Terms and Conditions

Who these terms are between

The contract is between you, the person named on the quotation, and Severn Skylights Gloucester, referred to below as Severn. Severn is a service-area business working from Gloucester and about thirty miles by road around it, so there is no public premises address; correspondence is by email.

The address for all notices under these terms, including cancellation, variation and complaints, is info@severnskylightsgloucester.co.uk. Anything sent to that address is treated as received on the working day it arrives.

How a contract is formed

An enquiry is not a contract and neither is the indicative range that follows it. The contract begins when you accept the fixed price in writing, or when you ask in writing for work to start, whichever happens first. Severn will confirm acceptance by email, and that confirmation, with the quotation attached, is the record of what was agreed.

Where you accepted at your own home rather than by email, the cancellation section below applies, and a copy of these terms is sent to you on a durable medium at the point of acceptance.

Quotations, and how long a price holds

Two figures are given, in this order. First an indicative range by email, based on photographs and a description of the roof. That range is an estimate for the purpose of deciding whether to go further, it is not an offer, and it is not binding on either side. Second, after a survey, a fixed price, itemised so it is clear what is unit, what is labour, what is scaffold and what is the Building Control fee.

The fixed price is valid for 30 days from the date on it unless the document says otherwise. After that it may be reissued, because glass, timber, lead and scaffold hire all move in price. The price includes VAT at the prevailing rate where VAT applies, and the quotation states whether it does.

The fixed price holds unless one of two things happens: you ask for the scope to change, or something is uncovered that the survey recorded as a risk. Both are dealt with under variations below.

The survey, and what the fixed price is measured against

The fixed price is calculated from what the survey found. The survey records the covering and its lap, the pitch, the rafter or truss type, centres and depth, the position of purlins, binders and services, the insulation and underlay, and the practical access to the elevation. The survey notes are issued with the quotation, and they include anything visible that could turn out differently once the covering is off.

A survey is a visual inspection of what can be seen and safely reached on the day. It is not an opening up of the structure, so a defect concealed beneath plaster, insulation or the covering is by its nature something the survey can flag as a possibility rather than confirm.

Your right to cancel a contract agreed at your home

Where the contract is agreed at your home, or anywhere else away from a business premises, it is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. You have a right to cancel it within 14 days without giving any reason.

For the installation work, the 14 days run from the day after the contract is entered into. For any goods delivered to you separately, the 14 days run from the day after you take physical possession of them. To cancel, send a clear statement to info@severnskylightsgloucester.co.uk before the 14 days end. You may use the model cancellation form set out in the Regulations, and a copy of it is supplied with the quotation, though any clear written statement is enough.

If the required cancellation information has not been given to you, the Regulations extend that period by up to 12 months. Once you cancel in time, any money already paid is refunded within 14 days, subject only to the deduction described in the next section.

Asking for work to start inside the cancellation period

Roof work is often wanted sooner than 14 days away, and the Regulations allow for that. If you want work to begin before the cancellation period ends, you must ask for it expressly and in writing. That request is made on the acceptance form issued with the quotation.

Two consequences follow, and both are set out on that form. If you then cancel within the 14 days, you pay a proportionate amount for the work already carried out and the materials already supplied up to the moment you cancelled. And once the work has been fully performed at your request, the cancellation right ends, because the service has been completed.

Made-to-size units and the cancellation exceptions

The Regulations contain an exception for goods made to the consumer’s own specification or clearly personalised. A made-to-size flat roof rooflight or a roof lantern fabricated to the dimensions of your opening falls within that exception, so the cancellation right does not apply to those goods once they have been put into manufacture. Manufactured roof windows supplied from a maker’s standard size range are not affected by that exception.

Where a job includes a bespoke unit, the quotation says so plainly, and the point at which it goes into fabrication is stated in writing before any deposit is taken.

Variations where the roof turns out to differ from the survey

Roofs conceal things. A rafter cut without a trimmer thirty years ago, timber that is soft once the covering is off, an underlay slit rather than dressed, a deck that ponds against the position the new kerb has to occupy: all of these are found after the survey rather than during it.

Where that happens, work on the affected part stops and you are sent, in writing, what has been found, what it means, the options and the price of each. Nothing chargeable proceeds until you agree in writing. Where the finding was already recorded in the survey notes as a risk, the variation price is the one indicated there if a figure was given.

Variations you request work the same way in reverse: a change to the size of the opening, a different glass specification, an electric opener instead of a manual one, or additional internal finishing are all priced in writing and added to the contract by agreement.

Access, site conditions and what is needed from you

The fixed price assumes the access described in the survey. So that the programme holds, the following are your responsibility as the property owner or occupier:

• Safe access to the elevation being worked on, including any shared drive, lane, path or garden route recorded at survey, and permission from a neighbour where scaffold has to stand on their land.
• Space to park and to unload, and any resident permit or suspension of a parking bay where the street requires one.
• Clearing the room beneath the opening of furniture, floor coverings and anything fragile, other than items the quotation states will be moved by Severn.
• Access to mains water and electricity for the working day.
• Somebody aged 18 or over able to give access and instructions on each working day, or an agreed arrangement for keys.
• Telling Severn before work starts about any asbestos, any structure the survey could not see, and any pets or vulnerable occupants in the property.

Where access is materially different from what was recorded and the crew cannot proceed, the visit is rescheduled and a charge may apply. Any such charge is the one stated in your quotation rather than a figure set by these terms, and it is never raised afterwards.

Weather, and the way the programme is sequenced

Dates given are working estimates, not guarantees, because external roof work depends on conditions. High wind, driving rain, ice or lying snow all stop work on a roof, and lifting glass in a gust is unsafe.

The roof is never left open overnight, and that governs the sequence rather than the other way round. An opening is not started unless it can be closed and made watertight the same day, and where the forecast turns during the morning the outside work stops at a point where the roof is whole. Where the weather moves a date, a new date is offered at the earliest workable opportunity and neither side pays anything for the change.

Where a delay is caused by something genuinely outside either party’s control, including weather, supply failure by a manufacturer, or restricted access to the street, the programme extends by the length of that event.

Ownership of materials, and when risk passes

Materials and units supplied under the contract remain the property of Severn until they have been paid for in full. Once a unit has been fixed into your roof it becomes part of the building, and if it has not been paid for at that point the outstanding sum is a debt rather than a right to remove it.

Risk in materials delivered to your property, and in materials stored there before installation, passes to you on delivery. Materials left on site between visits are your responsibility to keep secure, and it is worth telling your insurer that work is in progress.

Any surplus covering material stripped from the roof, and the old unit taken out on a replacement, are removed and disposed of by Severn unless you ask in writing to keep them. Reclaimed slate or tile that is sound is set aside for re-use on your own roof as a matter of course.

Payment

The quotation states the payment stages in full before you accept anything. Those amounts and dates appear on your quotation rather than being set by these terms. The usual pattern is a deposit on acceptance, which funds the order for the units, a stage payment when made-to-order glazing is delivered, and the balance on completion of the installation.

Invoices are payable within 7 days by bank transfer to the account shown on the invoice. Please check account details with us by phone if you receive anything by email asking you to pay somewhere different, because invoice fraud in this trade is real. Where you are a consumer we may charge statutory interest on late payment; where you are a business, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 applies. Either way it is applied only after written notice.

Where a variation has been agreed in writing, the sum for it is added to the stage that follows the work it relates to, and it appears as a separate line rather than being absorbed into the original figure.

Building Regulations, planning and consents

Forming a new opening in a roof is notifiable work, and so is replacing a unit in most circumstances. The Building Control notification is handled as part of the job: it is submitted, the inspections are booked, and the completion certificate is issued in your name and passed to you at handover. Keep it, because a buyer’s solicitor asks for it.

Planning permission, listed building consent and any confirmation needed under an Article 4 direction are separate from Building Regulations and are matters between the property owner and the local authority. Where the quotation includes handling an application, that is stated as its own line with its own price, and the application is made in the owner’s name. Where consent is refused or granted with conditions that change the specification, the contract is varied under the variations section above.

Where the property is leasehold, or subject to a covenant, a party wall matter or a management company’s consent, obtaining that permission before work starts is the property owner’s responsibility.

Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015

These terms sit alongside the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which applies to this contract and cannot be excluded or limited by anything written here.

Under that Act, the installation service must be performed with reasonable care and skill, within a reasonable time where no time has been fixed, and for a reasonable price where no price has been fixed. Information given about the service, including anything said at survey that you relied on, is binding.

The unit and the materials supplied as part of the work must be of satisfactory quality, fit for the purpose you made known, and as described. Where the service falls short, the Act gives you a right to require the work to be performed again at no cost to you, and where that is impossible or is not done within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, a right to an appropriate reduction in price. Where goods supplied fall short, the Act provides its own remedies, which run alongside the manufacturer’s warranty rather than replacing it.

The workmanship guarantee

The workmanship carries a ten-year guarantee from the date of completion. It is written against the four perimeter details that decide whether an installation stays dry: upstand height, falls, flashing laps and where the covering terminates. The unit itself carries the manufacturer’s own warranty, which is a separate document with separate terms.

The full terms, what is covered, the conditions attached to it and how to make a claim are on the our guarantee page, and that page forms part of this contract. Neither document affects your statutory rights, which continue to run in parallel.

Liability

Severn is responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of a breach of these terms or of a failure to use reasonable care and skill. Loss is foreseeable where it is obvious that it will happen, or where at the time the contract was made both parties knew it might happen.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for a breach of the terms implied by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, or for anything else where the law prohibits an exclusion.

The business carries public liability insurance, and a copy of the certificate is available on request.

Ending the contract after the cancellation period

You may end the contract at any time by written notice. Where you do so after the cancellation period has passed, you pay for work already carried out, for materials already ordered or supplied that cannot be returned, and for any bespoke unit already in fabrication. Such a sum is calculated on the work actually done and the materials actually committed, evidenced by the supplier orders and the site record, and no separate administration charge is added.

Severn may end the contract by written notice where access cannot be obtained after reasonable attempts, where a payment stage remains unpaid after written notice, or where continuing would be unsafe. In that event you pay only for work carried out and materials supplied up to that point, and the roof is left in a weathertight condition.

If something goes wrong

Raise it early and in writing. Most concerns on a roof job are settled quickest by a look at the work with the person who did it. The staged process, what happens at each stage and what to do if the outcome is unsatisfactory are set out on the complaints procedure page.

Using that procedure does not affect your statutory rights, and it does not stop you taking a claim to court.

Your personal information

Information you provide is used to quote for, arrange and carry out the work, to meet obligations under Building Regulations, and to administer the guarantee. How that information is handled, how long it is kept and what rights you have over it are set out on the privacy policy page.

Changes to these terms, and which version applies

These terms may be updated. The version that applies to your job is the version issued with your quotation, and a change made afterwards does not alter an agreement already made. Where a change is needed to an agreed contract, for example because a variation requires it, it is agreed in writing by both sides.

Transfer, and the rest of the small print

You may transfer the benefit of the workmanship guarantee with the property on the basis set out on the guarantee page. Severn may transfer its rights and obligations under this contract to another business only where your rights under the contract are not affected.

Each paragraph of these terms operates separately. If a court finds any part unlawful, the remaining paragraphs stay in force. A delay in enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live in Scotland or in Northern Ireland, you may also bring proceedings in the courts of the country you live in.

A note about these terms

This page has been written as a starting point that reflects UK consumer law as it applies to installation work carried out at a customer’s home. It is not legal advice, and it has not yet been reviewed by a solicitor acting for the business.

These terms are written against UK consumer law and are reviewed whenever the way the business quotes or invoices changes.

To start a job, email info@severnskylightsgloucester.co.uk with a photograph of the roof, a photograph of the room and the address. The process and what drives price are described on the costs page, and how the company works is on the about page.