⚠️ Are Your Terms & Conditions Actually Protecting You?
Quick question…
If someone placed an order with you today, are you 100% confident your terms and conditions would hold up?
In this short video, we cover:
✔️ Why outdated terms could leave you exposed
✔️ The common mistake that can void your protection
✔️ Unfair contract terms that aren’t enforceable
If you’d like us to review your terms or know someone who might please get in touch, we’re always happy to help!
Working with you
Ross Millen & The Millens Team
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Ross Millen:
Hey, welcome to what I hope is another interesting tidbit about commercial law. Recently, we've been helping some of our clients update their terms and conditions, and these might be their website terms and conditions or their terms and conditions of trading with their customers. Now, what we've found is that some people, their conditions tend to be out of date. They may not have the most up-to-date terms to give themselves the most protection. So every couple of years, it's a really good idea as part of your business spring cleaning, to get us to have a look at your terms and conditions and make sure they're working for you. Now, the other thing I found out was that sometimes people will send out an order or accept an order, and then they send out their terms and conditions. That's too late. You can't form a contract, and then later, tell people what the terms and conditions are.
So if you are using an order form or a purchase order or some other standard document to try and create a contract with your clients, you need to make sure that it clearly refers to your terms and conditions, and either they're printed on the back or they're in a separate document that's handed over and you've got proof that it's been handed over. And the other thing to remember is if you are getting people to enter into agreements with you over the internet, then you need to have your terms and conditions on your website, and there's a clear reference in the document that people fill out that it's subject to XYZ standard terms and conditions, a copy of which is attached.
Finally, the last thing to remember is there are some terms and conditions that are unfair and can't be enforced. Things like a right to automatically increase the fees or to terminate the contract and not offer a refund, or to have an automatic renewal, so the client's got no ability to cancel. These are unfair contract terms that can't be enforced.
So if you've got any queries about your terms and conditions, you want to have them updated, you want us to have a quick look at them, contact me or anyone else here at Millens. We are here to help.