Terms and conditions

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Introduction

This website is operated by Avoca Design Ltd. Throughout the site, the terms “we”, “us”, “Avoca Web Design”, "Avoca Design" and “our” refer to Avoca Design Ltd. Avoca Design Ltd offers this website, including all information, tools and services available from us to you, the user, conditioned upon your acceptance of all terms, conditions, policies and notices stated here.

By visiting our site and/or purchasing something from us, you engage in our “Service” and agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions (“Terms of Service”, “Terms”). If you are using the Services on behalf of an organisation, you are agreeing to these Terms for that organisation and promising to us that you have the authority to bind that organisation to these Terms (in which event, “you” and “your” will refer to that organisation).

Please read these Terms of Service carefully before accessing or using our website or any of our services. By accessing or using any part of the site, or services provided by us, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to all the terms and conditions of this agreement, then you may not access the website or use any services. If these Terms of Service are considered an offer, acceptance is expressly limited to these Terms of Service.

Payment Terms

We are sure you understand how important it is as a business that you pay the invoices that we send you promptly. As we’re also sure you’ll want to stay friends, you agree to stick tight to the payment schedule outlined in any proposals we send or written agreements that we reach (without any deductions, set off or counterclaim).

  • All prices are GST exclusive.
  • For project work with a formal proposal, a deposit is required before starting the work and final payment required before the website goes live online or final project deliverables are completed.
  • Any deposits paid on a contract are non refundable.
  • Work done without a project in place will be charged at our normal hourly rate.
  • All communication and meeting times are chargeable.
  • We reserve the right to change our rate or service charges.
  • Payment terms are strictly 14 days following the invoice.
  • A late payment fee of 10% of the invoiced amount will apply to overdue accounts older than 45 days.
  • Debt collection proceedings will be initiated if no agreement can be reached about invoices that are 60 days overdue.
  • Any costs incurred by us for late payments, including, but not limited to debt collection and or court costs, to recover overdue accounts will be paid by you, (The Client).
  • All hosting payments are paid in advance and are non refundable.
  • Hosting invoices overdue for more than 30 days will result in the immediate suspension and possible termination of the hosting services.
  • If we are forced to suspend hosting services due to non payment of invoices we will not be liable for any loss of income, loss of business or any other damages resulting from the suspension.
  • We reserve the right to charge a reconnection fee after suspension of hosting services.
  • Non payment of invoices will result in the suspension of any ongoing work. We make no guarantee that we can hold to the original timelines provided in this circumstance. We reserve the right to reschedule the resumption of that work as per our current production schedule once payment has been received.

Website Hosting and Technical Support

We provide a high quality web hosting service. Unless you have specified otherwise, we will launch your new website on this service. We ensure this service is fast, reliable, secure and that your website is backed up regularly. We back up the database daily and backup your website files weekly. We can arrange other schedules upon written request. Any issues relating directly to web hosting such as down time, server issues, updating plugins (from the wordpress.org repository or plugins that we hold licences for) or WordPress core, are our responsibility and we will take care of this for you.

If your website contains plugins requiring licences that are not covered by our normal hosting agreement then we will need to either licence them for you and charge you for that licence or you will need to maintain the licences yourself. (A licence means that the plugin receives security and functionality updates). Any security issues arising from these plugins being out of date are not covered by our hosting agreement.

We regularly check for plugins that have been found to have security vulnerabilities or have been removed from the WordPress repository. If your site has one of these plugins we will inform you by email. If you choose not to correct the situation on receipt of that email, and your site dosen’t function as expected or your site gets hacked as a result, this is not covered under our hosting agreement.

We are not responsible for fixing user errors, providing ongoing content updates, technical support or adding functionality unless you purchase one of our website care or growth packages. We provide post launch and email setup assistance for the first 30 days after your website is launched. Assistance after this time is not covered unless you have one of our website care packages. Any time we spend on tasks that are outside the hosting agreement will be charged at our standard support rate.

We reserve the right to move your website to new servers for performance enhancements or security reasons at any time. We do not permit illegal or ‘adult only’ content on our servers and we reserve the right to terminate your hosting agreement immediately if we discover you are engaged in any of these activities.

All website hosting, email and domain name services are invoiced/paid for in advance and are non refundable. We reserve the right to change the hosting pricing with a minimum of 14 days notice.

By hosting your website with us you are agreeing to comply with all our hosting terms and conditions and those of our hosting partners:

GridPane world-class WordPress hosting & care
Cloudflare
Vultr: High Performance SSD Cloud
UpCloud
Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting

As part of the hosting service, we provide access to a number of tools and services that require yearly paid licence renewals. We licence these products exclusively for use on our hosting. We use these licensed products to enhance your website while your website is hosted with us. If either party, you (“the Client”) or Avoca Web Design, terminates your hosting agreement, Avoca Web Design is not obliged to continue licensing any of these products for you. If you choose to continue to use these tools and services you will need to purchase valid licences for any and all products and services you require.

If either party, you, the client, or Avoca Web Design, choose to terminate the hosting agreement for any reason, we will provide a site backup to you. You will be responsible for restoring/migrating the website and any other services provided from the backup provided to your new hosting service provider. We may choose to help you but are not obligated to do so. Any materials, work or services required to facilitate this process, other than the backup, will be charged at our normal service rates.

We reserve the right to terminate the hosting agreement for any reason and will provide you a minimum of 14 days notice of that change. We will always honour the remaining hosting period current paid in advance. Termination for hosting accounts that are overdue by 45 days or more, will have immediate effect.

Data Privacy Policy

Functionality

We can’t guarantee that the functions contained in any web page templates or in a completed website, or web hosting services will always be error-free and so we can’t be liable to you or any third party for damages, including lost revenue, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages arising out of the operation of, or inability to, operate this website and any other web pages, even if you have advised us of the possibilities of such damages. If for any reason, this does not prevail, our liability shall never exceed the amount paid to us by you under this terms of service in the immediate 6 months preceding any notice of claim.

Copyrights

Avoca Design Ltd. does not assume any responsibility or liability for any of the content of the websites it manages, maintains and/or hosts.

The client guarantees to us that any elements of text, graphics, photos, designs, trademarks, or other artwork or content that you (or third parties at your request) provides us for inclusion on any websites we build or host, are either owned by your good selves, or that you have permission to use them and there is no plagiarism involved. It is the clients sole responsbility to check for the required permissions and / or licensing for any provided content. You agree that you will comply with any and all applicable copyright laws in New Zealand (or the country you are based in). Where you are granted permission to use content by the copyright owner or service, you must retain records of this permission for yourselves. We reserve the right to request proof of permission for materials provided to us.

We reserve the right to pause project work if we identify copyright infringment or plagarised materials in content provided to us. Rectifying, replacing or changing provided material is entirely the clients responsibility (or third party acting on behalf of the client).

We retain all intellectual property rights for the project until the final payment has been received. When we receive your final payment, copyright is automatically assigned as follows:

You own the graphics and other visual and design elements that we create for you for any project. We’ll give you a copy of all files on request and you should store them really safely as we are not required to keep them or provide any native source files we used to make them. You also own text content, photographs and other data you provided, unless someone else owns them. Avoca Design Ltd assigns a non exclusive licence to the use of any copyrighted markup, CSS or other code used in your project. You may not sell or redistribute copyrighted code to third parties.

We love to show off our work and share what we have learned with other people, so we reserve the right to display and link to any completed project as part of our portfolio and to write about the projects we have completed on websites, in magazine articles and in books about web design.

Compliance

It is your responsibility, as the client and owner of your business to ensure that any website(s), advertisements digital or printed material and any and all content (such as, but not limited to, design, words, images, products, video, downloads) complies with all relevant legislation, copyright legislation, advertising standards and privacy rules within New Zealand and the countries that you operate in.

Compliance with legislation is entirely your responsibility as the business owner. While we may in good faith help you implement changes to ensure compliance, we cannot be held responsible or liable for past, present or future compliance with the applicable laws.

Any advice we may give verbally or in writing should not be treated as professional legal advice. We are not qualified in this area and you should seek independent professional legal advice on any compliance and liability issues.

It it your responsibility to ensure that your website, its content and all your data collection and storage systems comply with any and all privacy laws applicable to you and your business such as GDPR and any relevant privacy laws in your jurisdiction.

Complying with National and International Privacy Regulations

Complying with privacy and anti spam regulations (e.g. GDPR) is entirely your responsibility. We are not lawyers so we can only give you general guidelines. We cannot guarantee compliance.

Design

If we are designing visual material for a project (website layout design or any graphic design) then the contract includes one main design plus the opportunity for you to make minor revisions. (Please note that any major design changes will be charged at our normal hourly rate.) If you’re not happy with the designs at this stage, you will pay us in full for all of the work that we have produced until that point and you may either cancel your contract or continue to commission us to make further design revisions at our standard design rates.

HTML and CSS Layout Templates (code stuff)

If a project includes HTML markup and CSS templates, we’ll develop these using valid HTML and CSS code. The landscape of web browsers and devices changes regularly and our approach is to look forward, not back. With that in mind we will test all our markup and CSS in current versions of all major desktop browsers to ensure that we make the most from them. Users of older or less capable browsers or devices will experience a design that is appropriate to the capabilities of their software.

We do not cater for people using Microsoft Internet Explorer (any versions) and cannot predict the behaviour of that browser.

We will also test that templates perform well on Apple’s iPad. We will not test old or abandoned browsers, for example Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 9 or earlier, previous versions of Apple’s Safari, Mozilla Firefox or Opera unless otherwise specified. If you need us to consider these older browsers, we will charge you at our standard old browser rate for any necessary additional design work, development and testing.

Changes and Revisions (design and/or content)

We don’t want to limit either your options or your opportunities to change your mind.

The estimate or quoted prices in any Avoca Design Ltd. contract are based on the amount of work we estimate we’ll need to accomplish everything that you have told us you want to achieve.

If you do want to change your mind, significantly change the design, add extra pages or templates or even add new functionality, that won’t be a problem. However, you will be charged accordingly and these additional costs will need to be agreed to before the extra work commences. This additional work will affect deadlines and they will be moved accordingly. We’ll be up front about all of this if and when it happens to make sure we’re all on the same page before proceeding. We may also ask you to put requests in writing so we can keep track of changes.

If the nature or functions of the project change significantly throughout the process, we reserve the right to deem the current project cancelled. At this point you will pay us in full for all the work we have done and may commission us to complete the new project based on the new requirements. This will require a new quote and contract.

Third Party or Client Page Modification

With a WordPress based website, the client will independently edit or update his or her web pages after completion of the site, unless otherwise agreed upon in this agreement by client and Avoca Design

If anyone other than Avoca Design or its subcontractors attempts to update the web site and damages the design or impairs the ability for the web pages to display or function properly, time to repair the web pages will be assessed at our current hourly rate. There is a one-hour minimum.

Contract or service termination

If for some reason one part of an Avoca Design contract becomes invalid or unenforceable, the remaining parts of it remain in place. Although the language is simple, the intentions are serious and this contract is a legal document under exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Zealand.

Either party may terminate an Avoca Design contract under the following circumstances –

  • immediately if the other party becomes insolvent, or appoints a receiver or manager of their assets;
  • immediately if ownership or effective control of the other party is transferred, where such transfer adversely affects the other party’s ability to perform its obligations under this agreement;
  • immediately if either party commits a material breach of the obligations under this agreement and fails to remedy that breach within 21 working days of being notified of that breach.
  • immediately if we find the client in breach of any copyright laws (for content, images or design plagiarism) or other legal violations mentioned above
  • In any of the other specific circumstances as noted in terms & conditions.

In the event of early contract termination by the client, all work done by Avoca Web Design Ltd. up to the point of termination is immediately payable. If no milestone amount is applicable, or it is a milestone or project with an estimated price, work billable will be calculated at our standard rate. As per our payment terms above, deposits, hosting payments or any payments for any services in advance are non refundable.

Refusal of Service or ending of service by Avoca

Avoca Design reserves the right to refuse service to any individual, website, or blogs that contain offensive, obscene, hateful, malicious content or any other reason.

Material contrary to Avoca’s core Values

Avoca Web Design endeavours to adhere to our core values. Particularly our relationship with our clients and our community as expressed by these values:

  • Always be genuine and friendly
  • Celebrate everyone’s successes
  • Take the time to really listen
  • Be kind to others
  • Healthy living

We reserve the right to refuse services or end existing services if we feel that the material, subject matter or the actions of the content owner/business are not in harmony with these core Avoca values.

If there is any ambiguity, Avoca reserves the right to make a judgement call.

In the case of an early termination of existing services due to an Avoca identified clash in values, unused funds for hosting will be refunded. Any other termination reason by the client will non-refundable as per our other terms and conditions.

Force Majure

Stuff happens. We agree to suspend our services under any agreements if we are unable to do so as a result of an act of God or similar circumstances such as a force majeure event. The suspension of service will remain in place until services can be resumed.

Definitions

Agreement

This agreement including the schedules and amendments to those schedules.

Authorised person

The name and position of staff, sub contractors or agents who are authorised to request service under this Agreement.

We

Avoca Design Ltd employees, owners or sub contractors.

You (The Client)

The customer purchasing services under this agreement.

Business day

All other days than Saturday, Sunday, NZ Public Holidays and the days between Christmas and New Year public holidays.

Business hours

The hours between 9.00am and 5.00pm on a business day in New Zealand

Additional charges

The hourly rate at which the customer is charged for additional services not included in this agreement.

Force Majeure event

Circumstances including, but not limited to, interruptions to business such as electrical faults, wind, flood, war, riot, pestilence, industrial action or defaults of manufacturers, suppliers, governments or transport restrictions, i.e. not your common, everyday experiences.

Service

This is what the supplier contracts to do for the customer in terms of the outcome, the service requirement, availability and when it is carried out.