Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of these Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the Free Website NI website and the services we provide, including the free website build, free basic hosting, and the optional Managed Website plan (together, the "Services"). By submitting a website request through our form, or by using our Services, you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't submit a request or use the Services.

Our Services are intended for businesses, organisations and individuals acting for purposes relating to their trade, business or profession. By requesting a website, you confirm that you are acting primarily for business purposes.

2. The Free Website Service

Free Website NI designs and builds a website for eligible businesses at no upfront charge. Submitting a request does not guarantee that we will accept it or build the website you've asked for.

• We may accept or decline any free website request at our discretion, including on the basis of the nature of the business, the scope requested, our current capacity, or any other reasonable factor.
• Offering the free website service does not create an obligation on us to accept every applicant, to build every requested feature, or to build a website within any particular timeframe.
• The scope, design and functionality of a free website is determined reasonably by us, taking into account what you've told us about your business. We aim to build something that reasonably serves your business's needs, not a website with an unlimited or open-ended specification.
• Bespoke/custom functionality, ecommerce, online booking systems, third-party integrations, major redesigns, extensive revisions beyond a reasonable review-and-amend process, additional pages requiring substantial extra work, and other substantial additional development outside the reasonable scope of a standard free website may require a separate, individually quoted project.
• We may decline, pause or withdraw from a free website request that is abusive, discriminatory, unlawful, technically unreasonable, materially outside the intended scope of the free service, or where a customer is not reasonably cooperating with us (see Section 10). This includes requests submitted through automated, fraudulent or bot-driven means rather than by a genuine applicant.
• The free website service covers the initial design, build and launch of your website, plus the free hosting described in Section 4. It does not include ongoing changes, updates or active management after launch — that's what the optional Managed Website plan (Section 6) is for. If you'd rather manage the website yourself instead, we can provide you with your website files; see Section 4.

3. Your Content & Responsibilities

You're responsible for the accuracy of the information you give us, and for making sure you have the right to use everything you supply.

• You must provide accurate, non-misleading information about your business.
• You confirm that you own, or have all necessary permissions and licences for, any logos, photographs, text, videos, documents, testimonials, trademarks and other content you supply to us for use on your website.
• To the extent permitted by law, you agree to be responsible for, and to indemnify us against, any claims, losses or costs arising from content you supply that infringes a third party's intellectual property rights, is unlawful, or that you didn't have permission to use.
• We may refuse to publish, or may remove, any content that we reasonably believe is unlawful, infringing, abusive, malicious, defamatory or otherwise inappropriate.
• You're responsible for checking the business information on your website — before launch and on an ongoing basis — for accuracy (opening hours, contact details, pricing, service descriptions and similar).

4. Free Hosting & SSL

Basic website hosting and an SSL/HTTPS certificate are included at no charge for as long as your website remains hosted with Free Website NI, as part of the free website service. There's no set expiry date on this. Please read this section carefully, as it explains what that means in practice, and what happens if you move your website away from us.

• Free hosting has no fixed term or expiry date. It continues for as long as your website remains hosted with us, subject to fair use and the rest of this section. This is not an unconditional or non-revocable guarantee — see the circumstances below in which we may suspend, restrict or end hosting.
• If you choose to move your website away from Free Website NI — for example, to host it yourself or with another provider — your free hosting with us simply ends. There's no cancellation fee and no ongoing hosting charge. On request, we'll provide a copy of your website files so you (or a provider of your choice) can host it elsewhere.
• If you later decide you'd like us to host your website again, you're welcome to get in touch — but re-hosting isn't guaranteed. It's subject to availability and the service terms in place at that time.
• We may suspend or remove a website without notice where necessary, for reasons including: security incidents, suspected abuse or fraud, legal or regulatory requirements, a customer's failure to cooperate with reasonable requests, excessive or disproportionate resource use, a requirement imposed on us by a third-party infrastructure provider, or a breach of these Terms.
• We don't guarantee any particular level of uptime, and no service-level agreement (SLA) applies to free hosting unless we've separately agreed one in writing.
• Hosting depends on third-party infrastructure and service providers. We aren't responsible for outages, performance issues or changes made by those providers that are outside our reasonable control.
• We may migrate websites between hosting providers or infrastructure at our discretion, aiming to keep the website working normally throughout.
• If we suspend or discontinue your hosting under this section for reasons other than you choosing to move it elsewhere, we'll aim to give you a reasonable opportunity to obtain a copy of your website, where this is technically and legally practical to do.

5. Domains

• The free website is provided on a complimentary web address of ours at no charge. A custom domain of your own is not required to receive or keep the free website.
• If you'd like your website on your own custom domain instead, that's available as an optional paid extra. If you already own a domain, it remains registered in your name and we'll connect it to your website. If you'd like us to purchase a custom domain on your behalf, we'll register and manage it for you; you remain its intended owner, and we'll take reasonable steps to transfer it to a domain account of your own on request. Free Website NI does not claim ownership of any custom domain, whichever way it was registered.
• Where you provide your own custom domain, we can assist with connecting and configuring DNS records to point it to your website.
• You remain responsible for the registration and renewal cost of any custom domain, whether you hold it directly or we've registered it on your behalf, and for keeping registrant contact details accurate.
• We are not responsible for a custom domain lapsing or being lost because of a customer's failure to renew it, or because of inaccurate registrant/account information supplied by or on behalf of the customer to their domain registrar.
• A domain or web address does not include a business email/mailbox service. See Section 6 regarding DNS assistance for email records and what's excluded.

6. Managed Website Plan

The Managed Website plan is a completely optional paid add-on. It is not required to receive or keep the free website, free basic hosting or free SSL described above.

• The Managed Website plan currently includes active website management, website monitoring, backups, ongoing website maintenance, domain/DNS management assistance, contact/enquiry form maintenance, basic website analytics, occasional small content changes, and priority website-related support.
• "Small content changes" means minor updates such as changing text, updating opening hours, replacing a small number of images, updating contact information, adding or replacing a testimonial, or making minor service or price information changes. It does not include major redesigns, new pages requiring substantial work, ecommerce, booking systems, custom functionality, integrations or other larger development. This type of work can be quoted separately, whether or not you're on the Managed Website plan — see our Custom Apps & Business Software page for examples.
• Content changes under the Managed Website plan are provided on a fair, reasonable-use basis appropriate to a small business website. This is not an unlimited development or design service, and does not cover the larger work described above.
• Unless we've expressly agreed a specific response or resolution time with you in writing, no particular response or turnaround time is guaranteed.
• Where we manage your domain/DNS as part of the Managed Website plan, this can include adding or updating DNS records supplied by your email or other service provider (such as MX, SPF, DKIM or domain-verification records) so those services work correctly. We do not provide, host or administer business email/mailboxes themselves — see the next item.
• The Managed Website plan is website management — it is not general IT support, device support, email hosting or a Managed Service Provider (MSP) arrangement. It does not include email/mailbox hosting or administration, or support for PCs, laptops, printers, Wi-Fi, networks, general Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration, ongoing Outlook troubleshooting, password resets, multi-factor authentication, device configuration, email migrations, software installation or general remote IT support.
• The Managed Website plan is billed monthly in advance, at the price confirmed to you before you subscribe. There is no minimum contract term.
• You may cancel the Managed Website plan at any time by emailing hello@freewebsiteni.com. Cancellation will take effect at the end of your current paid billing period.
• Unless required by law, payments already made for the current billing period are non-refundable. Your Managed Website services will remain active until the end of that billing period.
• If you stop taking the Managed Website plan, your website will remain on our free basic hosting, subject to the conditions in Section 4. The additional management, maintenance, backup, analytics, content-change and priority-support services included with the Managed Website plan will end.
• We may change the future price or scope of the Managed Website plan by giving you reasonable advance notice. Any change will take effect from a future billing period, and you may cancel before the change takes effect. Any changes remain subject to rights and protections provided by applicable law.

7. Website Ownership & Intellectual Property

• Content you supply to us (your logo, photographs, business text, testimonials and similar) remains yours. You grant us a licence to use it to build, host and display your website.
• Subject to full payment of any amounts properly due to us, and unless otherwise agreed in writing, you receive a right to use the completed website we build for you for your business's own purposes.
• We retain ownership of our own pre-existing intellectual property, including reusable templates, design components, code libraries, internal tools and other generic, non-customer-specific material, whether created before or after work on your website. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of that underlying material to you.
• We may reuse generic, non-customer-specific components, layouts and code across multiple customer websites.
• Your website may include third-party or open-source components, which remain subject to their own applicable licences.
• Unless you ask us not to, we may reasonably display your website (e.g. a screenshot or link) in our own portfolio or marketing materials.

8. Disclaimers

• We do not guarantee any particular search engine ranking, position, or indexing/inclusion in Google or any other search engine or directory — whether or not you take the Managed Website plan.
• We do not guarantee any particular level of website traffic, enquiries, leads, sales, revenue or other business outcomes.
• Search engines and other third-party platforms can independently change their ranking algorithms, indexing behaviour, policies or availability at any time, and we aren't responsible for the effect of those changes.
• Third-party platforms and services that your website may link to, embed or rely on (social media, maps, forms, analytics and similar) can change, become unavailable, or fail, and we aren't responsible for those changes where they're outside our reasonable control.

9. Security, Backups & Data Loss

We take reasonable steps to keep websites we build and host secure, but no website or hosting arrangement can be guaranteed 100% secure or fault-free.

• Backups for free-tier websites are not guaranteed. Regular backups are provided as part of the Managed Website plan; backups reduce the risk of data loss but cannot eliminate it entirely, and we can't guarantee that every change will always be recoverable in every circumstance.
• Contact and enquiry forms depend on third-party email delivery infrastructure, which can occasionally fail or be delayed; we aren't responsible for messages lost in transit for reasons outside our reasonable control.
• You're responsible for keeping your own copies of any content you consider critical (e.g. original photos, business documents).

10. Your Cooperation & Delays

Building your website depends on you giving us reasonably timely information, approvals and, where relevant, content. If you don't respond to reasonable requests for information or approval within a reasonable time, we may pause, delay or (after reasonable attempts to contact you) close your request. You'll have an opportunity to review your website and request reasonable changes before it's launched; publishing a website using your business information without your approval isn't part of our process.

11. Limitation of Liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability where it would be unlawful to do so — for example, for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.

• Subject to that, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, our total liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Services (whether in contract, tort/delict, or otherwise) is limited to the amount you've paid us for the Services in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or £100 if you haven't paid us anything (e.g. because you're only using the free website service).
• To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we aren't liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for loss of profits, revenue, business, contracts, anticipated savings, or goodwill.
• If you're a consumer under applicable consumer protection law, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights, and this section applies alongside — not instead of — those rights.

12. Events Outside Our Control

We aren't responsible for any failure or delay in performing the Services caused by events outside our reasonable control, including internet or infrastructure outages, third-party hosting or software provider issues, extreme weather, industrial action, or other circumstances a reasonable business couldn't have prevented.

13. Suspension & Termination

Either of us may stop using/providing the free website or Managed Website services at any time, subject to the notice provisions in Sections 4 and 6 above. We may suspend or terminate the Services immediately where reasonably necessary for security, legal/regulatory reasons, non-payment (for the Managed Website plan), or a material breach of these Terms.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time, for example to reflect changes to our Services, our infrastructure, or the law. Where changes are material, we'll aim to give reasonable notice. The version published on this page is the version that applies.

15. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the law of Northern Ireland. Subject to any mandatory consumer protections that entitle you to bring proceedings in your own local courts, the courts of Northern Ireland will have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from these Terms or the Services.

16. General

• Severability — if any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• No waiver — if we don't enforce a right under these Terms on one occasion, that doesn't mean we've given it up.
• Entire agreement — these Terms, together with anything we've separately agreed with you in writing (e.g. a custom project quote), form the entire agreement between us regarding the Services, replacing any earlier discussions on the same subject.

17. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms can be sent to hello@freewebsiteni.com, or via our contact page.