Service Terms & Conditions

1. The operator

ARTinez is the trading name of Andrei Martinescu, a sole trader ("ARTinez", "we", "us"). All contact is handled at office@artinez.co.uk. These terms are between you and ARTinez.

2. How the contract is formed

An enquiry is not a contract. A message you send through either form on this website, a conversation we have about a possible project, and the ARTinez Vision preview are all preliminary. Nothing in them commits either of us to anything, and you are not bound by anything you send us.

The contract is formed like this:

1. Proposal. After a discussion, ARTinez issues a written proposal setting out the scope, deliverables, fees, timetable and any assumptions. The proposal is an offer. It is sent by email so that it is in writing and can be referred to later.
2. Review. You read the proposal together with these terms. Both are provided before you agree to anything, and both are sent to you as an email attachment so that you have a durable copy.
3. Acceptance. You accept by signing and returning the proposal, or by replying expressly to accept it, together with the deposit stated in it. That reply is the acceptance.
4. Confirmation. ARTinez confirms acceptance in writing. The date of that confirmation is the date the contract is made.
5. Version. ARTinez keeps the accepted version of the proposal and of these terms. If these terms change after that date, the version accepted at that date continues to govern that contract.

If a proposal is withdrawn before you accept it, there is no contract and nothing is owed.

3. Scope and deliverables

The scope of your project is set out in the written proposal. Every proposal states:

• the deliverables, specifically;
• the number of revision rounds included;
• what is expressly excluded;
• the fees and the payment stages;
• any applicable taxes;
• any recurring fees, such as hosting or maintenance;
• third-party costs you will be asked to pay, or that we will pay on your behalf;
• the estimated timetable, and what it depends on;
• what we need from you, and when;
• what handover and post-launch support are included.

Where the project includes hosting or maintenance, the Hosting & Maintenance Schedule applies to that element.

Anything not described in the proposal is not in scope. If you want something else, ask for a change request — see section 7.

4. Fees, prices and payment

Fees for business customers. The fees are those set out in the proposal. The proposal states whether a figure includes or excludes VAT and which taxes apply.

Fees for consumers. Where you are a consumer, the price we quote is the total price you pay, including any taxes and charges that cannot be avoided. If the final price genuinely cannot be calculated at the outset — for example because it depends on the number of hours actually worked, or on a third-party variable cost — the proposal will say so explicitly, will explain how the price is calculated, will give a worked example where that is possible, and will not exceed the estimate we have given you without asking you first.

No unapproved extras. We will not charge you for anything that is not in the proposal, or that has not been agreed with you in writing. If something comes up that was not foreseen, we will tell you what it is and what it will cost before we incur it.

Payment stages. The proposal states the amounts and the triggers for each stage of payment. We ask for an initial payment before work begins, because we would otherwise be starting work for which there is no commitment to pay.

Payment deadlines. The proposal states when each invoice is due. Amounts are stated in pounds sterling.

Late payment. If an invoice is not paid when it is due, for business customers ARTinez may charge interest at the rate provided by the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, and may recover reasonable costs of enforcing payment. For consumer contracts, we will first contact you to discuss it.

Suspension. If payment is overdue, ARTinez may suspend work on the project after giving you 14 days' written notice. We will try to resolve it with you first.

5. Our commitments to you

We agree to perform the services with reasonable care and skill, and in accordance with the descriptions in the proposal. Where the proposal describes an outcome — for example a particular design approach or a set of features — we will use reasonable endeavours to deliver it.

We do not promise specific commercial results. We will not guarantee a position in a search engine, a volume of enquiries, revenue, sales or conversion rates, because those depend on factors outside our control — your market, your competitors, your offer, the platforms you use, and the search engines themselves. Where a proposal refers to a result, it describes the intent and the approach, not a guaranteed outcome.

6. What we need from you

Most delays in a project come from things we are waiting for. The proposal lists what we need from you and when. That will include, as applicable:

• brand assets, copy, photographs and other content;
• access to the systems we need to work on, and to the accounts we need to be able to use;
• decisions and approvals, typically at agreed milestones;
• confirmation of any legal or regulatory requirements that apply to your content.

If we are waiting on something from you, we will tell you, and we will keep you informed if the position changes. Where a delay is caused by something we are waiting for, the timetable moves accordingly and we will explain the revised dates. We will always try to give you notice of a delay rather than let a date pass unremarked.

7. Changes to scope, price or timetable

If you want to change what we have agreed, we will issue a written change request setting out what is changing, any effect on the price, and any effect on the timetable. The change takes effect when you confirm it in writing. Nothing changes until then.

We will not change the agreed price, scope or deliverables unilaterally, and we will not perform work that is outside the agreed scope and charge for it afterwards.

8. Your materials and access

You confirm that you own the materials you supply to us, or that you have permission from the rights holder to use them for this project and to allow us to do so. That covers text, photographs, logos, fonts, music and video.

You agree to provide access credentials securely, and to tell us promptly if access is lost or you think it has been compromised. Do not send passwords by ordinary email where you can avoid it; we will agree a method with you.

Your responsibilities are limited to what is reasonable and in your control. We are responsible for our own errors and for errors in the work we produce. We are not asking you to guarantee the accuracy of our work, or to indemnify us for our own mistakes.

9. Intellectual property

Different things are owned differently. The proposal will say which category each deliverable falls into.

Category	What happens to it
Your materials content, images, brand assets you supplied	Remain yours at all times. We are given a limited licence to use them for the project only. We may show them in our portfolio only if you have separately agreed — see section 9.3
Bespoke deliverables designs, code, copy written for you	On payment in full of the fees for the work that produced them, ownership passes to you. Until then they remain ours and you have a licence to use what has been delivered for your own internal purposes
ARTinez's existing tools and templates code libraries, frameworks, workflow templates, internal utilities	Remain ours. Where one of these is embedded in a deliverable, you are granted a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use it as part of that deliverable. This licence survives the end of the project
Open-source components third-party libraries, plugins, frameworks	Remain the property of their authors under their own licences. We will tell you which ones are used in your project and any obligations they carry, before you accept the proposal
Stock assets and typefaces stock photography, subscription fonts	Licensed to you on the terms of the provider, not ours. Where a licence is a subscription rather than a one-off purchase, the renewal is yours to maintain unless the project includes ongoing maintenance by ARTinez. We will say this in the proposal before you commit
Third-party software and services CMS, hosting, email, booking, payment providers	Contracted directly with the provider by you, or by us on your behalf where the proposal says so. We are not a party to those contracts and do not warrant their performance
AI-assisted output where AI is used as part of the work	See section 10. We do not promise that AI-assisted output is exclusively yours to copyright, because the law on copyright in machine-generated material is not settled. We will say in the proposal whether AI is used at all, and what is involved

9.1 Timing of the transfer

Ownership of bespoke deliverables passes on payment in full of the fees for the work that produced them. Until then, ARTinez retains ownership and the licence described above applies.

9.2 Restrictions we will disclose

We will identify in the proposal, before you accept it, any restriction that would limit what you can do with the deliverables — for example an open-source component with a copyleft obligation, a stock asset licence that does not permit certain commercial uses, or a recurring subscription that must be maintained.

9.3 Portfolio and testimonials

We like to show good work, but we will not publish anything about you without your separate, specific agreement. Where you agree, the proposal will say what may be shown — for example screenshots, the project name, a description, or a quotation — and you can withdraw that agreement in writing at any time, on which we will remove the material.

If you are a private consumer, we will not assume that your project may be shown publicly at all. We will ask.

10. AI and third-party services

ARTinez may use artificial intelligence and third-party services as part of delivering work. The position is:

• Scope. The proposal will say whether AI is used in your project, and what it is used for.
• Your data. We will not send your confidential information, or your personal data, to an external AI provider without the appropriate arrangements being in place and your agreement. If you ask us not to use external AI on your project, we will not.
• Dependencies. External services have their own availability, terms and costs. If one becomes unavailable or changes its terms, we will tell you and propose an alternative. That may affect the timetable or the price, and we will agree any change with you first.
• Output. AI output can be wrong, out of date, biased, or plausible but incorrect. We review what we deliver and we do not pass on output we know to be defective. We do not warrant that AI-assisted output is perfectly accurate, or that it will produce a particular commercial outcome.
• Authority to act. Where an AI workflow is configured to take an action on your systems — send an email, publish content, change a record — the proposal must set out that action as an authorised one, and your approval is required at the point you accept. You may withdraw that authorisation in writing at any time. Actions that carry a high risk of harm are not set up to run without a person approving each one.
• No guarantee of compliance. We do not warrant that using an AI service satisfies any particular legal or regulatory requirement that applies to your business. That is something you need to assess for your own context.

11. Review, correction and handover

You will be given the opportunity to review the work at the milestones set out in the proposal. Where something does not match what was agreed, tell us and we will put it right at no additional cost.

Handover is set out in the proposal and will normally include: the live site and access to it; source files; design files; repositories; credentials for the systems involved; and a short written guide to managing the site.

Corrections to work that does not meet the agreed description are free. They are separate from change requests. If you decide you want something different from what was agreed, that is a change request and it is priced in section 7 — but we will not refuse to correct a defect on the grounds that it looks like a change request.

If you do not tell us that something is not right, we are not treating that as acceptance, and your statutory rights are not affected.

12. Cancellation and termination

By you, for convenience. You may end the contract at any time by telling us in writing. We will invoice you for the work properly done up to the date you tell us, and will refund any sum you have paid for work not yet done. An initial payment for work that has begun will not be refunded, but it is not "non-refundable" in the sense of being kept regardless of anything else — it is simply payment for work already carried out.

By either of us, for breach. If either of us materially breaches the contract and does not put it right within 14 days of being told in writing about it, the other may end the contract. If the breach is capable of being put right and we put it right within that period, the contract continues.

Immediately. A contract may end without notice if the other party commits an act that makes it impossible to continue, or becomes unable to pay.

Handover on termination. We will provide the work completed to that date, in a usable form, within 14 days. Where you have paid in full, we will also answer reasonable questions about the code we have written for you for 30 days.

13. Provisions that apply to consumers

If you are a consumer, the following apply in addition to everything above, and take priority where they conflict.

13.1 Reasonable care and skill

We must perform our services with reasonable care and skill. If you have paid for a service and we have failed to provide it, you may ask us to put it right. If we cannot do so, or it is not something we can reasonably do, you may ask for a refund instead — see Consumer Cancellation and Refund Information.

13.2 Your 14-day cancellation right

Where the contract is concluded at a distance — for example by accepting a proposal we have emailed to you, without meeting face to face — you have the right to cancel within 14 days of the contract being made. The full explanation, the method for cancelling, the refund rules and the model cancellation form are on the Consumer Cancellation and Refund Information page.

13.3 Asking us to start early

You can ask us to begin work before the 14-day period ends. Doing so does not cancel your right to cancel. What it means is that if you cancel after work has begun, you may have to pay a proportionate amount for the services supplied up to the point of cancellation, where the legal conditions are met. If it is possible that the service will be fully performed within the 14-day period, we will ask you to acknowledge separately that you will lose the right to cancel once it is complete.

13.4 Faulty or misdescribed services

If a service is not of a reasonable standard, or is not as we described it in the proposal, you may ask us to fix it. If we cannot fix it, or fixing it would take too long or cost too much, you may ask for a price reduction or a refund. You may also reject the service and ask for a refund if it is fundamentally different from what we described.

13.5 Not excluded

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded. Where you are a consumer, we are also responsible for loss that is a foreseeable consequence of our breach of these terms or of failing to use reasonable care and skill.

13.6 Court jurisdiction

If you live in England or Wales you may bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you may bring proceedings in the courts of Scotland or Northern Ireland. You are not required to bring proceedings in England and Wales, and nothing in these terms prevents you from using the courts where you live.

14. Liability

We are responsible for our own acts and omissions, and for the acts and omissions of our employees. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

For consumers. We are also responsible for loss that is a foreseeable consequence of our breach of these terms or of our failure to use reasonable care and skill. We do not exclude or limit our liability for any other loss that the law does not allow us to exclude.

For business customers. A limitation of liability may be agreed for a particular project in the written proposal. Any such limitation will be stated in the proposal clearly, will not apply to liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, and will be agreed between the parties before the contract is made. No limitation applies unless it is written into the proposal you accepted.

15. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them, save that a consumer may bring proceedings in the courts of the place where they live, as set out in section 13.6.

16. General

• Entire agreement. The proposal, these terms, and any change request we have both agreed form the entire agreement between us. Nothing said before that is incorporated, other than anything in the proposal that expressly says it is.
• Variation. These terms may be varied only by a written change agreed by both of us, except that a change we are required to make by law will take effect automatically from the date the law requires.
• Severance. If any provision is found to be unenforceable, the rest of the contract still applies.
• No waiver. A delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not assign your rights under the contract without our written agreement. We may assign to a successor to the business, provided your rights are not reduced.
• Third parties. No one other than you and ARTinez has any right to enforce these terms, except where the law says otherwise.
• Force majeure. Neither of us is liable for a failure to perform caused by something beyond that party's reasonable control, provided that party takes reasonable steps to overcome it and tells the other as soon as reasonably practicable.
• Notices. Formal notices must be in writing and sent to office@artinez.co.uk, unless the proposal says otherwise.

17. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email office@artinez.co.uk. For a complaint, please follow the process on the Complaints page.