These terms are the agreement between you and us when you book a visit. Please read them before you book. If there is anything you do not understand or do not agree with, ask us before you pay.
1. Who we are
WECARE is a trading name of WE-DEV LTD, registered in England and Wales, company number 15878974. Registered office: 17 Orient Close, St Albans, AL1 1AJ.
You can reach us by email at info@wecarehome.co.uk. Our office hours are Monday to Sunday, 7am – 8pm.
We provide home, garden and pet care visits in St Albans, Hitchin, Radlett & Elstree, Chorleywood & Moor Park, Hadley Wood, Loughton & Epping Forest and Brighton & Hove.
2. These terms
2.1 These terms apply to every booking you make with us. By ticking the box at the last step of booking you agree to them, and to our Cancellation and Refunds Policy.
2.2 We record the version of these terms you agreed to, together with the date, time and IP address. You can see which version applies to each of your bookings in your account.
2.3 If we change these terms, the change does not affect a booking you have already made. Your existing bookings stay on the version you agreed to.
2.4 Nothing in these terms affects your legal rights as a consumer.
3. What the words mean
Booking — the set of visits you have paid for, covering the dates, times and services you chose.
Visit — one attendance at your property by a carer.
Carer — the person we send to carry out a visit.
Access details — keys, key safe codes, alarm codes, gate codes and anything else needed to get into your property.
Working day — Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays in England and Wales.
4. Booking, quotes and prices
4.1 The price you see before you pay is the price for the booking you have described. It is itemised so you can see how it is made up.
4.2 We need at least 7 days' notice before your first visit, because each visit has to be offered to a carer and accepted. You may book up to 365 days ahead.
4.3 A booking is not made when you get a quote. It is made when we confirm it after payment. Until then we may decline it — for example if we cannot staff the dates, or if the property is outside the area we cover.
4.4 We price your booking again immediately before taking payment. If the price has changed since your quote, you see the new price and must agree to it before you pay.
4.5 Once a booking is confirmed the price is fixed. A later change to our prices does not change what you have already paid.
4.6 If you ask us to do something that is not in your booking, we will tell you the extra cost before we do it.
5. Payment
5.1 Payment is taken online by card through Stripe. We do not see or store your full card number.
5.2 Payment is taken in full when you book, unless a deposit has been set, in which case the deposit is 0% and the balance is due before the first visit.
5.3 Your booking is confirmed only when the payment has succeeded. If payment fails, the booking is held as awaiting payment and no visits are scheduled.
5.4 Prices include VAT where we are registered for it. Our VAT number, if we have one, is shown at the foot of this page and on your receipt.
6. Your right to change your mind
6.1 Because you book online without meeting us, you have a legal right to cancel within 14 days without giving a reason. This is your right under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The 14 days run from the day after we confirm your booking.
6.2 To use this right, tell us before the 14 days are up. You can use the model cancellation form, or simply email us at info@wecarehome.co.uk. Any clear statement is enough.
6.3 If your first visit falls inside those 14 days, we cannot start until you ask us to. By booking a first visit that falls within 14 days of your booking, you are expressly asking us to begin during the cancellation period, and you acknowledge that you will lose the right to cancel free of charge once the service has been fully performed.
6.4 If you cancel after asking us to start but before the booking is finished, you pay a fair share of the price for what we have already done — in practice, the visits we have carried out. We refund the rest within 14 days of being told, to the card you paid with.
6.5 This 14-day right sits alongside our own cancellation policy in clause 7. Where the two differ, whichever is better for you applies.
7. Changing or cancelling a booking
7.1 Our policy, which you also agree to when you book, is:
Cancel 7 or more days before your first visit for a full refund. Cancel 2 to 6 days before and we refund half. Inside 48 hours we cannot refund, because the visits are already allocated to a carer.
7.2 In short: cancel 7 or more days before your first visit for a full refund. Cancel between 2 and 7 days before and we refund half. Inside 2 days we cannot refund, because the visits are already allocated to a carer who has turned other work down.
7.3 An administration fee of £0 is kept on cancellation.
7.4 Worked examples are on the Cancellation and Refunds Policy page.
7.5 To move a visit rather than cancel it, ask us as early as you can. We will move it free of charge if we can staff the new time. We cannot promise a specific carer.
7.6 If we cancel a visit — illness, weather, anything else — we will tell you as soon as we know, offer another time, and refund that visit in full if you would rather not rearrange.
7.7 We may end a booking immediately, and refund the visits not yet carried out, if a carer is threatened or abused, if the property or an animal is unsafe, or if the information you gave us was materially wrong.
8. What we need from you
8.1 You must give us accurate and complete information. Much of what we do depends on it, and a carer standing outside a door that will not open helps nobody.
8.2 Before the first visit you must give us:
- working keys or a working key safe code, tested by you;
- alarm instructions, including the code and what to do if it goes off;
- full details of every animal we are caring for, including feeding, medication, temperament and any history of biting, escaping or illness;
- anything hazardous at the property — an unstable gate, a dog that guards, a faulty boiler, building work;
- an emergency contact who can attend the property, and who knows they are your emergency contact;
- your vet's details if we are caring for an animal.
8.3 You must tell us promptly if any of this changes.
8.4 You confirm that you are entitled to give us access to the property, and to instruct us in respect of the animals.
9. Keys, key safes and access codes
9.1 How we handle keys is set out in full in our Key Handling Policy. This clause is the contractual summary.
9.2 Keys we hold are labelled with a code, never with your name or address, and are stored separately from any record that connects the code to your property.
9.3 Access codes you give us are stored encrypted. They are shown to the assigned carer only while that carer's visit is in progress, and every time a code is revealed we record who saw it and when.
9.4 We will return your keys on request. Ask us and we will arrange it.
9.5 If we lose a key, tell us straight away. We will pay the reasonable cost of replacing the lock and the keys for it, subject to clause 17. We are not responsible for the cost of replacing a lock where no key of ours was lost.
9.6 You must not give us the only key to your property. Keep a spare, or make sure your emergency contact has one.
10. Pets
10.1 We will care for your animals as described in your booking and in the Pet Care and Veterinary Authorisation you complete when pets are included.
10.2 You must tell us, honestly and in full, about any animal that has bitten, snapped at or shown aggression to a person or another animal, and about any animal that has escaped or attempts to. We can work with most animals if we know. We cannot work safely with one we have been told nothing about.
10.3 We will not accept, and may refuse on arrival, an animal that is a banned type under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, or one we reasonably judge unsafe for our carer. If we refuse on arrival for this reason, the visit is treated as carried out.
10.4 We do not walk dogs off the lead unless you have agreed it in writing in your booking, and even then a carer may keep a dog on the lead if they judge it safer.
10.5 If an animal escapes, we will search, tell you immediately, notify your emergency contact, and report it to the local authority and to local rescue and microchip services.
10.6 If an animal becomes unwell we will act under clause 11.
10.7 Animals can become ill or die of causes nobody could have seen. We are not responsible for illness, injury or death that is not caused by our failure to take reasonable care.
11. Veterinary treatment
11.1 When your booking includes pets you complete a Pet Care and Veterinary Authorisation. It records your vet, your spend limit and how you want us to decide.
11.2 If an animal appears seriously unwell or injured, we will try to reach you first. If we cannot reach you within a reasonable time, you authorise us to take the animal to your nominated vet, or to the nearest available vet if yours cannot see it, and to approve treatment up to the limit you set.
11.3 The default limit we offer is £200. You may set it higher or lower, or ask to be contacted before any spend.
11.4 You are responsible for veterinary fees. If we pay them, you agree to reimburse us within 14 days of our asking.
11.5 We will never consent to an animal being put to sleep. That decision is yours. The only exception is where a veterinary surgeon judges it necessary to prevent suffering and you cannot be reached — in that case the decision is the vet's, made on clinical grounds, and we will keep trying to reach you throughout.
12. Your property
12.1 What we do at your property is a basic visual check and the tasks you have booked. We are not surveyors, electricians, plumbers, gas engineers or security guards, and a visit is not an inspection.
12.2 If we find something wrong — a leak, a broken window, signs of a break-in — we will take reasonable immediate steps to limit the damage, tell you straight away, and tell your emergency contact if we cannot reach you.
12.3 In an emergency, and where your Property Access Authorisation allows it, we may call the emergency services, or arrange a tradesperson up to the limit you set. You are responsible for the cost of any work you have authorised.
12.4 We are not responsible for faults that already existed, for the failure of your appliances, heating or alarm, or for anything that would have happened whether we attended or not.
12.5 We will follow your heating and utility instructions. We cannot be responsible for the consequences of instructions that turn out to be wrong.
13. What we do not do
13.1 We do not clean beyond what is in your booking.
13.2 We do not carry out repairs, gas work, electrical work or work at height.
13.3 We do not let anyone else into your property, and will not admit a visitor, tradesperson, neighbour or family member, unless you have told us in writing to do so.
13.4 We do not move heavy furniture, handle waste that is not household waste, or take an animal anywhere except as booked or as clause 11 requires.
13.5 If you ask for something outside your booking that we are willing and able to do, we will confirm it and its price in writing first.
14. Our carers
14.1 Every carer is identity-checked and reference-checked before their first visit, and holds a current DBS certificate.
14.2 We choose which carer attends. We try to send the same person, and will tell you who is coming, but we cannot promise a particular carer.
14.3 We insure our work. Details of our cover are available on request.
14.4 You agree not to engage any of our carers directly, whether employed, self-employed or through anyone else, for services of the kind we provide, for 12 months after your last visit. We invest in finding, checking and training carers, and this clause protects that investment. If you would like to arrange something directly, talk to us first.
15. Reports, photographs and messages
15.1 After each visit we send you a report of what was done.
15.2 Our carers take photographs inside your property as part of that report — the front door on leaving, the animals we have cared for, anything that needs your attention. By booking you consent to this.
15.3 Photographs are stored securely and are visible to you, to the carer who took them and to our staff. We keep them for 2 years and then delete them.
15.4 We will not use a photograph of your home, your possessions or your animals for marketing without asking you separately and getting your agreement in writing.
15.5 Tell us if you would rather we did not photograph a particular room, and we will note it on your property.
16. Communication and emergencies
16.1 We contact you by email, and by phone if you have given us a number. Please keep your contact details up to date.
16.2 In an emergency we will try you first, then your emergency contact.
16.3 If we cannot get into your property, we will wait a reasonable time, try to contact you and your emergency contact, and if we still cannot get in, the visit is treated as carried out and is charged. This is because the carer has travelled and has held the time.
17. Our responsibility to you
17.1 We will provide our services with reasonable care and skill, as the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires.
17.2 If we fail to do that and you suffer loss as a result, we are responsible for loss that is a foreseeable result of our failure.
17.3 We do not exclude or limit our liability in any way where it would be unlawful to do so. That includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, and for breach of your statutory rights.
17.4 Subject to clause 17.3, our total liability for any one booking is limited to the greater of the total price of that booking and the amount recoverable under our public liability insurance for the event in question.
17.5 Subject to clause 17.3, we are not responsible for business losses. Our services are supplied for domestic and private use.
17.6 We are not responsible for a failure caused by something outside our reasonable control — severe weather, flood, fire, epidemic, civil emergency or the failure of a public utility. If that happens we will contact you, and you may cancel affected visits and be refunded for them.
18. Your responsibility to us
18.1 You are responsible for loss or damage we suffer because information you gave us was wrong or incomplete, including injury to a carer by an animal whose behaviour you did not disclose.
18.2 You are responsible for damage caused by your animal to a carer's property or clothing.
18.3 Nothing in this clause makes you responsible for something that was our fault.
19. Complaints and disputes
19.1 If something goes wrong, tell us. Our Complaints Procedure explains how, and how long we take: we acknowledge within 2 working days and reply in full within 10 working days.
19.2 We do not currently subscribe to an alternative dispute resolution scheme. If we cannot resolve your complaint between us, you are free to take the matter to court, and you may wish to take advice from Citizens Advice.
19.3 These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and you and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in your own country.
20. Your personal information
20.1 We handle your information as described in our Privacy Policy.
20.2 We share what a carer needs to do their job, and no more.
21. Changes to these terms
21.1 We may change these terms. The current version is always on this page, with its version number and the date it took effect.
21.2 A change does not affect a booking already made.
21.3 If we make a significant change, we will ask you to read and accept the new version the next time you sign in, before you make another booking.
22. Ending the agreement
22.1 Either of us may end the agreement for a future booking under clause 6 or clause 7.
22.2 Ending the agreement does not affect anything that has already happened, or any clause intended to survive it — including clauses 14.4, 17, 18 and 19.
23. General
23.1 We may transfer this agreement to another business. We will tell you, and it will not affect your rights.
23.2 You may not transfer your rights under this agreement without our written agreement.
23.3 This agreement is between you and us. Nobody else may enforce it.
23.4 If a court finds part of these terms unlawful, the rest continues to apply.
23.5 If we delay in enforcing these terms, we can still enforce them later.
24. Contact
Email info@wecarehome.co.uk, or write to us at 17 Orient Close, St Albans, AL1 1AJ.
WECARE is a trading name of WE-DEV LTD, registered in England and Wales, company number 15878974. Registered office: 17 Orient Close, St Albans, AL1 1AJ.