A set of business terms written for the way you sell is a fixed £695 +VAT. Your terms decide who carries the loss when something goes wrong.
Terms and conditions are the document most often borrowed from another website. That is how a services business ends up trading on terms written for a shop, complete with a returns policy for goods it does not sell.
Borrowed terms were written to protect a different business from a different risk.
Send it, even if it is a page inherited from a previous owner or a paragraph at the bottom of an invoice. Your existing terms show how you sell day to day, so starting from them is faster and more accurate than starting from a template. If what you have does the job, you hear that first, and it costs less.
Terms do not have to be signed to bind. They do have to be in front of the customer before the contract is made. Terms printed on the back of an invoice sent after the work is done are usually too late.
A reference to your terms in a quotation the customer accepts.
BindsA tick-box at checkout, or an order form the customer signs.
BindsTerms on the back of an invoice, sent once the work is done.
Too late
What counts as fair notice depends on how you sell. A tick-box at checkout, a reference in a quotation the customer accepted, and a signed order form each work in different circumstances.
We cover how to put your terms in front of a customer at the right moment for the way you trade, as well as what they say.
Payment terms, what triggers the obligation to pay, and whether you charge interest on late payment. Terms that say nothing about late payment leave your right to statutory interest in place. Terms that say the wrong thing can replace that right with something worse.
A liability cap limits what you pay when something goes wrong. If it is drafted too aggressively, a court will not uphold it, and you have no cap at all.
If you produce designs, code, copy or reports, your terms decide whether the client owns the work, licenses it, or owns it only once they have paid.
Cancellation, what is payable for work already done, and how either side ends the relationship. Consumers have cancellation rights set by law. Your terms cannot take those away, only explain them.
Business-to-business terms are largely what the two sides agree. Selling to the public brings in rules that your terms cannot switch off.
One set of terms trying to cover both is either unenforceable against your consumer customers or needlessly restrictive with your business ones. Plenty of businesses sell both ways without realising it. Say so at the outset and the work covers both.
+VAT for one set of terms, for a business selling one way. It is a starting price, and any change is agreed in writing before work begins.
These make it a bigger job, and you get the figure first.
You sell to businesses and consumers, or run two distinct product lines.
Renewals and cancellations need their own terms.
Customers abroad bring their own rules into the sale.
Your terms have to fit around a client’s own contract.
Drafting and explaining terms of business is not a reserved legal activity. Work carried out by AD Solicitors carries the full SRA framework, including the compensation fund and the Legal Ombudsman. Work we carry out ourselves does not.
If your terms are already being argued about with a customer, that is a dispute, and it goes to AD Solicitors (SRA no. 8011228) where it needs to. If the argument is about an unpaid invoice, Business Debt Recovery — a trading style of Buzz Legal — prices that work separately.
Buzz Legal handles contracts, terms of trade, employment paperwork and dispute preparation. Court work, and the other activities reserved by law, are carried out by AD Solicitors, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (no. 8011228), and you are told which yours is before you spend anything. How this works, in full. For advice on your own situation, send us your terms.
A fixed £695 +VAT for one set of terms covering the way you sell now, agreed in writing before anything starts. That includes payment terms, liability and limitation clauses drafted to be enforceable, ownership of any intellectual property you produce, and cancellation. It is a starting price. Separate terms for business and consumer customers, subscription or SaaS billing, or selling outside the UK all make it a bigger job, and you get a revised figure before work begins.
You can. The risk is that the terms were written to protect a different business from a different risk. Borrowed terms can include a returns policy for goods a services business does not sell, a liability cap unrelated to what the business earns, and payment terms nobody follows. The wording is also somebody's copyright.
Terms and conditions govern the sale — what you are supplying, when you get paid, who carries the risk, what happens if either side pulls out. Terms of use govern your website: acceptable use, disclaimers on the content, and the limits of what visitors can do with it. They are different documents doing different jobs, and a business that sells online generally needs both, plus a privacy notice if it collects any personal data, which a contact form does.
Not necessarily. They do have to be brought to the customer's attention before the contract is made. Terms printed on the back of an invoice sent after the work is done are usually too late. What counts as adequate notice depends on how you sell — a tick-box at checkout, a reference in a quotation the customer accepted, or a signed order form each work in different circumstances. The job includes telling you how to issue them, as well as what they should say.
If you sell both ways, yes. Consumer sales bring statutory cancellation rights, the unfair terms regime and pre-contract information duties that you cannot contract out of. Business sales are largely what the two sides agree, subject to limits on excluding liability. One set of terms trying to cover both is either unenforceable against your consumer customers or needlessly restrictive with your business ones. Tell us at the outset and the work covers both.
That is common, and it is a contract review, a different job from drafting. Whoever's terms end up governing the deal decides who carries the loss when something goes wrong, so know what you are agreeing to before you sign. A contract review is a fixed £249 +VAT and covers exactly that: what their document does to you, and which clauses to push back on. In practice the answer is often that two or three clauses matter and the rest are fine.
Send your current terms, or a line on how you sell if you have none. You get back whether they do the job, what is missing, and one fixed price to put it right. See the privacy policy for how we use your details.
We write one set of terms for the way you sell, for a fixed £695 +VAT agreed in writing before the work starts.
