Terms of Service

1. About these terms

These terms (together with our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Acceptable Use Policy) govern your use of sandbanksdigital.com and any services we provide.

Services delivered to clients are governed by a separate signed statement of work (SOW) or services agreement which prevails where it conflicts with these terms.

2. Who we are

Sandbanks Digital Ltd is a Dorset-based web studio, registered in England and Wales. Trading address: Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom. Email: contact@sandbanksdigital.com. Telephone: +44 7703 718828.

3. Services we provide

We design, build, host and maintain websites and bespoke web applications for businesses. Our services include:

• Bespoke website design and development.
• Custom web applications, customer portals, SaaS MVPs and internal tools.
• E-commerce build and management.
• Search engine optimisation (SEO) retainers.
• Hosting, maintenance, monitoring and ongoing support.

4. Hosting, code and intellectual property

Our hosting model. Every website and application we deliver is hosted on infrastructure we manage. This is not a code-handover arrangement. The source code, build pipeline, hosting environment and operational tooling we create as part of delivering your project remain the property of Sandbanks Digital and are licensed to you for use through your monthly retainer.

What you own. You retain ownership of your brand assets, copy, photography, customer data and trading name. Anything you supplied to us, or that is uniquely identifiable as yours, remains yours.

What we license to you. While your retainer is active, you have a non-exclusive licence to use the website or application we built for you for the purposes of running your business. The licence covers public-facing access, internal staff use, and customer use.

If the retainer ends. We will export your content, customer data and brand assets in a portable format on request. We will assist in migrating your domain to another provider. The custom code, hosting setup and tooling we built remain our property and are not transferred.

5. Fees and payment

Upfront fees, monthly retainers and project-scoped quotes are agreed in writing before work begins. Standard payment terms are 14 days from invoice date unless otherwise agreed in your SOW.

Late payment. Overdue invoices may accrue interest at the rate set by the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. We reserve the right to suspend hosting or maintenance services on accounts more than 30 days overdue, with notice.

Refunds. Upfront deposits are non-refundable once work has commenced. Monthly retainers are billed in advance and are non-refundable for the current month. Cancellation requires 30 days' written notice.

6. Cancellation and termination

Either party may end an ongoing retainer with 30 days' written notice for any reason. For fixed-scope projects, the contract ends on delivery of the agreed scope and payment of the final invoice.

We may end the agreement immediately if you breach these terms, our Acceptable Use Policy, or fail to pay invoices that remain overdue 60 days after the due date.

7. Warranties and disclaimers

We deliver our services with reasonable skill and care. We do not guarantee specific outcomes such as ranking positions, traffic volumes, conversion rates or commercial results — these depend on many factors outside our control.

Hosting uptime targets, where offered, are documented in your individual service agreement.

This website itself is provided “as is” and “as available” for general information only. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all implied warranties in relation to the website and its content, and we do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted, error-free or free of harmful components. Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights as a consumer where they apply.

8. Your responsibilities and indemnity

Where you supply us with content, materials, data or instructions, you confirm that you own them or have the necessary rights and permissions to use them, and that they do not infringe the rights of any third party or breach any law. You are responsible for the accuracy and legality of everything you provide and of the content you publish through services we host for you.

You agree to indemnify us against any claims, losses, damages, costs and reasonable legal fees we incur arising from content or materials you supply, from your use of the services in breach of these terms or our Acceptable Use Policy, or from your breach of any applicable law.

9. Third-party services and dependencies

Our services rely on third-party platforms and infrastructure (for example hosting, domain registrars, payment processors, content delivery networks and software libraries). We are not responsible for the acts, omissions, outages, price changes or discontinuation of services provided by these third parties, although we will use reasonable efforts to mitigate any disruption. Your use of third-party services may be subject to their own terms.

10. Data protection

Each party will comply with applicable data protection law, including UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Where we process personal data on your behalf as part of hosting or maintaining your site or application, we do so as your processor under your instructions, and appropriate data-processing terms will form part of your service agreement. Where we determine the purposes of processing (for example our own enquiry, client and prospect records), we act as controller — see our Privacy Policy. You are responsible for ensuring you have a lawful basis and any required notices and consents for personal data you ask us to process.

11. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.

Subject to that, our total aggregate liability under or in connection with the services in any 12-month period — whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise — is limited to the total fees paid to us under the agreement in that 12-month period.

We are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of business, loss of goodwill, loss of anticipated savings, or loss of or damage to data, in each case whether direct or indirect. You are responsible for keeping your own backups of any content and data you consider important.

12. Confidentiality

Each party agrees to keep confidential any non-public information shared during the engagement. We may reference your project publicly (e.g. case studies, social posts, portfolio) only with your prior written approval.

13. Force majeure

Neither party is liable for failure or delay in performing its obligations (other than payment obligations) caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including failures of third-party networks or hosting, power or internet outages, cyber-attacks, strikes, acts of government, fire, flood or other natural events.

14. Website use

This website is provided for general informational purposes only. We may update or change it at any time. You agree not to misuse it (see our Acceptable Use Policy).

15. General

• Variation. We may update these website terms from time to time; the version published here applies to your use of the site. Changes to client service terms are agreed in your service agreement.
• Severability. If any provision is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force.
• Waiver. A failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your rights under these terms without our written consent. We may assign our rights to a successor of our business.
• Entire agreement. These terms and your signed service agreement form the entire agreement between us and supersede any prior discussions.
• Third parties. No one other than you and us has any right to enforce these terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

17. Contact

Email contact@sandbanksdigital.com or call +44 7703 718828 with any questions.