Terms of business

I am an estimator. I am not a quantity surveyor, a chartered surveyor, an architect or an accountant, and I do not hold myself out as any of those.

I do not visit site. I do not measure, survey or inspect anything. I do not verify site conditions.

I do not independently check the prices, rates or discounts you give me.

You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of all information you give me, including measurements, photographs, specifications, your labour rates, your merchant prices and discounts, your mark-up, your standard specification and your VAT position.

I price what I am told. If the information is wrong, incomplete or changes after I have priced it, the quotation will be wrong.

I am entitled to rely on that information without checking it.

Everything I send you is a draft for your review. It is not a quotation to your customer.

Before issuing anything to your customer you must check it yourself, including at minimum the total price, the labour days, the materials and allowances, the scope, the exclusions and the VAT rate.

Once you issue a quotation, it becomes your quotation. The contract with your customer is between you and them. I am not a party to it and I owe your customer no duty.

You must not send anything I produce to a customer without checking it, and you must not describe me to your customer as responsible for the price.

I do not guarantee that any quotation will win work.

I do not guarantee that the work can be carried out for the price quoted.

I do not guarantee that you will make a profit on any job. Pricing and profitability are commercial judgements and they remain yours.

I apply the VAT rate you tell me to apply. Determining the correct rate for a job is your responsibility.

I do not give tax, accounting, legal or regulatory advice, and nothing I send you should be treated as any of those.

I aim to return a quotation within 24 hours of receiving everything I need. That is a target, not a contractual deadline.

Time is not of the essence in this agreement.

Quotations are bought in advance, either as a trial or as a bundle. There is no rolling monthly account.

Trial: the first four quotations for a new client are £100 together. I deliver the first one before you pay anything. If you do not want to carry on after seeing it, you owe me nothing.

Bundles, paid in advance: five quotations for £199, ten for £369, twenty-five for £849.

A single quotation, on request, is £45.

Bundles are used one quotation at a time. They run for three months for the trial, six months for the bundle of five, and twelve months for the bundles of ten and twenty-five, from the date of purchase. Unused quotations lapse after that.

Once a bundle is bought it is not refundable. The trial in clause 7.2 is the exception.

Invoiced when you buy, payable within 7 days.

I am not VAT registered. No VAT is charged on my fees.

Amendments to a quotation are included in the fee, and I will make them before you pay. That covers correcting it and adjusting it for small changes. A change to the scope of the job is a new quotation.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes my liability for death or personal injury caused by my negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.

Subject to clause 8.1, I am not liable to you for loss of profit, loss of contract, loss of anticipated savings, loss of revenue, loss of business, loss of goodwill, or any indirect or consequential loss, whether or not that loss was foreseeable.

Subject to clause 8.1, my total liability to you in respect of any quotation, whether in contract, negligence, breach of statutory duty or otherwise, is limited to the fee you paid me for that quotation. Where quotations are bought as a bundle, that fee is the price of the bundle divided by the number of quotations in it.

I am not liable for any loss arising from information you gave me that was wrong, incomplete or out of date, or from a quotation you issued to your customer without checking it as required by clause 3.

You must notify me in writing of any claim within three months of the date I sent you the quotation it relates to.

You acknowledge that the fees reflect this allocation of risk, and that you are able to insure against the losses excluded by this clause.

If a court finds the limit in clause 8.3 to be unenforceable, my total liability to you for all claims arising in any twelve month period is instead limited to the total fees you paid me in that period. If that limit is also found to be unenforceable, it is limited to £1,000. Each limit in this clause is severable from the others.

There is no contract between me and your customer, and no term of this agreement is enforceable by them under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

I will keep your rates, discounts, pricing and customer details confidential and will not disclose them to anyone else.

You will keep my working documents and pricing method confidential.

Once you have paid for a quotation, the content of that quotation is yours to use as you wish.

My templates, wording, spreadsheets and pricing method remain mine, and nothing in this agreement transfers them to you.

Either of us may stop at any time, with no notice and no penalty.

You remain liable for fees for work already carried out.

By sending me a job after receiving these terms, you accept them.

These terms apply to all work I do for you and override anything else, including any terms of your own, unless I have agreed otherwise in writing.

I may update these terms by sending you a new version. The version in force is the one you were last sent before instructing the job.

This agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.