Terms and Conditions

1. Introduction
   These terms and conditions (Terms) relate to the website hosted at www.bookaplumber.com.au, including but not limited to its associated booking system as well as any available mobile applications (together the Platform). 

   The Platform is provided by Perth Water Tanks to enable a Customer to book a Plumber and Customers are covered by the Perth Water Tanks Safety Net. All material on the Platform is subject to copyright by the Company and other copyright owners. 

   Capitalised terms used in these Terms have the meaning given in Appendix A

2. Use of the Platform
   1. A User must register, create and login into an account in order to use the Platform. 
   2. The use of the Platform is governed by these Terms. All Users agree:
      1. to be bound by these Terms;
      2. that these Terms form a binding contract between the User and the Company however when a Plumber accepts a Job from a Customer, such acceptance forms a separate Contract; and
      3. neither use of the Platform nor acceptance of these Terms creates any form of relationship of agency between a User and the Company. 
   3. Customer’s obligations when using the Platform
      1. To book a Job, a Customer places a Job Request on the Platform. The Job Request is then made available to eligible Plumbers for their consideration and enables any further communication between the Users. 
      2. Once a Customer has chosen a Plumber for a Job, the Company provides the Users with necessary contact details to allow the Users to communicate outside the Platform. 
      3. The Customer acknowledges that:
         1. each Job is performed independently of the Company by the Plumber;
         2. the Company does not provide any of the services required by the Job directly to the Customer; 
         3. any quote provided by the Plumber is an estimate only based on the information available at the time and may change upon arrival at site (Amended Quote), however should there be no change to the circumstances then the quote will be honoured by the Plumber;
         4. it must provide the Plumber with a safe working environment to complete the Job;
         5. the Plumbers are third parties and are not under the control of the Company; 
         6. the Company does not guarantee that a Job Request will be booked or a Job completed; and
         7. for the purpose of paying the Job Fee, the Company will take the credit card details of a Customer when they book a Job and that unless at least 72 hours’ notice is given of a cancellation or re-scheduling of a Job, the Cancellation Fee may be payable by the Customer. 
      4. Customers will not post incorrect reviews or otherwise breach any applicable laws, including but not limited to the ACCC policy on Managing Online Reviews (https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-promoting-your-business/managing-online-reviews). 
      5. The Customer agrees that the Customer shall not do anything to prejudice the security or privacy of the Company’s systems or the information on them.
   4. Plumber’s obligations when using the Platform
      1. The Plumber will undertake all Jobs (including communicating with the Customer) to a professional standard. Should the completion of a Job not meet with such standards in the Company’s reasonable opinion, the Plumber will rectify the issue(s) as soon as possible and at their own expense. For the avoidance of doubt, it is the Plumber, not the Company that is liable for the costs of any rectification apart from the bookaplumber Safety Net or as otherwise stated in these Terms. 
      2. If the Job is performed by an employee or contractor of the Plumber, the Plumber shall:
         1. remain liable for each such employee or contractor; and
         2. ensure each employee or contractor complies with these Terms.
      3. The Plumber acknowledges that they are responsible for ensuring:
         1. they hold all necessary, accurate and up to date qualifications, insurances and permits relevant to complete all Jobs; 
         2. they are qualified by law to undertake all Jobs; and
         3. that they do not cancel a Job unless such cancellation has been agreed to in writing by the Customer and is otherwise in compliance with these Terms.
   5. Payments
      1. Within 24 hours of completing a Job,
         1. the Plumber must submit an invoice to the Customer and the Company via the Platform (Job Invoice); and
         2. the Company will issue a Tax Invoice to the Plumber for a Service Fee via the Platform and/or email.
      2.  The Job Invoice must include sufficient details in order for the Company to charge a Job Fee to the Customer, including but not limited to, if relevant, an active ABN and GST information.
      3. The Job Fee will be paid to the Plumber by the Company following receipt by the Company of a satisfactory Job Invoice. 
      4. Unless otherwise agreed, all payments for a Job must be made through the Platform.
      5. Payment of the Job Fee will be charged to the Customer’s credit card the day following the Job.
   6. Prohibition on contracting outside the Platform
      1. A Plumber must not directly contract to provide services to a Customer other than through the Platform, including for the benefit of the doubt, in the situation of an Amended Quote, for the Exclusivity Period (Exclusivity Condition).
      2. Should a Plumber breach the Exclusivity Condition, the Plumber agrees that they are unconditionally liable to pay to the Company an amount equal to 25% of the Job Fee that the Company would have been entitled to if the services were booked as Jobs through the Platform.
   7. Relationship between Users and Company
      1. Nothing in these Terms (or any of the arrangements contemplated by it) is or may be deemed to constitute a partnership or joint venture or a relationship of employer and employee between the Parties nor, except as may be expressly set out in these Terms, does it constitute either Party being the agent of the other for any purpose. 
      2. Unless the Parties otherwise agree in writing, neither may enter into contracts or commitments with third parties as agent for the other Party, or describe itself as such an agent or in any way hold itself out as being such an agent
      3. Neither Party shall incur any liability on behalf of the other or in any way represent or bind the other Party in any manner whatsoever.
      4. For the avoidance of doubt, the Parties agree that:
         1. any and all of the terms and conditions pertaining to the Job and any quote constitute a contract between the Plumber and the Customer and do not involve or implicate the Company in any way;
         2. the Company is not responsible for the actions and services provided by a Plumber;
         3. the Company does not endorse the workmanship of any Plumbers and the User is solely responsible for the selection of the Plumber and payment of the Job Fee; 
         4. should a Plumber not attend at a Job, the Company shall use its best endeavours to find a replacement Plumber, however if an alternate Plumber cannot be found, the Company shall not be liable to the Customer (although no Job Fees will be charged).
   8. Indemnities
      1. The User agrees that it uses the Platform at its own risk.
      2. Subject to clause 8(c), the Plumber shall be liable for, and agrees to indemnify and keep indemnified the Company and the Company’s directors, officers and employees and the Customer against all costs, liabilities, claims, damages and expenses (Loss) arising out of or in connection with:
         1. property damage or personal injury, illness or death of or to any person caused by any act or omission of the Plumber; 
         2. claim of infringement of intellectual property rights;
         3. claim of breach of confidentiality; and
         4. the Plumber otherwise carrying out or not carrying out the whole or any part of the Job or any other act or omission of the Plumber,
            (together the Indemnity).
            
         5. The Indemnity will be reduced proportionally to the extent that any negligence, breach of contract, breach of duty, breach of any warranties or representations or breach of statute by the Company contributed to such Loss. 
         6. Notwithstanding any other provision of these Terms, neither party shall be liable to the other for Consequential Loss, including in the event the Contract is frustrated. 
   9. Suspension of account
      1. The Company may suspend a Plumber’s account if it consistently receives negative ratings or otherwise in its sole discretion. 
      2.  The decision to suspend or reinstate a Plumbers’ account is at the Company’s sole discretion and is not subject to appeal or review.
   10. Use of Personal Information
       1. The Company takes the security of the Platform and the privacy of its Users very seriously.
       2. In addition to the Company’s privacy policy, each Party agrees to comply with their obligations under the Privacy Act in respect of Personal Information obtained by or disclosed to them pursuant to these Terms or the use of the Platform. 
       3. Each Party warrants to the other Party that it has complied with the Privacy Act in obtaining any Personal Information disclosed by it pursuant to the use of the Platform.  
       4. In addition to its obligations under the Privacy Act, the Plumber agrees to:
          1. only use or store the Company’s or a Customer’s Personal Information for the purposes of performing the Job and performing its obligations under the Contract, including but not limited to compliance with all anti-SPAM legislation in its jurisdiction;
          2. not disclose the Company’s or a Customer’s Personal Information to any other person without the relevant prior written request or consent (as the case may be), unless the disclosure is required by applicable law or is otherwise in accordance with these Terms;
          3. immediately notify the Company or the Customer that the disclosure is required by applicable Law;
          4. ensure that any subcontractor or employee who has access to Company or Customer Personal Information understand and comply with the Plumber’s confidentiality and data privacy obligations under these Terms;
          5. provide information required by the Customer or Company to demonstrate compliance with the obligations in this clause or under law; and
          6. promptly notify the Customer or Company as soon as it receives an individual’s complaint regarding the processing of their Personal Information and cooperate fully when the Customer or Company is investigating any claim relating to such complaint.
   11. Personal information security and personal information breach notification
       1. The Plumber must put into place and maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures to secure Personal Information having regard to the risk of accidental or unauthorised access, loss, destruction, misuse, modification, disclosure or damage to such Personal Information. 
       2. If the Plumber has knowledge of any:
          1. 1. accidental loss or destruction of, unauthorised disclosure of or access to, Personal Information; or
             2. data security breach of its systems that are used in the provision of the Job which may have an impact upon the security of Personal Information;
                
                1. expeditiously report such unauthorised disclosure or access to the Company; 
                2. mitigate, to the extent practicable, any harmful effect of such disclosure or access that is known to the Plumber; 
                3. cooperate with the Company in providing any notices to individuals regarding accidental or unauthorised disclosures, as directed by the Company; and
                4. cooperate with any investigation into the incident that is subsequently undertaken by any data privacy authority, in consultation with the Company. 
                5. The Plumber must, on termination of this Contract, return, destroy, store or dispose of Personal Information as directed by the Company. 
                6. This clause 36A will survive the termination or expiry of the Contract.
       3. The Plumber must, on termination of this Contract, return, destroy, store or dispose of Personal Information as directed by the Company. 
       4. This clause 36A will survive the termination or expiry of the Contract.
   12. Licence
       1. By becoming a User and accepting these Terms, the User is granted a limited, non-exclusive and revocable licence to access and use the Platform for the duration of the Contract, in accordance with these Terms.
       2. The Company may issue the licence to the User on the further terms or limitations (including the number of users or volume of use or transactions) as it sees fit.
       3. The Company may revoke or suspend the User’s licence(s) in its absolute discretion for any reason that it sees fit, including for breach of these Terms.
   13. Amendment
       The Company may revise the terms of the Platform or the Contract, or add special conditions at any time. By using Platform the User is agreeing to be bound by the then current version of these Terms.
       
   14. Use & Availability
       1. The User agrees that it shall not use the Platform:
          1. for any purpose that is illegal in the relevant jurisdiction; or
          2. to engage any conduct that is unlawful, immoral, threatening, abusive or in a way that is deemed unreasonable by the Company in its discretion.
       2. The Company is not liable to the Users for:
          1. errors or omissions on the Platform;
          2. delays to, interruptions of, or cessation of the services provided on the Platform, including but not limited to:
             1. banks, credit card providers and merchant gateway providers; 
             2. telecommunications services;
             3. hosting services;
             4. email services; and
             5. analytics services;
          3. defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct of any user of the Platform, whether caused through the negligence of the Company, its employees or independent contractors, or through any other cause;
          4. the cost of any necessary repair, correction and maintenance of the User’s computer software or hardware, which may be necessary as a consequence of the User accessing the Platform.
       3. the Company reserves the right to upgrade, maintain, tune, backup, amend, add or remove features, redesign, improve or otherwise alter the Platform.
   15. Intellectual Property
       1. The Company reserves all Intellectual Property rights, including, but not limited to, copyright in material and/or services provided by it, software and other proprietary systems. The material provided on the platform is provided for personal use only and may not be:
          1. copied, altered, re-sold and/or re-distributed in any material form;
          2. stored in any storage media; and/or
          3. re-transmitted in any media,
             without the prior written consent of the Company in its sole discretion.
       2. All content submitted to the Company, whether via the Platform or directly by other means, becomes and remains the Intellectual Property of the Company, including (without limitation) any source code, analytics, insights, ideas, enhancements, feature requests, suggestions or other information provided by the User or any other party with respect to the Platform.
   16. Termination
       1. The Contract may be immediately terminated by either party by giving the other party written notice. 
       2. Following termination, the rights and remedies of the parties at the time of termination are not extinguished, including any rights that survive termination of this Contract including but not limited to clauses 6 (Prohibition on contracting outside the Platform), 7 (relationship between Users and the Company), 8 (Indemnities), 10 (Use of Personal Information), 11 (Personal information security and personal information breach notification), 18 (Dispute Resolution),
   17. Dispute Resolution
       1. The Parties undertake to use all reasonable efforts in good faith to attempt to resolve any dispute, claim or controversy which arises between them in connection with these Terms or a Contract (Dispute).
       2. Any Party may give the other party a Notice of Dispute in connection with this Contract in accordance with the clause below. 
       3. If after a period of thirty (30) Business Days or such other reasonable period as is agreed to by the parties after delivery of a Notice of Dispute under clause 17(b), the parties have not been able to resolve a Dispute or agree on a process to resolve a Dispute, the parties expressly agree to try to settle the dispute by mediation administered by the Australian Commercial Disputes Centre (ACDC) before having recourse to litigation. 
       4. This clause survives termination of this Contract.
   18. General
       1. These Terms, constitute the entire understanding between the Parties and supersedes any and all prior and contemporaneous Contracts, understandings or representations, written or oral, with respect to the subject matter hereof. 
       2. Each Party acknowledges that it has read these Terms, understands it and agrees to be bound by its terms and conditions, and that it has not entered into these Terms in reliance upon any representation made by the other Party but not embodied herein. 
       3. No failure, delay, relaxation or indulgence by a Party in exercising any power or right conferred upon it under these Terms will operate as a waiver of that power or right. No single or partial exercise of any power or right precludes any other or future exercise of it, or the exercise of any other power or right under these Terms. 
       4. Without limiting the obligations imposed on a Party under these Terms, each Party agrees to execute all instruments and do all other acts and deliver such further instruments and do any other acts or things necessary or desirable to give effect to the provisions of these Terms. 
       5. These Terms are governed by the laws of Western Australia, Australia and each Party hereby submits to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of courts within this jurisdiction. 
       6. If any part of these Terms found to be void, unlawful or unenforceable, then that part will be deemed to be severable from the balance of these Terms and the severed part will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
       7. The Users shall keep all Confidential Information it obtains concerning each other’s affairs and must not use such information for any purpose other than as provided for under these Terms unless otherwise agreed in writing. 
       8. In these Terms, headings are only for convenience and do not affect interpretation and, unless the context requires otherwise:
          1. words in the singular include the plural and the plural include the singular; 
          2. words of one gender include any gender; 
          3. an expression indicating a person includes an individual, a company, partnership, joint venture, association, corporation or other body corporate; 
          4. a reference to a party to the Contract includes that party’s successors and permitted assigns; 
          5. a reference to a clause, party or schedule, is a reference to a clause of, and a party and schedule to, these Terms and a reference to this Contract includes any schedule or annexure; 
          6. a reference to legislation includes any amendment to that legislation, any consolidation or replacement of it, and any subordinate legislation made under it; 
          7. a reference to a document includes all amendments or supplements to, or replacements or novations of, that document; 
          8. no rule of construction applies to the disadvantage of a party merely because that party was responsible for the preparation of these Terms or any part of it; and 
          9. where the day on or by which something must be done is not a Business Day, that thing must be done on or by the next Business Day. 

Definitions

The following terms are used regularly throughout these Terms of Service and have the following meaning:

Amended Quote has means as defined in clause 3(c)(iii).

Business Day means a day (other than a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday) on which banks are open for general banking business in Sydney, Australia.

Cancellation Fee means a fee charged to a Customer for cancelling a Job Request being an amount equal to 20% of the quote for the Job.

Company means Perth Water Tanks.

Confidential Information means any written or verbal information that:

1. is about each party’s business or affairs;
2. is about the conduct of each party under these Terms and the during the term of this Contract;
3. a party informs the other party that it considers it confidential and/or proprietary;
4. a party would reasonably consider to be confidential in the circumstances; and
5. is Personal Information,

but does not include information that a party can establish:

1. was in the public domain at the time it was given to that party;
2. became part of the public domain, without that party’s involvement in any way, after being given to the party;
3. was in party’s possession when it was given to the party, without having been acquired (directly or indirectly) from the disclosing party; or
4. was received from another person who had the unrestricted legal right to disclose that information free from any confidentiality obligation.

Consequential Loss means loss of revenue, loss of profit or anticipated profit, loss of production, loss of use of any plant or facility, business interruption of any nature, loss of business opportunity, loss of business reputation, loss of contract, value of shares, wasted overheads, payment of liquidated sums, penalties or damages under any agreement (other than arising from these Terms or as expressly permitted by these Terms)  or any other indirect, remote, consequential, punitive, exemplary or special loss or damage, but does not include damage or losses arising from claims by the Company or its personnel in respect of property damage, personal injury, nervous shock or death.

Contract means a contract formed between the Users on these Terms (and any Independent Plumber Terms) and the Terms themselves as the context requires.

Customer means a User of the Platform that is over 18 years of age and books a Job.

Exclusivity Condition means as defined in clause 6.

Exclusivity Period means a period of 12 months from the day the Job was completed for the relevant Customer. 

GST has the meaning given by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth).

Independent Plumber Terms means the usual terms and conditions of business under which the Plumber operates which, to the extent of any conflict between the Independent Plumber Terms and the Terms, the Terms prevail.  

Indemnity means as defined in clause 8(b).

Intellectual Property means all copyright, patents, inventions, trade secrets, know-how, product formulations, designs, circuit layouts, databases, registered or unregistered trademarks, brand names, business names, domain names and other forms of intellectual property;

Job means any plumbing or gas fitting services, goods and materials provided by a Plumber, subject to a booking made by a Customer via the Platform. 

Job Fee means the price paid by the Customer for a Job, as published by the Company (within the Platform) and/or agreed between the Customer and the Company from time-to-time subject to any Refund, Service Fee and any costs under the Perth Water Tanks Safety Net. 

Loss means as defined in clause 8(b).

Parties means the Customer, Plumber and the Company as the context requires. 

Personal Information means information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database), whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion or about the affairs or personal particulars of a legal entity such as a company or business which is received or learnt by each party from any source as a consequence of or in the performance of its rights and obligations under these Terms and any information defined as personal information within the meaning of the Privacy Act.  

Perth Water Tanks means a plumber booked through the Platform, including their employees or any sub-contractors that they engage. 

Privacy Act means the Privacy Act 1989 (Cth).

Privacy Policy means the Company’s privacy policy as updated from time-to-time, which can be found at https://www.perthwatertanks.com.au/privacy-policy/.

Refund means a refund or credit of some or all of the Job Fee (as appropriate) where, by no fault of the Customer, the Job is not performed or cannot be satisfactorily completed; or otherwise as required under law.

Service Fee means a fee charged by the Platform to a Plumber for arranging a Job.

Tax Invoice has the meaning given by the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth).

Terms means these terms and conditions and the Contract as the context requires. 

User(s) means a Customer or Plumber as the context requires.