Extended Terms & Conditions Include emergencies

Extended terms and conditions clauses 1 to 32 (on average can be read within 20-minutes with an understanding) This includes non emergencies. To return to basic emergency terms and conditions, please click here.

Delivery Policy

Clause 1: All emergencies are within a 2-hour time frame unless alternative arrangements have been made.

1.1 - alternative arrangements can be done by the form before paying your deposit or by receiving a text from our service of either Martin Smith, agent or engineer attending.
1.2 - any deposits MUST be requested back the same day (please see payments clauses 8 to 10)
1.3 - We may have stated aim times for example 30 to 90-minutes but this does not mean our contract time due to unforeseen circumstances.
1.4 - If the engineer does not get to you within the agreed time you MUST try to give us a call first or make a complaint the same day by following our complaint procedures clause 13

Clause 2: For all costs, please refer to our Description + Price Plan. Click here for more information.

2.1 - Payment over the phone - If payment is done over the phone, we will send you a text with confirmation.
2.1.1 - If we send you a text to an incorect phone, dont worry, we dont compromise any privacy.
2.1.2 - If we are unable to send you a text for the reason we are unable to gain either your email address or mobile, then any complaint can be dealt with care meaning if you admit in your email to the rates, then the terms and conditions apply.
2.1.3 - If we dont send you a text and we take payment over the phone and the person was not told of the call-out fee, then this is deemed as our fault and you are entitled to your refund.
2.2 - We dont send a text by phone if the customer has paid via the website due to the T&C being in front of them.

Cancellations, Return and Refund Policy

Clause 3: Cancellations are non refundable, unless:

3.1 - We are unable to give you a service.
3.2 - We are outside the agreed time as customer have been present.
3.3 - We may send you a text of the new agreed time and if you dont reply then the agreement stands.
3.4 - We also serve the right to refund the customer due to aggressive behaviour or deemed unsuitable of which you will then be classed as our service unused and not used.

Clause 4: On arrival, you will not be unable to cancel as minimum of 1-hour will apply.

4.1 - 'Meeting' meaning: the first property we have been told to go to could be for example: picking up of keys, other or place of work.
4.1.1 - Other meaning: Any reason we have been told to go to alternative address before the place of work taking place.

Clause 5: Arrival is classed as the nearest parking of first address given of meeting.

5.1 - Arrival is from the time of turning of the engine to the vehicle or meeting with the owner/occupier of the property.
5.2 - If engineer arriving near to property and the engineer has contacted the customer for directions within 1-miles but the customer says he no longer requires the service but had forgotton to cancel, then this can be seen as reasonable to say that the engineer has arrived at property.

Clause 6: Congestion or parking may apply.

6.1 - Congestion charges may apply depending of where the job is located in the UK and if the engineer is charged for this, then the cost will have to be added. (Please see payment details).
6.2 - Parking charges may apply depending on the parking if required and where the job is located. (Please see payment details).

Clause 7: (a) If the engineer arrives to your property and you have not cancelled, but no longer need our services, then the minimum cost of 1 hour applies. (b) If you are booking by form, bookings can be cancelled within 2 minutes of payment if payment is made under stress or by mistake. (c) If paying over the phone, cancellations can be made within the time of us sending a text to your mobile. Where the customer has no mobile then this will be done by email via both parties.

7.1 - Please note we are very reasonable when it comes to refunds, depending on the time we use up trying to allocate the job and the travelling time of the engineer, the refund may reflect the amount of inconvenience this has had to our company and any engineers or staff involved. The reason we give a 2 minute time slot to cancel for any cancellation for a full refund is because in most case, we believe that this is the time it takes for us to get the emergency job allowcated and the engineer on route costing the company valueble time. Please also note we have to pay the engineer an inconvenience fee as per there contract.

Payments

Clause 8: You must pay the engineer attending on completion of temporary or permanent work done.

8.1 - Materials - the engineer serves the write to own the materials owned until paid for in full.
8.1.1 - Minimum charges of materials can be nearest to the pound plus 25% or once the 25% has been added then can be nearest to the pound.
8.2 - Congestion charges - any congestion charges may be added to the bill + up to 25%.
8.3 - Parking charges - any parking charges may be added to the bill + up to 25%.
8.4 - type of payment - you will require a minimum of 2 options out of cash, cheque, card, bank transfer, paypal.
8.4.1 Any payments made must be proven and if not, may be charged an admin fee as further work may be required to either proof payment or chase payment up.
8.5 - Any labour costs as mentioned in the price plan clause 2 MUST be paid directly to the engineer in question who attended property.
8.6 - If you have not received your receipt for any reason for the call-out fee, then you will need to make a new request to emergencyplumber@me.com and include the name of personal of payee, date of payment made and postocde. Do not include your request for a receipt in your complaint.

Clause 9: Deposits MUST be paid before we send an engineer – once we have received the deposit, we are not responsible for any work.

9.1 - The deposit is classed as the booking fee or call-out and this is paid directly to Martin Smith via a Paypal account or other methods of payment.
9.2 - The engineer on route to work does not receive the deposit as part of his labour but may receive part of full payment before arriving to property if cancellation is taken place.
9.3 - If work is cancelled after making payment of deposit, the deposit is non returnable for the reason is, either we have sent the engineer out and we have to pay him for his inconvenience or the time it takes us to right a receipt, put it through the booking system and cash book can be classed as our time.
9.3.1 - The average time booking a job by telephone takes 10-minutes.
9.3.2 - The average time placing the job details in diary takes 5-minutes.
9.3.3 - The average time writing an invoice out takes 5-minutes.
9.3.4 - The average time placing the Invoice in the cash book takes 2-minutes.
9.3.5 - The average time in getting the job out to an engineer is 10-minutes.
9.3.6 - The average time in contacting the engineer and converming cancellation is 10-minutes.
9.3.7 - The average time to making deposit payment can be about 5-minutes.
9.3.8 - The time and inconvenience can be judged to be anything between 20-minutes to 50-minutes of inconvenience.
9.3.9 -The cost to the agent of who gets the job out can be £15 to £20 pounds.
9.3.10 - The minimum refund given is £10 depending of how much of the deposit has been used up.
9.3.11 - For every half hour of service is £30.
9.3.12 - Any deposits paid and requested back MUST be requested via the complaints form or email (clause 13.8)

Clause 10: Any details that are incorrect may result in loss of deposit.

10.1 - Giving us incorrect address detail is seen as us giving you a service, this means that you may need to pay another deposit in order for us to give you a new service. (please read clause 9)

Privacy Policy

Clause 11: Privacy policy is seen reasonable.

11.1 - If you choose the option YES 'Are you going to claim of your insurance and do you want a call from an aftercare team' under job type on any of our forms within the website, these details will then be shared with an outside company which they may deals with you insurance issue.
11.2 - The person you are speaking to that forms a part of our service will have details you fill in on the form only and may pass these on to the engineer attending.
11.3 - To form a part of our service to you, we may use these details in order to contact you for any reason deemed reasonable.
11.4 - We will not share details with no other party unless you have been emailed prior to sharing detail which enables you to contact us back otherwise. Example: we may need to share your details with a solicitor as deemed reasonable.
11.5 - We DO NOT store any of your card details in away apart from the immediate payment.
11.6 - All transactions are done through paypal which is a secure site.
11.7 - We also follow all guidelines set by Paypal.

Customer Service Contact detail

Clause 12: Please click on our contact link at footer of website when contact us.

12.1 - To contact the engineer that is attending or has attended or to request all details of the engineer please send us an email and job details by including your name, postcode and date of booking.
12.1.1 - We can only give out the engineers, name, address, postcode, telephone number, engineers number and gas safe ID.

Complaints Procedures & making reviews

Clause 13: After service care including complaints - Any complaint MUST be seen as reasonable.

13.1 - Any ilegal complaint will then require to make a complaint by writing.
13.2 - If a review is made before making a complaint in writing, we are given the rights to express any verbal complaints by including ourself in any review made. This may be regarded by the complaining person as lies, we may include verbal conversation until we receive recorded letter of any complaint by post.
13.3 - We serve the right to advice customers of any negative reviews made may be dealt by a legal team or our services.
13.4 - Please remember before making complaints that our terms and conditons do stand as all our advertising is connected with our terms and conditions in one way or another.
13.5 - We cannot expect any responsibility for anyone else giving you our contact detail via a third party.
13.5.1 - Any complaints about the third party passing our details, you will need to take it up with them.
13.6 - Any terms and conditions are over rule by consumers act 'Supply of goods act 1982' but please be reminded that any act has to be seen has fair. (Most people miss read this)
13.6.1 - We advice before sending a letter out to us, contact citizens advice and trading standards.
13.6.2 - When sending a letter out to us, the letter has to be readable. To know if this is readable or not we advice to use the flesch reading test that will give you a score so that you know that this is readable. We can not except a complaint if this is not readable. If we reply in a negative way and the complaint has been classed as un-readable, then we will not be held responsible.
13.7 - If you have made more than one bad review which is against review guideline via the media, then this will be deemed as the complaint being in our favour immediately and reasonable. We can therefor claim compensation from the person making the complaint.
13.8 - To make a complaint you will need to send us an email to emergencyplumber@me.com
Any complaint, please allow up to 28-days to reply.
As fully explained in clause 8.6 do not include your request for a receipt in the complaint.

More terms and conditions you MUST read

Clause 14: Martin Smith Plumbing trading as EPHG Ltd is owned by Martin Smith and has no employees but the service given may not be given by Martin Smith.

14.1 - Martin Smith is a sole trader that requires the use of fellow engineers and agents to run the business modul in order to give the correct service to the customer.
14.2 - The agent may be classed as the person answering the phone and passing the work to fellow engineers.
14.3 - Engineers we use are self employed in there own right.
14.4 - Engineers we use may or may not be registered with us and therefor are not CRB checked.
14.5 - Our service is too use an agent in order to make the customers job of searching for an engineer easier an more efficiently.
14.6 - It is our responsibily that we find an engineer from a suitable source. The suitable source may of registered there complete details with us via our plumbing register or for example: Yell or the gas safe register.
14.7 - Martin Smith Plumbing change of name to EPHG Limited 24th April 2015.
14.8 - Website may refer to Martin Smith or Martin Smith Plumbing but since 24/4/15 the business had changed to a company name under EPHG Limited.

Clause 15: Customers terms and conditions on behalf of the engineer attending, you MUST read this either before booking or well engineer is on route.

15.1 - All work undertaken MUST be paid for on completion of temporary/perminent work.
15.2 - If full payment is not received on completion, then a £29.95 admin fee will apply which does not include the £15 for each letter sent recorded to the invoices/occupiers address unless other arrangements have been noted by our company.
15.3 - All the materials remain the property of the engineer until paid for in full.
15.4 - If full payment is not made within 28-days as agreed, then the amount outstanding may result in further action with a legal team or agents chasing for payments .
15.5 - This contract is between the engineer and the customer, the person who is signing may be deemed as the customer and if it is signed by an alternative person in order to defraud then this may be classed as an criminal offence.
15.6 - Time starts from the time of meeting, please see clause 4.
15.7 - The call-out/booking fee may not be included in the engineers receipt and may need to be requested seperately by sending an email to emergencyplumber@me.com
15.8 - On completion of perminent or temporary, the invoice MUST be signed for by the customer of person signing may sign for on behalf of customer.
15.8.1 - If the customer is not happy with what they are signing for then this MUST be stated as close to where it is being signed for. If there is nothing stated near the signature, then the customer signing is seen happy with what is on the signed document, reciept or invoice.
15.9 - The engineer in question may use text to make good of a reasonable contract in order to commence work. This can be done by scanning/picture and sending it over.

Clause 16: Email estimates & quotes are classed as non emergency.

16.1 - Any quotes or emails are deemed as non emergency. Non-emergency services only run from 8am to 4pm calling time and Monday to Friday. For emergency rates please see clause 2.

Clause 17: understanding of the engineers terms and conditions.

17.1 - please see page and see article for the plumbing register by clicking here.
17.2 - Plumbing Register details are set to change soon as revamp is due

Clause 18: Martin Smith the owner/Agent/Manager can act on behalf of the engineer/agent for the jobs that come through our database.

Clause 19: Martin Smith Plumbing and staff are not responsible for the Engineers turning up late or not at all. Any accidental damage to any property whilst the Engineer is on sight is solely the Engineers responsibility and not the responsibility of Martin Smith Plumbing or any associate. Martin Smith Plumbing or its associates do not accept liability for any damage at all to the property whilst waiting for the Engineer to arrive.

Clause 20: Engineer meaning: Plumber, Gas Engineer, Oil Engineer, Drainage Engineer, Electrician or other professional.

Clause 21: Before making payment to the engineer you must make sure you are happy with his time scale, work that has been carried out and you have recieved an invoice with the total amount on.

Claus 22: We do not hold any responsibility for any Engineers or any guarantee on any work carried out by an Engineer supplied to you by us. Any guarantee on any work carried out at your property lies with the individual Engineer. However we take all complaints seriously. If in the unfortunate circumstance that you wish to make a complaint, please do so by following steps clause 13.8.

Booking form
Clause 23: The forename (first name) of the payer must be included either in the form at the top or in the landlords box at the bottom information and discription box of the form.

Clause 24: If you are a Business you must specify this by putting the business name in the form.

Clause 25: You must give us your email address, failure to do this may turn in to comunication difficulties.

Clause 26: You must enter a contactable phone number of the job and the payee.

Clause 27: When entering the address, you must include the house number of name, the road name and the post code of hte job.

Clause 28: You must specify the type of engineer you require such as Plumber. Failure to do this may end up in complications.

Clause 29: You must put in a small discription of the job. Failure to do this may end up in complications.

Clause 30: When booking a job in, you must specify the correct time and day either in the form or before you enter the form. If it is not an emergency, then you must specify in the information and discription box when you would like the engineer to attend which is based on 1 hour after the calling time.

Clause 31: Any details that are incorrect will result in a loss of the deposit.

Clause 32: Once payment has been made, you will either get a reference, receipt or transaction number. Once payment is made, then you will need to call us to comfirm booking, the time of payment to the time of calling is the proof of your booking.

When payments are made, we will not know this until we have comfirmation. Upon comfirmation the time of arrival will be estimated as comfirmed within the site timescale. If your unable to contact us from making payment, then an email to emergencyplumber@me.com or a text is required to proof that the booking has been made and you are awaiting for an engineer.