Terms & Conditions

We will always do our best to fulfil your needs and meet your expectations, but it’s also important to have things written down so that both parties know what’s what, who should do what and when, and what will happen if things do not go as planned. In these terms and conditions you won’t find any complicated legal terms or long passages of unreadable text, it will be very straight forward, keep in mind we are not lawyers, we design websites.

So in short;

You are hiring us Better Thought Group, trading as Better Thought Design (“we” or “us”) to design and develop a website for the estimated total price as outlined in our correspondence with you.

You: That you have the authority to enter into this contract on behalf of yourself, your company or your organisation. You’ll give us the assets and information we tell you we need to complete the project. You’ll do this when we ask and provide it in the formats we ask for. You’ll review out work, provide feedback and approval in a timely manner too. Deadlines work two ways, so you’ll also be bound by time frames we may set together. You also agree to stick to the payment schedule that both parties have agreed too.

Us: That we have the experience and ability to do everything we’ve agreed with you and we’ll do it all in a professional and timely manner. We’ll endeavour to meet every time frame that’s set and on top of that we’ll maintain the confidentiality of everything you give us.

We always build our sites to be responsive, meaning they will look great across multiple devices of various sizes. We do not waste time making static mock ups, but may use placeholder images and content to demonstrate the creative direction (colour, texture and typography).

During the design process we will provide you a live link on one of our private servers that will give you access to review our work and provide feedback. In the case of websites using a Content Management System, you will also be able to create and edit content yourself before your website goes live.

We may take creative license in modifying content supplied in the interest of good design and website practise.

We will provide a shared   DropBox folder that you will have full access too. This project folder is where you will upload all requested text content and images.

We can provide professional copywriting and editing services, this will be invoiced separately.

Just to be clear, “Intellectual property rights” means all patents, rights to inventions, copyright (including rights in software) and related rights, trademarks, service marks, get up and trade names, internet domain names, rights to goodwill or to sue for passing off, rights in designs, database rights, rights in confidential information (including know-how) and any other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications (or rights to apply) for, and renewals or extensions of, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or shall subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.

You guarantee that all elements of text, images or other artwork you provide are either owned by your good selves, or that you’ve permission to use them. When you provide text, images or other artwork to us, you agree to protect us from any claim by a third party that we’re using their intellectual property.

You’ll own the website we design for you plus the visual elements that we create for it. We’ll give you source files and finished files and you should keep them somewhere safe as we’re not required to keep a copy. You own all intellectual property rights of text, images, site specification and data you provided, unless someone else owns them.

We’ll own any intellectual property rights we’ve developed prior to, or developed separately from this project and not paid for by you. We’ll own the unique combination of these elements that constitutes a complete design and we’ll license its use to you, exclusively and in perpetuity for this project only, unless we agree otherwise.

We want to make sure you are completely happy with your new website. The price at the beginning of this contract is based on the number of hours that we estimate we will need to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve. Although we are flexible and fair, if you want to change your mind or add anything new that exceeds the original scope we reserve the right to invoice you for the additional work. We will always enter into dialogue with you before this happens.

We test out work in current versions of major desktop and mobile browsers - Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox. We don’t test in other older browsers.

We do ensure that your website is SEO friendly, but we do not guarantee improvements to your website’s search engine ranking.

If we are not hosting your website, we do not offer support for hosting, email or other services related to hosting on third parties.

We reserve the right to display all aspects of our creative work, including sketches, work-in-progress designs and the completed project on our portfolio and in articles on websites, social media, in magazine articles and in books.

We’ll carry out our work in accordance with good industry practice and at the standard expected from a suitably qualified person with relevant experience. That said, we can’t guarantee that our work will be error-free and so we can’t be liable to you or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if you’ve advised us of them.

Your liability to us will also be limited to the amount of fees payable under this contract and you won’t be liable to us or any third-party for damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other incidental, consequential or special damages, even if we’ve advised you of them.

Finally, if any provision of this contract shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this contract and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

If —at any stage— you change your mind after work has commenced, you will pay us in full for the time we’ve spent working up to that point and you may terminate this contract. Your initial deposit remains non-refundable.

Just like a parking ticket, neither of us can transfer this contract to anyone else without the other’s permission. We both agree that we’ll adhere to all relevant laws and regulations in relation to our activities under this contract and not cause the other to breach any relevant laws or regulations.

We are web designers - not legal consultants. Whilst we will do all in our power to implement technical solutions in line with current regulations, we cannot be responsible for aspects of your business, such as tax matters, legal text or the way you run your business.

You are advised to seek professional legal advice on what you must do as a business or individual to ensure continuing compliance with all your legal obligations. It is your responsibility to ensure full compliance with the regulations. We can only help you in adding technical features to your website if needed. We cannot offer specific legal advice on how you should bring your business into line with its legal obligations.

This contract stays in place and need not be renewed. If for some reason one part of this 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 New Zealand courts.