From time to time these terms and conditions may be reviewed and amended. An up-to-date copy of our terms and conditions may be found on the Adept website (www.adeptdesign.co.uk).
General
These terms and conditions regulate the relationship between the customer (“the Customer”) and Adept Design (Norfolk) Limited (“Adept”) and apply to the ordered website hosting and associated services (“the Service”).
Billing and Payment
All prices are quoted in Great British Pounds and all payments shall be made in Great British Pounds. This agreement is subject to the jurisdiction of English law.
All prices exclude VAT unless otherwise specified. VAT will be charged at the prevailing rate when an invoice is raised by Adept to the Customer.
Payment for the Service is due in advance. Invoices are due and payable within 30 days of the date of issue. In the event the Customer’s account becomes past due, or is otherwise deemed insecure, Adept may, at its sole discretion, suspend, interrupt or disconnect the Service.
Term and Renewal
The Service is subject to a minimum term of 12 months. In order to ensure continuity of service, Adept will automatically renew the Service for a further period of 12 months at the end of each term, unless otherwise notified in advance, in accordance with the cancellation policy.
Cancellation Policy
The Customer may terminate this agreement by giving Adept at least 90 days written notice. However, the Customer remains obligated to pay all amounts remaining in the current term.
Any termination by the Customer or Adept shall not relieve the Customer of any obligation to pay fees accrued prior to such termination.
Fees
The fees for the Service will be outlined to the Customer in a written quotation from Adept.
Where fees are quoted as an annual price, fees will be invoiced annually, in advance. Where fees are quotes as a monthly price, fees will be invoiced quarterly, in advance.
Any additional fees accrued by the customer in relation to the Service will be added to the next invoice produced by Adept.
Adept reserve the right to vary prices between renewal dates; the Customer will be informed in advance of any changes. New prices will apply from the start of the next term of service. The Customer is under no obligation to renew the Service with Adept, however there will be a charge for any time spent by Adept in facilitating transfers, and the Customer must assume responsibility for ensuring site compatibility and for any disruption. Some facilities of the Customer’s website may cease to function correctly on some hosting platforms due to situations beyond our control.
Resource Usage
The Customer will be provided with an account with specified disk space and data transfer allocations.
The disk space used by the account includes all files related to the website, including but not necessarily limited to email storage, Content Management System files, and log files. If the Customer fills their disk space allowance, certain facilities such as email and some CMS systems may fail to operate properly. The Customer will be sent a warning email if their usage exceeds 80% of the designated limit.
The data transfer use is a measure of all data transfer both inbound and outbound from the Customer’s account. This includes data transfer used for HTTP, Email and FTP purposes. In order to ensure continuity of service should a spike in traffic occur, Adept will not limit data transfer usage, however should the Customer exceed the designated data transfer allowance, additional fees will be charged. The Customer will be sent a warning email if their usage exceeds 80% of the designated limit.
Unless otherwise arranged, the Service will run from a server shared by a number of customers. The Customer must not run, or allow to be run, any system intensive processes that could potentially affect the level of service provided to other customers of the system. Should Adept find a Customer is using a disproportionate amount of system resources, Adept reserves the right to remove or disable the offending facility, or if necessary the offending site.
Data Transfer Overages
If the Customer exceeds the allocated amount of data transfer for their Service in any calendar month, additional data will be charged at the following rates:
First 1Gb per month: £7.50 (or part Gb) Next 24Gb per month: £2 per Gb (or part Gb) Any additional overage: £1.50 per Gb (or part Gb)
Additional data transfer will be billed monthly in arrears, however if outstanding charges total less than £60 Adept will collate these charges until either £60 of charges are accrued, or the next invoice related to the Service is issued.
Disk Space Overages
Disk space usage is recorded daily. If the Customer exceeds the allocated amount of disk space for their Service on more than 2 days in any calendar month, additional storage will be charged based on the peak usage at £2.50 per 100mb (or part of) per month.
Additional disk space charges will be billed monthly in arrears, however if outstanding charges total less than £60 Adept will collate these charges until either £60 of charges are accrued, or the next invoice related to the Service is issued.
Refunds Policy
The Service is subject to a minimum term and billed in advanced, therefore no refunds of fees paid will be possible. The Customer is under no obligation to continue the service, as long as the required notice is provided to Adept before the current agreement lapses.
Access to the Service
Hosting services provided by Adept are on a “Fully Managed” basis, unless otherwise agreed in advance in writing.
The Customer shall have no access to FTP accounts or hosting control panels unless agreed with Adept, and a waiver of liability is signed.
Where the Customer also has a Content Management System provided by Adept, access to the functionality of the system will not be limited. Adept will not be responsible for any damage or mistakes made by the Customer through the use of this system.
Configuration of the hosting, beyond the initial setup will be subject to additional charges, unless the Customer has purchased a hosting package which includes this service.
Transfer of Services
Should the Customer wish to transfer their service to another provider, access to the hosting account will be provided for a limited period of time for the purpose of facilitating this transfer. The Customer will be required to sign a waiver before access details are provided. Access to the hosting account by the Customer will invalidate any outstanding warranty or support service offered by Adept.
Any assistance required to facilitate the transfer of service beyond the provision of usernames and passwords to access the account will be charged at our standard hourly rates for system administration.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Adept will be responsible for maintaining backups of the Customers data for the purpose of disaster recovery with all hosting services offered. In the event of hardware failure, Adept will ensure data is restored to the latest state stored in its backups. Please note this may result in some data loss as backups are not carried out in real time.
Additional, more regular backup services may be offered as a supplementary service as part of a support agreement.
Should the Customer request that data be recovered for any other reason, such as accidental deletion of data, this will be charged at our standard hourly rates for system administration unless otherwise covered by a support agreement.
Acceptable Use Policy
Under no circumstances is unlawful or immoral material acceptable within our hosting network.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- No pornographic or adult oriented materials, or links to such material
- No pirated software, or links to such material
- No hackers programs, archives or links to such material
- No warez sites or links to such material
- No content that may be considered prejudicial or abrasive to an individuals race, creed, colour our sex
- No business of any illegal nature may be transacted on our servers
- Any attempts to undermine or cause harm to our network or a customer of ours is strictly prohibited
Adept do not allow spamming or unsolicited email to be sent from our servers, or to be sent referring to any domain name or email address maintained on our servers.
Outgoing email will be limited to 1000 emails per hour in order to prevent abuse. Bulk email may only be sent via designated services provided to the Customer by Adept.
If any unacceptable content is found on the Customers website Adept will take steps to ensure its prompt removal. If for any reason Adept are unable to remove the specific unacceptable content, it may be necessary to suspend access to the whole website. The Customer will be kept informed of any action taken against their account.
Refusal of service
Adept reserve the right to refuse, suspend or cancel service at any time. Violation of any rules and regulations could result in a warning, suspension, or possible account termination. Accounts terminated due to policy violations will not be refunded.
If it is necessary for Adept to suspend the Customer’s service for any reason, Adept reserve the right to charge a reconnection fee to cover the time spent in administering the suspension.
Indemnity
The Customer shall indemnify Adept and keep Adept indemnified and hold Adept harmless from and against any breach by the Customer of these terms of business and any claim brought against Adept by a third party resulting from the provision of services by Adept to the Customer and the Customer’s use of the services and the server including, without limitation, all claims, actions, proceedings, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, expenses (including reasonable legal costs and expenses), howsoever suffered or incurred by Adept in consequences of the Customer’s breach or non-observance of any of the terms of this agreement.
Availability and Up-time guarantees
Adept will endeavour to provide a continuous and uninterrupted service. Adept guarantees a minimum service availability of 99.5% over any 12 month period to all customers on our “Starter Hosting” service. Customers who take a “Managed Hosting” package are guaranteed 99.9% availability.
Should availability fall below the guaranteed level, the Customer shall have the right to request a credit on their next invoice for the Service, corresponding to 5 times the Service charge for the period of the interruption.
Standard Technical Support Services (Bronze Support Package)
Adept will offer technical support to the Customer, in relation to the Service, included in the cost of the Service.
This technical support will be provided by email or through a web based ticketing system, and will be available between 9am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, not including public holidays. Adept guarantees a response time of no more than 48 hours to all issues.
Technical support will cover any issues to do with the availability of the Service, including supplementary services such as Email. Adept will additionally provide the Customer with support in using Adept provided systems such as a Content Management System for the first 12 months of service.
Adept will not be responsible for assisting the Customer with faults/configuration of their own equipment, even if such faults prevent the Customer from accessing the Service provided by Adept.
Enhanced Technical Support Services (Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond Packages)
For an additional fee, enhanced technical support services may be offered which provide a higher level of service. A full schedule of these services is available on request.
Under such arrangements, Adept may provide the Customer with support by telephone in addition to the email/web based ticket methods offered by the standard service, depending on the level of service selected. Enhanced technical support services will also be offered with faster response times, depending on the level of service selected.
Enhanced technical support services are only available for purchase with a hosting package. If these services are required separately, an additional charge of £500 per year will be made on top of the prices quoted.
15 White Hart Street, Aylsham, Norwich, Norfolk NR11 6HG