Terms and Conditions
As experienced business lawyers, we know that prevention is always cheaper than the cure. A well-written set of standard terms and conditions has several advantages for you and your business.
Written terms can help protect your cash flow and assets. They can also help to establish exact payment terms from customers.
Ensuring you have written terms minimises legal disputes and the chances of being taken to court.
If you have clear terms and conditions covering all the necessary areas for the provision of goods and services, the chance of a legal dispute is minimised as you will be able to point to a specific legally binding term that protects your position.
Written terms help to manage your customer’s expectations.
Failure to meet a customer’s expectation is not good for your business. If you are supplying products and your customer expects them to be delivered within 2 days but your manufacturing and logistics process takes two weeks, you are likely to at the very least receive complaints (if not a complete cancellation of the order).
If you clearly set out your delivery timetable in your terms and conditions then you are much less likely to receive complaints, claims and cancellations, which as a result:
- saves on administration time;
- protects your business’ reputation;
- avoids claims and
- increases your profitability.
Written terms and conditions also ensure you cover the less obvious issues.
Most businesses consider business-related terms such as price, payment terms and delivery costs and prepare a document based solely on these terms. You may not, however, think about limiting your liability for failure or delay caused by an event outside of your control, protection of any intellectual property rights and issues such as the retention of title and the passing of risk. These are all crucial terms in various circumstances such as the insolvency of your client or your supplier.
A well-drafted set of terms and conditions will place you legally and commercially in the most beneficial position possible to enable you to deal with issues that might otherwise be outside of your control.
For more guidance with terms and conditions, contact our Sheffield and Doncaster solicitors today on 0114 272 1884 or 01302 341 414.
We can help you with any of the following:
