discretion.
24. Your rights
As detailed above, you can cancel this contract by sending us written notice no later than 14 days after the date on which this contract entered into. If you cancel this Contract after the period referred to above then you may have to pay compensation for costs or losses reasonably incurred.
25. Our rights
If you are in serious breach of your obligations as set out in this Contract and you fail to remedy that breach within 7 days of receiving written notice from us about that breach, then we have a right to cancel the contract. We must give you reasonable opportunity to rectify the alleged breach. If we suffer a loss as a result of your breach of contract, we must take reasonable steps to prevent the loss from getting worse. If your breach of contract leads to a cancellation then you may have to pay compensation for reasonable costs or losses reasonably incurred.
26. Acceptance of Proposal
If you wish to accept the quote and proceed then you must arrange immediate payment of your deposit in one of the following ways;
Cash payments can be collected from site with a receipt being provided via email upon collection.
We also accept credit card or debit card payment via Stripe. This transaction can be done using a link provided via email either upon a deposit request or your final invoice.
Paying by BACS
Santander
Sort Code -09-06-66 Account - 42565498
VAT Registration 403 2270 50
27. Service Plan Terms & Conditions
It is important that you read these Terms & Conditions carefully in conjunction with your Service Plan.
Together these form Your agreement with Us.
This cover is available in the specified postcodes only and at the property address provided only.
This is an agreement between You and Us. It is not a contract of insurance or an insurance policy.
Service plans for gas boilers are only applicable for natural gas/hydrogen blend boilers.
When you sign up to our service plan you are paying a reduced annual service cost charge. If you sign up to a service plan for the following year in lieu of a current service plan, you will be offered this discounted rate on this years service. The discounted rate shall only be applied if a service plan is actioned for the following 12 month period. Where the plan is cancelled within that 12 months you agree to forego any monies paid for the contract period and the difference between the discounted rate and the full rate for the original service you received as you will be deemed to be in breach of agreement and/or contract.
Our service plan provides a convenient method of budgeting for routine servicing. It is not a boiler warranty/insurance plan or cover for replacement components and covers only the components listed on our service plan page. Any additional components that may be found to be defective during a service will incur additional parts and labour charges and will always be quoted for either verbally, via text or an email quote before commencement of any repair works.
All services will be carried out to the manufactures specification and stated standards within their installation and service manual literature.
Where heating system filters need to be cleaned, any damage/breakages to the filter assembly deemed to be the result of worn components or agedmaterials, we shall not be liable to replace/repair this at our cost.
Where appliances are already suffering from heavy scale build up due to a lack of maintenance prior to this service plan additional charges may apply for the extra labour involved in the effective cleaning of the product.
When servicing a boiler it is necessary to remove components that are close to, or may touch, other components. Where these components are deemed too have become “brittle” through use/over time, these may break. You accept that we have no liability for costs arising to replace these components, or any damage that may arise from these components failing.
Where the product cannot be effectively cleaned due to a prior lack of maintenance your service charge will not be refunded and your boiler may be isolated from the gas supply in accordance with the gas safety installation and use regulations. (GSIUR)
The service plans allow payment in advance for the selected package to be carried after the last of the 12 monthly payments has been received.
Cancelling the policy within the paid time period will mean you knowingly forego your service contract and we shall not carry out any works under the agreement.
In cancelling within the paid time window you accept that any monies paid to Us by You will be non-refundable under the agreement.
You can cancel your service plan within 28 days of commencement for a full refund
You shall make yourself or someone available at the property for the appliance to be service during our normal working hours, Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm, excluding bank holidays.
In some instances we may choose to not take an appliance on a service contract, or, we may ask that the appliance is serviced in full by ourselves before we commence the agreement at a cost to yourself. This is to ensure that the appliance is in a suitable condition to be accepted on to the service package and isn’t suffering from several years of no/minimal maintenance.
We aim to provide a first class service at all times. However, if you have a complaint or dispute this should be communicated to us in the first instance by contacting richard@bearservices.co.uk.
You should state in the subject that the nature of the email is a complaint to enable us to distinguish between complaints and queries. We accept correspondence in English only.
If You need independent advice, The Citizens Advice, consumer service gives free, confidential and impartial advice. You can get in touch with them at any time during the complaint process:
General Conditions
Your information will be held by Us for the purpose of providing You the Services outlined in the Service Plan. Your details will not be used by us for marketing purposes. You consent to us contacting You by phone, text or email.
Your plan is solely for the benefit of You and cannot be transferred or assigned to anybody else. The provisions of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 do not apply. Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights.
This Service Plan is not an insurance product and We are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
In the event it is found that You have acted fraudulently We will cancel Your plan without servicing any Appliance and no refund will be provided.
We aim to carry out all service plans within a reasonable amount of time after the final payment. If We expect delays, We will inform You of the likely completion date.
These Terms and Conditions, and any dispute or claim (including non-contractual disputes or claims) arising out of or in connection with it or its subject matter or formation shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the law of England and Wales.
We shall not be in breach of these Terms and Conditions nor liable for delay in performing, or failure to perform, any of Our obligations under these Terms and Conditions if such delay or failure results from events, circumstances or causes beyond Our reasonable control.
Service plans payments are carried out via GoCardless Ltd and will appear as such on your bacnk statements with the reference BearBuilding.
Please read this document carefully. We aim to have the best possible relationship with all our customers, and this document will help you understand how we work. If you have any questions, please let us know before you accept the quote. Bear Building & Services Limited, is a company incorporated under the Companies Act (registration number 04641346) having its registered office at 111 Finch Lane Knotty Ash, Liverpool, L14 9PY.