Trade terms

This Agreement is made between Niko Developments LTD, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 17450168, whose registered office is at 25 Pateley Square, Wigan, United Kingdom, WN6 7HG ("Niko", "we", "us"), the operator of the Fettld platform ("Fettld"), and the individual or company accepting it ("the Contractor", "you"). It applies to every job you quote for, accept or carry out through Fettld, including through the Fettld Pro app and the Fettld for Business web portal.

1. Our role as an intermediary

1.1 Fettld is a technology platform that introduces homeowners and commercial clients ("Clients") to independent tradespeople and companies, and provides tools for quoting, scheduling, messaging, invoicing, tax records and deposit payments.

1.2 Niko is not a party to any contract for works between you and a Client. Each job forms a contract directly between you and the Client. Niko does not supervise, direct or control how you carry out any work.

1.3 Client deposits are paid to Niko through its payment processor, Stripe, and held in Niko's Stripe account until they are transferred to you or refunded to the Client in line with Sections 7 and 8. Niko collects and holds deposits only to pass them on in this way.

2. Independent contractor status

2.1 You act as an independent business at all times. Nothing in this Agreement creates employment, worker status, partnership, agency or joint venture between you and Niko.

2.2 You decide whether to quote for a job, your prices, your working methods, your hours and whether to use staff or subcontractors. If you operate as a company, you are responsible for every person you send to a job and every member of your team who uses Fettld on your behalf.

2.3 You are solely responsible for your own tax, National Insurance, VAT and all other statutory obligations. If you are VAT registered, you are responsible for charging the correct VAT on your quotes and for the VAT details shown on invoices issued in your name.

3. Sole responsibility for the work

3.1 You are solely and fully responsible for:

(a) the quality, safety and legal compliance of all work you carry out;

(b) health and safety on site, including risk assessments, method statements and the safety of the Client, occupants, the public and anyone working for you;

(c) any loss of or damage to property, and any injury or death, caused by you, your staff or your subcontractors;

(d) honouring every warranty and guarantee you give, and remedying defective work;

(e) complying with Building Regulations, Part P, the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, waste carrier rules and every other law that applies to the work;

(f) complying with consumer law in your dealings with Clients, including the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and, where they apply, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, including giving Clients any information and cancellation rights those Regulations require.

3.2 You must only accept work you are competent, qualified and, where the law requires, registered to carry out. Gas work must only be carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer, and notifiable electrical work by a person registered with an approved competent person scheme.

3.3 Fettld may offer suggestions to you or to Clients, such as job briefs drafted from a Client's description and photos, or quote drafts based on your price book. Suggestions may be produced automatically and may be wrong or incomplete. You must check the scope, safety requirements and price of every job yourself before you quote, and you are responsible for every quote you send.

4. Insurance and credentials

4.1 You must hold, and keep in force for as long as you use Fettld, public liability insurance of at least £2,000,000 for any single claim, and employer's liability insurance of at least £5,000,000 if you employ anyone.

4.2 You must provide evidence of cover on request and tell us immediately if any policy lapses or is cancelled. Niko's insurance does not cover you, your staff or your work.

4.3 You must keep the insurance, Gas Safe, NICEIC, NAPIT, OFTEC, FENSA, CSCS, DBS and other credential details you give us accurate and up to date, and upload each renewal before the document expires. We record expiry dates and remind you 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before a document expires, and on the day it expires.

4.4 If your public liability insurance expires, your account is paused automatically: you cannot quote, accept new work or receive job alerts, and you are not shown to Clients looking for a tradesperson, until we have checked and approved your renewed policy. If a credential required for a type of work expires, such as Gas Safe registration for gas work, only that type of work is paused. Jobs already agreed continue, and we may contact you or the Client about agreed jobs that have not started. The pause ends automatically as soon as we approve your renewal. We do not tell Clients why you are paused. An optional credential that expires is simply removed from your profile.

4.5 Every 90 days we may ask you to confirm in the app that your public liability insurance is still in force. You must tell us straight away, and in any case when we ask, if a policy is cancelled or no longer meets Section 4.1. If you tell us a policy has been cancelled, your account is paused under Section 4.4 until you upload a current one.

5. Indemnity and limitation of liability

5.1 You indemnify Niko, its directors, employees and agents against all claims, losses, damages, fines, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with the work you carry out, your breach of this Agreement or your breach of any law.

5.2 Niko is not liable to you or any Client for the acts, omissions, workmanship, conduct or solvency of any Contractor or Client.

5.3 Nothing in this Agreement limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything that cannot lawfully be limited.

6. Verification and honesty

6.1 Before you can quote, and at any later time we reasonably ask, you agree to the following checks:

(a) an identity check with our verification partner Didit, which checks your photo ID document, takes a live selfie to confirm you are present (liveness) and compares it with the ID photo (face match). Didit may also screen your details against sanctions and politically exposed persons lists. We receive and keep the overall decision, the result of each check and any warning codes, the document type and issuing country, whether the name matches your profile, and the session reference. We do not receive or keep the images. Where Didit is unavailable, we may use Onfido instead;

(b) if you trade as a limited company, a Companies House check that the company is active and that you are one of its active directors, and a review of any warnings on the register such as overdue accounts or insolvency history;

(c) if you are a sole trader, a self-employment check of your Unique Taxpayer Reference, National Insurance number and an HMRC document you upload, such as an SA302, tax year overview or UTR letter. Your UTR and National Insurance number are stored encrypted and are only revealed to authorised staff when needed to review your check, and each reveal is logged. If you give us a VAT number, we check it with HMRC;

(d) checks of the insurance and trade credentials you declare, reviewed by our team. For public liability insurance this includes reading the policy schedule, which may be done automatically; comparing the insured name, cover, dates and policy number with your account and with other accounts; checking the file for signs it has been edited; and checking your insurer or broker on the Financial Conduct Authority's public Financial Services Register. If you agree when you upload a policy, we may also ask your insurer or broker to confirm the policy is in force, sharing only your name, business name, policy number, cover and end date. You can withdraw that agreement at any time by emailing support@fettld.com.

6.2 Everything you tell us and every Client must be true, complete and kept up to date. You must not upload a document that is forged, altered or belongs to someone else. We may suspend or remove your account if a check fails, a credential expires or we reasonably suspect misconduct.

7. Quotes, deposits and payment

7.1 When a Client accepts your quote and pays the deposit for a milestone, a binding contract for works is formed between you and the Client on the agreed scope, price and milestones.

7.2 To receive money through Fettld, you must open a Stripe Express connected account through Fettld and keep it in good standing. Your use of that account is governed by the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, which includes the Stripe Services Agreement (https://stripe.com/gb/connect-account/legal), and you authorise Niko to share information about you and your jobs with Stripe and to instruct Stripe to make transfers to your account. Stripe pays money out from your Stripe account to your bank on its payout schedule.

7.3 Niko transfers the deposit for a milestone to your Stripe account once the Client approves the milestone, or automatically 7 days after you submit the milestone as complete with photo evidence if the Client neither approves it nor opens a dispute in that time.

7.4 A transfer may be delayed while your Stripe account is not ready to receive transfers, while a dispute or card chargeback about the deposit is open, while we investigate suspected fraud or a breach of this Agreement, or where the law requires it.

7.5 Fettld does not currently charge you a platform fee, and transfers are made for the full milestone amount. We will give you at least 30 days' notice in the app and by email before introducing any fee. Any fee will be shown before you send a quote, will be deducted from the transfer for the milestone it relates to, and will never apply to jobs already agreed.

7.6 When a milestone is paid, Fettld issues a paid invoice to the Client in your name and on your behalf, using the business details and branding you provide. You are responsible for checking those details are correct.

8. Disputes, refunds and recovering payments

8.1 If a Client disputes a milestone before it is released, the deposit is frozen and you agree to the three-stage process in the Fettld Resolution Centre: (a) direct negotiation in the app, where either of you can propose a split between refund and release; (b) if unresolved after 72 hours, structured mediation by Niko; (c) final review by Niko's compliance team.

8.2 At stages (b) and (c) Niko's team may join the job conversation, and will review the agreed scope of work, messages, photographs and recognised trade standards and decide how held deposits are released or refunded. That decision governs the held deposits only and does not affect either party's legal rights to bring a claim against the other.

8.3 If money that has already been transferred to you is later refunded to a Client under Section 8.2 or with your agreement, or is reversed by a card chargeback that is decided against us, you must repay it. You authorise Niko to recover it by reversing the transfer from your Stripe account balance, by deducting it from future transfers to you, or by asking you to repay it within 14 days. If a chargeback is raised, you agree to give us any evidence we reasonably ask for within the time we set.

9. Conduct, data and confidentiality

9.1 You must treat Clients with courtesy and respect, keep Client information confidential and only use it to carry out the job. You must not ask a Client to pay outside Fettld for a job introduced through it. You must follow the Fettld acceptable use policy at https://fettld.com/acceptable-use.

9.2 Each party will comply with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Our privacy notice at https://fettld.com/privacy explains how we use your personal data. When a Client's details are shared with you for a job, you are responsible, as a separate controller, for using them lawfully and only for that job.

9.3 To keep Clients and Contractors safe and to prevent fraud, messages, quotes and profile text sent through Fettld are automatically checked for contact details, requests to pay or arrange work outside Fettld, and abusive language. A match is recorded for our team, and the conversation may receive a reminder to keep bookings and payments in Fettld. Authorised Niko staff can read job conversations to investigate flags, reports, disputes, support requests and suspected fraud. Arranging or taking payment outside Fettld for a job introduced through it removes the deposit protection and dispute support, and repeated attempts may lead to your account being suspended.

9.4 Photos uploaded to Fettld may be screened automatically by a content safety service. A photo that is flagged is hidden until our team has reviewed it.

9.5 You may only add photos from a Client's job to your public portfolio if they show the work and not people, house numbers, vehicle registrations or anything else that identifies the Client or the property, and you must remove them if the Client asks.

9.6 Tax tools in Fettld, including expense and receipt records, mileage logs, Making Tax Digital quarters and tax estimates, are provided to help you keep records. Estimates use published rates and bands and are not tax advice. Fettld does not currently submit anything to HMRC on your behalf. You remain responsible for your records and returns, and should speak to an accountant or HMRC if you are unsure.

9.7 We may be required by law, including the UK rules for digital platforms to report information about sellers, to collect information from you such as your name, address, date of birth, tax reference numbers and the amounts paid to you through Fettld, and to report it to HMRC. You agree to provide that information when asked. We may hold transfers or suspend quoting if it is not provided.

10. Electronic signature

10.1 You agree that signing this Agreement electronically in the Fettld Pro app or the Fettld for Business portal is legally binding, in line with the Electronic Communications Act 2000, and has the same effect as a handwritten signature.

10.2 We will keep a sealed copy of the signed Agreement, together with a tamper-evident record of when, where and how it was signed, and you may download it at any time.

11. General

11.1 We may update this Agreement by giving you notice in the app. You will need to accept the new version before you can quote for or accept new jobs. Jobs already agreed continue under the version that applied when they were agreed, except for changes required by law.

11.2 Either party may end this Agreement at any time by closing the account, but Sections 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9.2 continue to apply to work already carried out and to money already paid. We may also suspend or end your access in line with Section 6.2 or the acceptable use policy.

11.3 This Agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

11.4 Notices to Niko should be sent to admin@fettld.com. We will send notices to you in the app or to the email address on your account.