Business Client Terms of Business

These terms are for business clients: a school, office, company, charity or other organisation buying our service for its premises. By accepting them you confirm you're entering this agreement wholly or mainly for the purposes of your trade, business, craft or profession, and that the person accepting has authority to bind your organisation. If you're a household client, our Client Terms of Business apply instead.

We're Handpicked Home Services, a cleaning introduction agency for Winchester and Hampshire. Our job is to find you a genuinely good cleaner and then look after the arrangement for as long as you want it.

We find and check your cleaner. We interview every cleaner in person, check their identity and DBS certificate, take up references, verify their public liability insurance of at least £2 million, including cover for damage to what they're cleaning, and have them complete a paid trial clean. We re-check the insurance every year and the DBS every 3 years. If we ever learn something that changes our view of a cleaner's suitability, we'll tell you without delay.

We match them to you. Your premises, your requirements, and the cleaner's availability and area.

We look after the arrangement. We arrange cover when your cleaner is away, find you a replacement if your cleaner stops working with you, and we're your point of contact whenever something needs sorting.

We carry out our own services with reasonable care and skill. What we say in our marketing about vetting is exactly what we promise here, and section 13 sets out what we're responsible for.

That's deliberate, because it gives you both the best outcome. The cleaners we introduce work for themselves. They keep the whole of their rate, and you get a vetted, dedicated cleaner (section 2) at a fair price. What that means in practice:

• The cleaning itself is an arrangement directly between you and your cleaner. It stays simple: for most businesses it's no more than the agreed visits and paying their invoices. These terms cover everything we do around it: the finding, checking, matching, cover and support.
• You set what matters. We gather it at your site visit and hand it to your cleaner as their brief. You can add to it or change it with them any time. Your cleaner brings their own experience to how the work gets done, and we don't direct or supervise it.
• You pay them directly against their invoice (section 7), and they handle their own tax, National Insurance and insurance.
• When they're away, we'll help arrange cover from our network of vetted cleaners, or they may send a suitable substitute who is DBS-checked and insured - and where section 10 applies, cleared to the same level before they attend.

Your cleaner is insured, we cover the excess, and if a clean falls short we put it right. Section 13 has the detail.

Asking us for a quote. You can ask for a quote by phone or by email. We price business premises individually, so we'll usually visit your site (or take a video walkthrough) before quoting. Our written quote is valid for 30 days unless we withdraw it sooner. Asking for a quote, or arranging a site visit, doesn't create a contract or commit either of us to anything.

When the agreement starts. Our agreement with you is formed when we confirm your booking in writing after you accept our quote - not before. Nothing is collected until after your first clean.

Our decision. We may decide not to take you on. If so, we'll tell you promptly.

These terms are a business-to-business agreement, so the 14-day cooling-off right in consumer law doesn't apply. You can still end the service at any time under section 17 - there's no minimum term.

Site visit and quote. You tell us about your premises, the hours and frequency you'd like, and anything that matters about the site. We visit, and then give you a written quote for the work: the hours and frequency, your cleaner's rate, our service fee, and anything specific to your site. The two parts are always shown separately. Prices for business premises are set per quote rather than at a published rate.

Booking. Section 4 says when your booking is confirmed and our agreement starts. By then we'll have matched you with a cleaner you're happy to go ahead with; if you're ever not happy - at the start or at any point after - tell us, and we'll put it right, or introduce you to a different cleaner. We also offer one-off cleans, such as a deep clean or an end-of-term clean, on these same terms.

Getting the hours right. We'll suggest the hours at your site visit and review them with you after your second clean, because first cleans always run long. If your premises need more time than we've booked, we'll agree new hours with you. We never ask your cleaner to absorb extra time unpaid.

What "introduced" means. We've introduced a cleaner to you once we've given you their details, or arranged or carried out any clean - regular or one-off - between you and that cleaner through Handpicked. That definition matters for section 11 (the Direct Hire Fee).

No minimum term and no joining fee. Ending the service takes one month's notice (section 17).

Your quote has two parts, and you pay each differently:

• Your cleaner's money. Your cleaner invoices you directly for the cleaning, at the rate in your quote, and you pay them directly. We never hold their money or take a cut of it. Please pay their invoices on their stated terms - they're a small business, and prompt payment is part of the deal.
• Our service fee. You set up a Direct Debit when you confirm your booking. We collect on the 1st of each month for the cleans you had in the month just gone (the hours of each visit that took place, times our service fee rate), and we email you the amount before every collection. If a clean doesn't happen, there's nothing to pay us for it.
• One-off cleans. There's no Direct Debit. You pay our service fee once, by bank transfer, within 7 days of the clean.

VAT. We're not currently VAT-registered, so our fees don't carry VAT. If that changes, VAT will be added at the prevailing rate from the date of registration, and we'll tell you before it first appears on an invoice.

Not happy with a clean? Tell us within 48 hours. We'll put it right, and we waive our service fee for that clean.

Late payment. If a payment fails or is late, we'll tell you and retry. We may pause cleans until it's sorted, and we may charge interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Please talk to us early if something has gone wrong.

Price changes. The rates in your quote hold until we give you at least 30 days' notice of a change. You can give notice to end the service before a change takes effect, and a change you've rejected that way never applies during your notice.

Cancelling or moving a clean. Just tell us:

• More than 24 hours before the clean: free.
• Within 24 hours, or your premises can't be accessed on arrival: the late-cancellation fee is your cleaner's full rate for the booked visit. You owe it to your cleaner directly, under your cleaning arrangement with them. They invoice it, you pay them, and it never comes to us. We don't charge our own service fee for that visit. It's their money, and only they can choose to waive it.
• Contagious illness on site: we'll reschedule free of charge - your cleaner keeps the work on a new date.

When your cleaner is ill or away, you choose: cover from our vetted network (or a suitable substitute your cleaner arranges), or skip the visit and pay nothing.

If your cleaner stops working with you, we'll find you a replacement, and you pay us nothing while you're without one. We promise real effort to find one, though we can't guarantee a date, and a client without a cleaner is our most urgent job.

Pausing. Pause the service any time - just tell us, and we'll restart when you're ready.

The Site Charter (Schedule 1) is part of these terms. It's about safe access to your premises - a named contact, keys and alarms, heating, a vacuum and mop that suit the surfaces, notice of changes, and treating your cleaner with respect - never about how the cleaning is done. If a breach of it means a clean can't safely or reasonably go ahead when your cleaner arrives, it's treated as a late cancellation (section 8).

Your premises, your duties. You stay responsible for the safety of your premises and for the legal duties you owe to visiting contractors, including under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Tell us before the first clean about anything on site that could affect a cleaner's safety, and about any site rules, induction or sign-in your cleaner needs to follow - we'll build them into the arrangement.

Some premises need more than our standard vetting, and we'd rather build that in than bolt it on:

• Before we place a cleaner in a school, nursery or other premises where children are regularly present, that cleaner holds an enhanced DBS check. We arrange and pay for it.
• We work within your safeguarding and contractor policies - tell us what they require, and we'll make sure the cleaner and the arrangement comply before the first clean.
• Where your policy requires it, we'll schedule cleaning outside the hours children are on site.

You can take your cleaner on directly. We introduced them to you, so if you do it during the restricted period a one-off Direct Hire Fee applies. This is how it works.

Some words we use here. Your cleaner means any cleaner we've introduced to you (section 6 says when a cleaner counts as introduced) - including after a one-off clean. To take your cleaner on directly means to employ, engage, pay, book or arrange cleaning with them in any way other than through Handpicked - yourself or through any connected person, business or agency, whether you pay in cash or any other way. The restricted period means the whole time you're our client for that cleaner, plus 12 months from our introduction or your last Handpicked clean with them, whichever is later.

1. The restriction. During the restricted period, you must not take your cleaner on directly unless you have first paid us the Direct Hire Fee.

2. When it becomes payable. If your organisation, or anyone acting for it, takes your cleaner on directly during the restricted period, the full fee becomes immediately payable, whether or not we've asked for it.

3. How we work it out. While you're our client, the Direct Hire Fee is 12 times your average monthly service fee, worked out from the three months of cleaning before you took your cleaner on directly, or your whole time as our client if that was shorter. If you took your cleaner on directly after a one-off clean, the fee depends on what you take them on for: for regular cleaning, it's 12 times the monthly service fee your new regular arrangement would cost at our then-current rates; for another one-off clean, it's instead 10 times our service fee for the clean we arranged. After your service ends, the fee shrinks: it reduces by one-twelfth for each complete month since your last Handpicked clean with that cleaner, reaching nothing at the end of the restricted period. We'll set out the exact amount, and how we reached it, in a written invoice.

4. Paying it. The fee is due within 14 days of our invoice. Unpaid, it is a debt, and we may recover it together with interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 and our reasonable costs of recovery.

5. What the fee is for. It recovers the service fees we'd otherwise have earned in the future for finding, checking and supporting your cleaner - whenever you take your cleaner on directly, it's that future you're taking. That's why the fee doesn't shrink with time while you're our client, and does shrink, month by month, once your service has ended. It's a genuine estimate of our loss, agreed in advance, and it isn't a penalty.

6. A cleaner you already knew. If you'd already used or arranged cleaning with a cleaner before we introduced them, tell us in writing when we introduce them and this section doesn't apply to that cleaner. If you don't tell us, it applies in full.

7. What this doesn't do. Ending your Handpicked service, on its own, costs you nothing beyond your notice (section 17). Once the restricted period ends, you can take your cleaner on directly with no fee.

8. This section survives. It's triggered by the act of taking your cleaner on directly, and it continues for the whole restricted period however these terms end, to the fullest extent the law allows.

Keys pass directly between you and your cleaner; we never hold them. Your key is identified by a code, never labelled with your organisation's name or address. Alarm codes and access notes are stored encrypted, visible only to your cleaner, and deleted when your service ends. When your arrangement with a cleaner ends, your key comes back straight away - by hand, never by post. If a key is ever lost, your cleaner tells you and us immediately and we'll help you sort it, including the cost of replacement locks where the loss was your cleaner's fault (covered by their insurance, section 13).

Accidents happen, and you're covered:

• Every cleaner in our network carries their own public liability insurance of at least £2 million, verified before we introduce them and re-checked every year.
• We pay the excess (up to £250 per incident) for genuine accidental damage during a Handpicked clean that you tell us about promptly, so a small breakage gets sorted quickly.
• That includes damage from the products and equipment your cleaner brings. Choosing the right product for each surface is part of your cleaner's job.
• Tell us within 7 days and keep the damaged item - insurers usually need to see it.

What's not covered. There are three things.

• Theft by your cleaner. We don't insure or guarantee against theft committed by an independent cleaner just because we introduced them. Your remedy is against the cleaner and through the police, and we'll support you with both.
• Damage from products or equipment you supplied that turned out to be faulty, or that you asked your cleaner to use after they or we advised against it.
• Pre-existing damage, or fair wear and tear.

None of these limits our responsibility for loss caused by our own failure to carry out the identity, reference, DBS, insurance or other vetting promised in these terms with reasonable care and skill.

If a clean falls short, we put it right. Tell us and we'll arrange for it to be sorted with your cleaner, or find you a different cleaner (section 15). That's our promise on standards. The clean itself is your cleaner's work, so it's their insurance that covers damage, and we pay the excess.

What we're responsible for. Carrying out our own services - finding, checking, matching and supporting - with reasonable care and skill. If we fail to do that and you lose out as a result, we're responsible for losses that were a foreseeable result of our failure.

What we're not responsible for. There are three things.

• Loss or damage caused by your cleaner's own acts or omissions - that's what their insurance covers, and we pay the excess.
• Loss of profits, business, contracts, goodwill or anticipated savings, or any indirect or consequential loss.
• Losses that weren't a foreseeable result of anything we did wrong.

What you're responsible for. There are three things.

• The safety and site information you give us (Schedule 1).
• The materials and equipment you supply.
• Instructions you give your cleaner directly, beyond the cleaning we agreed with you.

If someone makes a claim against us because of one of these, you're responsible for what it costs us - but only to the extent it was caused by your fault, and never to the extent it was caused by ours.

Our liability cap. If we break this agreement, our total liability to you is limited to the greater of the service fees you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim and the amount recoverable in respect of the claim under our insurance. The cap does not apply to: loss caused by our failure to carry out the vetting we've promised you; loss or misuse of your keys, codes or access information while in our hands; or our breach of data protection law.

What's never limited. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.

We hold what the service needs: your organisation's contact details, site address and access notes, your named contacts, invoicing details, and your clean history. Anything sensitive about access to your premises - keys, alarm codes, entry notes - is stored encrypted and shared only with your cleaner. We share information only with your cleaner and the providers who run our systems and payments, and we never sell it. Where we hold personal information about your people (a named contact, for example), the full detail, including their rights and how to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk), is in our privacy notice at handpickedhomeservices.co.uk/privacy.

Phone, email or a message all work. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 2 working days, investigate, and aim to give you a full answer within 14 days (if it needs longer, we'll tell you why and when). If something went wrong on a clean, the usual remedies are asking your cleaner to re-clean, a credit, or a different cleaner - whatever puts it right. Handpicked is run by its owners, and the person answering your complaint has the authority to fix it.

We may update these terms - for example to reflect changes in how the service works, in pricing, or in the law. If a change matters to you, we'll give you at least 30 days' notice in writing. If you don't want to continue under the new terms, give notice before they take effect (section 17) and they never apply to you.

Ending the service. Either of us can end it on one month's written notice. There's no minimum term and no cancellation fee. During your notice, cleans and the normal cancellation rules (section 8) continue; at the end of it you pay for cleaning delivered and nothing else. The Direct Hire Fee rules (section 11) continue for their restricted period - ending the service itself never triggers that fee.

We can end sooner if payments repeatedly fail or the Site Charter is seriously or repeatedly broken. We'll always tell you why.

Who we are. We are Handpicked Home Services Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 17380383, registered office 33 Boston Road South, Holbeach, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE12 7LR. You can reach us at hello@handpickedhs.co.uk.

What kind of agency we are, in law. For the purposes of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, we act as an employment agency. We introduce self-employed cleaners to you, and we never employ them or supply them ourselves. Our professional indemnity and public liability insurance is underwritten by CFC Underwriting Ltd and covers the services we provide in the United Kingdom.

The whole agreement. These terms, together with your quote and our privacy notice, are the entire agreement between you and us for our introduction and support services, and each of us confirms it hasn't relied on any statement made outside them - though nothing in this paragraph excludes liability for fraud. (Your cleaning arrangement with your cleaner is separate - section 3.)

If part of these terms turns out to be invalid, the rest stays in full force.

Things outside anyone's control. Neither of us is responsible for a failure caused by events outside our reasonable control - severe weather, illness epidemics, or similar. Whoever is affected tells the other as soon as reasonably possible.

Notices. Notices go in writing to the contact details we each hold for the other, and count as received 24 hours after sending (or the next working day).

Only you and us. Only you and we can enforce these terms. No one else has rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

What survives. Ending this agreement doesn't end the parts designed to outlast it: the Direct Hire Fee (section 11) for its restricted period, anything you still owe, our liability terms (section 13), and this section.

Governing law. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales will deal with any dispute.

Access. Make sure your cleaner can get in at the agreed time - a named contact on site, or keys and alarm arrangements (section 12), plus any sign-in or induction your site requires.

A safe, workable site. Reasonable heating in winter, working lighting, and hot water. Tell us in advance about anything that could affect a cleaner's safety - a broken step, exposed wiring, hazardous substances, or anything similar.

Materials and equipment. You provide the vacuum, the mop and anything else bulky that stays on site. They need to work and to suit the surfaces you'd like cleaned. If that doesn't work for your premises, we can agree something different with you in writing (a message is fine), such as your cleaner bringing their own vacuum. Your cleaner brings the consumables - cloths, wipes, dusters and sprays. If a surface needs a particular product, leave it out and tell us. We never supply materials ourselves.

Parking. If parking near your premises is restricted, arrange a space or permit, or tell us so we can factor it in.

Changes with notice. Give reasonable notice of changes (section 8); please avoid same-day changes to time or scope unless genuinely unavoidable.

Respect. Treat your cleaner as the professional they are. We don't continue service for clients whose staff are abusive or persistently unreasonable towards a cleaner.