Terms and Conditions

Definitions: 

The Client : The company or individual requesting the services of Sparx Group Limited.

Sparx Group Limited: Company owner & employees or affiliates. 

General

Sparx Group Limited will carry out work only where an agreement is provided either by email, telephone, mail or fax. Sparx Group Limited will carry out work only for clients who are 18 years of age or above. An 'order' is deemed to be a written or verbal contract between Sparx Group Limited and the client, this includes telephone and email agreements.

Sparx Group Limited reserves the right to update these terms and conditions at any time without any notice. 

Domain Names

Sparx Group Limited will charge annually for domain names, and all property of the domain name is totally owned by the client. At any time a request may be made for a UDAI key which will allow you to transfer your domain name to another party.We will hold and manage your domain name but all property continues to be owned by the client.

If a domain name invoice does not get paid, Sparx Group Limited does not take and responsibility for disruption of services for this. You will remind an email reminder requesting you renew and pay for your invoice, but ultimately it is the clients responsibility to ensure that it has been renewed.

In the case that a client would like to move their domain name to another provider, Sparx Group Limited reserves the right to hold domain names until their outstanding account has been paid in full.

Web Design

Whilst every endeavor will be made to ensure that the website and any scripts or programs are free of errors, Sparx Group Limited cannot accept responsibility for any losses incurred due to malfunction, the website or any part of it.

The website, graphics and any programming code remain the property of Sparx Group Limited until all outstanding accounts are paid in full.

Any scripts, cgi applications, php scripts, or software (unless specifically agreed) written by Sparx Group Limited remain the copyright of Sparx Group Limited and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of Sparx Group Limited.

Sparx Group Limited cannot take responsibility for any copyright infringements caused by materials submitted by the client. We reserve the right to refuse any material of a copyrighted nature unless adequate proof is given of permission to use such material.

Any additions to briefs provided will be carried out at the discretion of Sparx Group Limited and where no charge is made by Sparx Group Limited for such additions, Sparx Group Limited accept no responsibility to ensure such additions are error free and reserve the right to charge an according amount for any correction to these or further additions.

The client agrees to make available as soon as is reasonably possible to Sparx Group Limited all materials required to complete the site to the agreed standard and within the set deadline.

Sparx Group Limited will not be liable for costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the failure to meet agreed deadlines.

Sparx Group Limited will not be liable or become involved in any disputes between the site owner and their clients and cannot be held responsible for any wrongdoing on the part of a site owner. eg. Any disputes re content/images that have been provided to us for inclusion on the site. 

Sparx Group Limited will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the work carried out on behalf of the client or any of the clients appointed agents.

Sparx Group Limited will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the unavailability of the site, its servers, software or any material provided by its agents.

All website packages require payment up front before any design and development work will be carried out unless otherwise stated by Sparx Group Limited. This figure may be higher for websites of an adult nature and is non-refundable. 

Web Hosting

While Sparx Group Limited will do their best to ensure that our servers have the maximum percentage of up-time, No guarantees can be made as to the availability or interruption of this service by Sparx Group Limited and cannot accept liability for losses caused by the unavailability, malfunction or interruption of this service, or for loss of turnover, sales, revenue, profits or indirect, consequential or special loss.

Sparx Group Limited reserve the right to refuse to handle in any way, material which may be deemed offensive, illegal or in any way controversial, and also to terminate any clients hosting service should the necessity arise. 

SEO and Internet Marketing

Due to external factors, such as changes to the way search engines rank websites, we cannot offer any guarantees regarding the position we will achieve for websites. The process of optimizing websites itself will bring in more traffic and hits and you'll see visits increase to your site naturally. We cannot accept liablility for any change in rankings, or drop off in the position of your website due to changes in the algorithms of the search engines or the factors that they use to rank websites.

We use 'white hat techniques' when optimizing websites and always aim to achieve a top ten ranking for your website within six months of undertaking the optimization process. Due to the work involved payment is required in advance and we are unable to offer a refund of any moniesto clients in relation to this type of work. 

Sparx Group Limited reserve the right to refuse to handle in any way, material which may be deemed offensive, illegal or in any way controversial.

ShopMate and SiteMate Platforms

Sparx Group Limited cannot take responsibility for any losses incurred by the use of any of our web platforms. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure our platforms are problem free and accurate, the ultimate responsibility lies with the client in ensuring that all software is functioning correctly before use. 

Our web based platforms (unless specifically agreed) written by Sparx Group Limited remain the copyright of Sparx Group Limited and may not be commercially reproduced or resold unless with the permission of Sparx Group Limited.

Our web based platforms are based on open source technologies, but customizations and our themes remain commercial and may not be duplicated, or used on any other server other then our own without a license and written consent to do so from Sparx Group Limited.

The client is expected to test fully any application or programming relating to a site developed by Sparx Group Limited before being made generally available for use. Where "bugs", errors or other issues found on the latest version of these platforms, Sparx Group Limited will endeavor (but is not obliged to) to correct these issues to meet the standards of the clients needs.

Copyright and Ownership

Upon completion of Extreme and Ultimate Website packages, Sparx Group Limited will transfer complete ownership of all website templates, themes and files to the client.

Software such as ShopMate and SiteMate and third party programs are not transferred to the client and remain under ownership of Sparx Group Limited.

Websites designed for our ShopMate or SiteMate systems are not transferrable to a third party hosting service. If you require a replica of your website set up elsewhere you will need to get a developer or designer to design your website from scratch.

Sparx Group Limited reserves the right to display a "Powered by SPARX" logo in the footer of your website, along with a Copyright SiteMate and ShopMate on the footer for our web systems.

Compatibility

Sparx Group Limited will endeavor to ensure that any developed/designed site or application will function correctly on the server it is initially installed in and that it will function correctly when viewed with the web browsing software Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 6 and to an acceptable level with Mozilla browsers. Sparx Group Limited can offer no guarantees of correct function with all browser software.

Payment of Accounts

All of our web services are to be paid up front (unless specifically agreed) with the client. . It is the Sparx Group Limited policy that any outstanding accounts for work carried out by Sparx Group Limited or its affiliates are required to be paid in full, no later than 30 days from the date of the invoice unless by prior arrangement with Sparx Group Limited.

Once an invoice has been generated for a service and work has been completed you are obliged to pay the balance of payment in full. We will contact clients via email and telephone to remind them of such payments if they are not received when due.

If accounts are not settled or Sparx Group Limited have not been contacted regarding the delay, access to the related website may be denied and web pages removed, we will then pass such cases to the Small Claims Court to pursue payment, non payment can result in court charges being added to the clients outstanding balance.

Following consistent non payment of an invoice our Solicitors will contact the client in question, with a view to taking the matter further and if need be to seek payment through legal procedures, and if necessary court summons. 

Sparx Group Limited accepts Credit Card, Bank Deposit and Cheque as payment options for outstanding accounts. You can find more information on these here.

Quotes and Contracts

Quotes provided to clients are valid for up to 30 days, after this date a new quote will need to be generated.

Your Privacy 

We do not share or sell any of your details with third party companies, without your express permission and we will only email you or contact you about work related matters. 

Informal complaints Procedure

Anyone who experiences a problem with their web service provided by Sparx Group Limited should raise the matter directly using our online contact form to do so, giving sufficient information to locate the material (such as an url) and clearly outlining the grounds for complaint.

Sparx Group Limited will approach the individual responsible for the material in question with a view to resolving the matter to the satisfaction of the complainant.

Formal complaints procedure

The formal complaints procedure should only be used where the complainant feels that the nature of the complaint is too serious to be dealt with informally, or where a satisfactory conclusion has not been reached after following the informal procedure.

A formal complaint should be made in writing to Sparx Group Limited, who will acknowledge receipt and ensure that the matter is looked into as soon as possible.

An initial response to any complaint can be expected within seven days of its receipt; a full and considered response to the complaint should be completed within 30 days and any subsequent remedy implemented with the minimum of delay.