Definitions

 

Cleaner refers to the person or persons carrying out the services requested by the client

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Service Charge or Hourly Rate is the payment made by the client to The Little Cottage Cleaning Company

 

The Client means the person requesting cleaning services of employed cleaners via The Little Cottage Cleaning Company

 

Service or services mean the work carried out by the cleaner on request of the client and as detailed on the booking form, or later altered in writing

 

Your Property is the address or location where the service is to be carried out by our cleaner as detailed on your booking form, or later altered in writing 

 

We, Us and Our refers to The Little Cottage Cleaning Company

 

Your Property

 

We only provide services to those properties with services of running water, drainage, and electricity connections. We will only accept properties without services by prior agreement. We reserve the right to make a minimum charge of 2 hours where we arrive at a property and cannot complete cleaning due to lack of services.

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We want to provide you with a good service so ask that in return you give us as much information about your property in advance so we can make a fair assessment. If the information we have is vague or incorrect then the price or time scale may be altered. If in doubt, ask for advice.

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The Little Cottage Cleaning Company wants to ensure a safe working environment for everyone. Therefore, we ask that your property be in a safe condition for your cleaner to work in and have safe access and egress.

 

If you have something you do not want your cleaner to touch, or a room you do not want your cleaner to go in, then please agree this with us first. We cannot be held responsible if you do not provide prior notification. We appreciate that everyone’s idea of clean is different. If you have told us your property is in a reasonable state and when your cleaner arrives, they discover it is heavily soiled, or in a different state to that agreed, then we may have to insist on an initial deep clean, or amend the amount of time required in our estimate. In the event of an estimate being amended because of inaccurate information supplied by you then you have the right to cancel subject to a minimum 2-hour charge being made.

 

Charges and Pricing

 

All cleaners work on an employed basis, we DO NOT engage the services of self-employed cleaners, contractors or zero hours contracted staff.

 

Domestic clients are quoted on the basis of the time we anticipate it will take to carry out the tasks on the Service List for an average property.  We charge all clients on an hourly basis.  This will be confirmed during a home visit and adjusted if necessary depending on your requirements.  This may also be amended during the term of your cleaning with your prior agreement.  . PLEASE NOTE we can only provide an estimate based on the information you provide, if in any doubt please ask for an inspection visit to be carried out PRIOR to quoting so a more accurate estimate can be made.

Commercial clients hourly rate applies for each hour or part hour they have been in attendance regardless of actual service carried out. 

 

We may charge the equivalent of 2 minutes service, per mile your property is away from our base at RG1 8EQ, to cover some of the travel costs incurred by our staff. Where this is charged, it will be already included in any quotation provided.

 

Cleaning outside of the hours of 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday may also incur and additional charge.  This will be included automatically within any quotation we provide.

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Cleaning teams do not carry specialist cleaning equipment such as that for oven cleaning or carpet cleaning.  These services are specialist deep cleaning services and are charged separately. 

 

Only one discount code, referral code, voucher, or special offer per customer. This includes members of their immediate family who reside with them.

We do not provide an in-house ironing service. Where ironing is required’ we will take this away from your property at the end of the cleaning session and return it within 2 working days. Where we are not keyholders it is your responsibility to ensure that someone is at your property to accept the return of the completed ironing. Where no one is present to accept the return, we will return it on the next scheduled cleaning session. Our pricing for ironing is as follows:

 

Adult:

Shirts/tops/shorts/skirts £1.50 per item

Trousers/Jeans/Dresses £2 per item

Children:

 £1 per item

Bedding:

Single £3 per item

Double £4 per item

King £4.50 per item

Super-King £5 per item

 

Other: Pillowcase, towels, napkins £1 per item Tablecloths £2 per item

 

Where payments are not made when requested, declined or charged back by you then we reserve the right to charge administration fees to recover the outstanding sum. These will be limited to £15 per phone call made, £15 per written correspondence sent whether by email or letter. It is Company policy to follow every payment owed which may result in the use of a debt collection agency. Please remember that any missed, fraudulent or charged back payments not rectified within 30 days may result in debt collection action which can affect your credit rating.

 

Your Service

 

Your cleaning team will clean the areas as detailed on your Service List which was provided when your service was incepted.  Any items or areas to be cleaned outside of this list, must be agreed in advance by us.  If you wish to make any changes to the functions your cleaning team carry out, then this must be done in writing and agreed by us.

At all times you are responsible for maintaining payment of your service. We accept bank transfer or credit/debit card within 5 days of your invoice being issued for domestic clients or within 30 days for Commercial clients (unless agreed otherwise) . Failure to do so could result in loss of service and/or action being taken and as a result additional charges being added.

We ask that you provide regular feedback on your cleaner. Where standards are not to your liking then we ask that you inform us immediately so that we may discuss this with your cleaner and include any actions needed in their development plan.

Where you believe damage or loss has occurred because of your cleaners’ actions, then we ask that you inform us immediately, and in any event within 24 hours, or we cannot be held responsible for any loss. All clients must self-insure for the first £500 of each incident and we recommend that all clients check their homeowner’s insurance to ensure loss occurring from the actions of domestic staff is covered. For claims in excess of £500, this will be referred to our insurers who will validate and pay any claim up to the value of £5,000,000.

We cannot be held responsible for any losses where our insurers refuse to pay a claim.

We will always try to adhere to any date we have agreed with you when providing our service. We cannot guarantee times of arrival but will always try to stick to morning or afternoon appointment time frames. On occasions, we may need to alter this when incidents occur beyond our control, such as but not limited to, sickness absence, adverse weather, traffic delays, loss or lack of material supply. If you wish to change your contract, including hours and dates you must do so in writing (post or email). We will always try and accommodate all requests but cannot guarantee this.

You are allowed to cancel individual cleaning session up to a maximum of 10 individual cleaning sessions per year, regardless of reason, with at least 24hours notice. Where you wish to terminate or cancel your service completely, you must do so with at least 30 days-notice. Where this is not provided, we reserve the right to pursue a charge equal to but not greater than the loss of revenue which we would have enjoyed had the service taken place. Cancellations/suspensions to individual services cannot be made during notice periods.

Domestic services are billed on the 15th of each month for payment within 10 days. Commercial services are billed on the last day of each month for payment within 30 days. Payment is preferred by BACS but can also be made by credit or debit card. We do not offer direct debit facilities.

 

Insurance and Liability

 

Your cleaner will always ensure to take good care of your property but cannot be held liable for existing damage stains or spills that cannot be removed using normal cleaning methods, wear and tear, discolouring or damage which only becomes apparent once cleaning has taken place, damage to fragile items or to items that require specialist care where you have not previously advised us or your cleaner of the fragility or special care requirements, damage cause by events out of our/your cleaners control, damaged caused by normal cleaning methods which is beyond our/your cleaners control, or damage caused by third parties.

 

All clients are required to check their homeowner’s insurance to ensure they are covered for incidents cause by/involving domestic staff. Whilst we do carry liability insurance this is restricted to claims up to £5,000,000 and carries a £500 excess. Clients are required to ensure they have sufficient cover for any claim which falls outside of this scope of cover and also be liable for the first £500 of any claim/incident. Any claim you wish to make which falls above the liability of The Little Cottage Cleaning Company as detailed above, must be made within 24 hours of the incident occurring.  Most household insurance policies now provide cover for domestic staff, we advise that you check your policy or consult your insurers before employing the services of a cleaner. In any event, the Company's total liability shall not exceed a sum equal to the price paid by the Client for the Service charge of that particular service. 

By clicking to accept our terms and conditions on your booking form when submitting a booking request, you agree to be bound by our terms and conditions. Your statutory rights remain unaffected.

 

Privacy Policy

 

This privacy policy notice is served by The Little Cottage Cleaning Company, 1 Richfield Place, 12 Richfield Avenue, Reading, RG1 8EQ under the website; www.thelittlecottage.co.uk.

The purpose of this policy is to explain to you how we control, process, handle and protect your personal information through the business and while you browse or use this website. If you do not agree to the following policy you may wish to cease viewing / using this website, and or refrain from submitting your personal data to us. Policy key definitions:

• "I", "our", "us", or "we" refer to the business; The Little Cottage Cleaning Company.

• "you", "the user" refer to the person(s) using this website.

• GDPR means General Data Protection Act. • PECR means Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulation. • ICO means Information Commissioner's Office. • Cookies mean small files stored on a users computer or device. Key principles of GDPR: Our privacy policy embodies the following key principles; (a) Lawfulness, fairness and transparency, (b) Purpose limitation, (c) Data minimization, (d) Accuracy, (e) Storage limitation, (f) Integrity and confidence, (g) Accountability. Processing of your personal data Under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) we control and / or process any personal information about you electronically using the following lawful bases.

 

ICO Data Protection Register; We are exempt from registration in the ICO Data Protection Register because we only process personal data for accounting,

administrative and marketing purposes. Lawful basis: Consent Our purpose for processing, why it is necessary and how we process your information is: To provide the services requested by you or to provide quotations and estimates for services requested by you Data retention period: We will continue to process your information under this basis until you withdraw consent or it is determined your consent no longer exists.

 

Sharing your information: We will only share data with third parties in order to supply the requested services to you via sub contractors. Where a subcontractor is used we will supply details of the subcontractor to you before providing the service. If, as determined by us, the lawful basis upon which we process your personal information changes, we will notify you about the change and any new lawful basis to be used if required. We shall stop processing your personal information if the lawful basis used is no longer relevant Your individual rights Under the GDPR your rights are as follows. You can read more about your rights in details here; • the right to be informed; • the right of access; • the right to rectification; • the right to erasure; • the right to restrict processing; • the right to data portability; • the right to object; and • the right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling. You also have the right to complain to the ICO [www.ico.org.uk] if you feel there is a problem with the way we are handling your data. We handle subject access requests in accordance with the GDPR.

 

Internet cookies We use cookies on this website to provide you with a better user experience. We do this by placing a small text file on your device / computer hard drive to track how you use the website, to record or log whether you have seen particular messages that we display, to keep you logged into the website where applicable, to display relevant adverts or content, referred you to a third party website. Some cookies are required to enjoy and use the full functionality of this website. We use a cookie control system which allows you to accept the use of cookies, and control which cookies are saved to your device / computer. Some cookies will be saved for specific time periods, where others may last indefinitely. Your web browser should provide you with the controls to manage and delete cookies from your device, please see your web browser options. Cookies that we use are; • Our website does not use cookies Data security and protection We ensure the security of any personal information we hold by using secure data storage technologies and precise procedures in how we store, access and manage that information.

 

Our methods meet the GDPR compliance requirement. Fair & Transparent Privacy Explained We have provided some further explanations about user privacy and the way we use this website to help promote a transparent and honest user privacy methodology. Email marketing messages & subscription Under the GDPR we use the consent lawful basis for anyone subscribing to our newsletter or marketing mailing list. We only collect certain data about you, as detailed in the "Processing of your personal data" above. Any email marketing messages we send are done so through an EMS, email marketing service provider.

 

An EMS is a third party service provider of software / applications that allows marketers to send out email marketing campaigns to a list of users. Email marketing messages that we send may contain tracking beacons / tracked clickable links or similar server technologies in order to track subscriber activity within email marketing messages. Where used, such marketing messages may record a range of data such as; times, dates, I.P addresses, opens, clicks, forwards, geographic and demographic data. Such data, within its limitations will show the activity each subscriber made for that email campaign. Any email marketing messages we send are in accordance with the GDPR and the PECR. We provide you with an easy method to withdraw your consent (unsubscribe) or manage your preferences / the information we hold about you at any time. See any marketing messages for instructions on how to unsubscribe or manage your preferences, otherwise contact our EMS provider