Terms and Conditions for Cottage Gems Commission Based Listings

This document (and any documents referred to here) set out the legally binding terms and conditions on which you may make use of www.cottagegems.com (“our site”) as an owner of luxury holiday cottage accommodation or as an agency renting out luxurious holiday accommodation.

‘We’ means CottageGems.com, ‘you’ or ‘business customer’ means you or the property owner or agency that has registered for our services.  ‘Guests’ means the holidaymaker booking your accommodation or using the website.

Please read these terms and conditions fully before using our sites. By listing your property on our sites, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.
We provide an online platform and various tools and services that allow you, as a business customer to list your properties and interact with guests, and also for guests to book accommodation via our online reservation service.  Payment services are provided by third party companies.

We recommend that you print a copy of our terms and conditions for your reference.

Information about us

1.1    We operate the website www.cottagegems.com  We are X.E. Website Solutions Ltd, trading as Cottage Gems, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 03991504 and with our registered office at Office 6, Nags Corner, Wiston Road, Nayland, Essex, CO6 4LT.


Contracting with Guests/Holidaymakers

2.1    We provide an online reservation service for luxury self-catering holiday accommodation. We also provide a search facility for guests to find suitable holiday accommodation. We facilitate bookings through our website between you and users (for which a commission fee is payable from you to us) but in no way act as agents.  It is your sole responsibility to be legally eligible to rent out the property and the sole responsibility of the holidaymaker to pay you for the property rental.
  
2.2    When you receive a booking confirmation through the Cottage Gems platform, you are entering in to a contract with the guest and are responsible for providing the services set out on your listing, according to the terms and price specified in your listing.  You are also agreeing to pay applicable fees such as our commission fees (and cancellation fees in the unlikely event you need to cancel a booking).

2.3 Rental contracts are between you and the guest.  The guest and the business customer are responsible for performing their obligations under such contracts and with the exception of our obligations under the collection fee agreement, Cottage Gems disclaims all liability relating to such agreements.
  
2.4    Cottage Gems does not become party to any contractual relationship between the guest and the business customer and is not obliged to mediate between the guest and the business customer in the event of any dispute between the two parties.

2.5    Business customers are responsible for complying with all applicable laws, and are responsible for ensuring that they have correct pricing and availability information.
 

The Booking Process, Price, Payment and Cancellation Fees

3.1 All bookings taken via Cottage Gems are subject to a commission fee of 10% plus VAT of the total holiday price, payable by you to us.  As part of payment processing, we will invoice you for each reservation electronically once each booking has been fulfilled (i.e. after the guest has checked in to your accommodation).  We automatically deduct our commission from the price of the holiday and pass on the remaining funds (less our commission) for the booking to you 48 hours after the guest has checked in (subject to, and conditional to us receiving successful payment from the guest). For full details see our payment processing agreement.

Online payments as part of the online booking process on Cottage Gems are supported by a third party payment service provider and this payments service is subject to their terms and conditions.

For the avoidance of doubt, the majority of bookings will come electronically via www.cottagegems.com and via emails which will clearly be marked as from www.cottagegems.com

3.2  You agree not to offer any inducements, discounts or any other tactic to encourage a holidaymaker that has come to you via www.cottagegems.com to book directly with you.

3.3  You set your own prices but agree to offer rate and availability parity for Cottage Gems with your own website, and any competitor websites of www.cottagegems.com.  Rate parity is defined as the same or better rates for your accommodation, for the same dates and includes same or better cancellation policy and special offers.  Availability parity means the same or better availability will be offered to www.cottagegems.com as to its competitors.

3.4  When a guest makes a booking on Cottage Gems, their reservation is confirmed immediately so it's not possible to reject a booking.  If a guest cancels a booking, the amount you are paid is determined by the cancellation policy that applies to that booking.

Business customers should note that any cancellations made by you, negatively impact on guests’ experience of Cottage Gems, our reputation and in trust in our brand. If you cancel a confirmed booking, please note that owner cancellation fees as per our owner cancellation fee policy will apply to you.

3.5  We are required to charge VAT on our prices and as such VAT will be applied to our commission rates.

3.6  The full holiday price and payment must go through the CottageGems system including any charges for dogs.  The pricing you provide us with must include any additional charges or miscellaneous fees such as pet charges, cleaning charges etc.  Any miscellaneous or additional fees are not permitted, and will not be recoverable as an add-on or later addition, so please ensure your pricing includes any such fees. 


Booking Modifications

Guests and hosts are responsible for any booking modifications they agree to make via the Cottage Gems site, and agree to pay any additional amounts applicable for booking modifications.

The Advertising Process and Requirements

4.1  Advertisements for 5 star and luxurious self-catering accommodation are accepted at our discretion, as long as the accommodation is of a luxury standard, well maintained and cleaned, truthfully described and you are the legal owner of the property or legally permitted to rent it out.  We reserve the right to reject any listing without explanation.

The self-catering accommodation does not necessarily need to be Gold Award or 5 star rated but where self catering accommodation is not rated 5 stars we need to see photos before we can confirm your registration as business customer. We will then advise you whether your property has been accepted on to Cottagegems.com.

4.2     Advertisements for 4 star self-catering accommodation will be accepted on a case by case basis – as per the procedure for non rated properties, please email us a web link for us to assess photographs of the property.

4.3    General guest enquiries received via the site are forwarded on to you to respond to the enquirer via our internal system.   All enquiries and reservation requests must go through the Cottage Gems internal system.  It is not permitted for you to request for guests to book direct via your own cottage website or via a different website or reservation system.  You are also not permitted to pass on any of your contact details direct to guests or provide any information which would encourage guests to book direct with you.  We reserve the right to edit your responses to ensure compliance with our system and standards.
 

The Reservation Process

5.1  When a guest makes a booking, their reservation is confirmed immediately so it's not possible to reject a booking.  When a booking is made via the site you will receive a booking confirmation for each booking made via www.cottagegems.com  This will be in the form of an email and/or text message.

5.2  We are not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of information and dates provided by holidaymakers to you.

5.3  When a booking is made via www.cottagegems.com between you and the holidaymaker, the contract is between you and the holidaymaker.  You hereby grant us explicit authorisation to conclude initial booking reservations with users on your behalf via www.cottagegems.com and to collect payments via our third party payment provider.

5.4  We are also not responsible for the payment obligations of holidaymakers to you for their reservation.

5.5  Following confirmation of a confirmed booking, after 48 hours we will provide you with the guest’s names.


Accuracy & Updating of Information

6.1  You are responsible for the accuracy of the information on your ad and for keeping such information up to date (including price information and all other particulars). You will be given a log in, to the website where you can edit and maintain certain information pertaining to your ad.  For those aspects that you do not have direct access to make edits, you must inform us in writing of any significant changes or amendments that you believe need to be made to your ad.

6.2  You set your own prices and we write a tailored unique description of your property, which you have the opportunity to review.  We reserve the right to final editorial of ads. You accept responsibility for maintaining the accuracy of the data contained in your advertisements. We cannot be held responsible or liable for any losses you may incur as a result of any inaccuracies in your advertisements.

6.3  You are solely responsible for the content of any material, including text and photos that you submit to the sites. We are not responsible, nor liable to any third party for any content submitted by you or for the accuracy of any such content or material which you upload to our sites or for any information you provide to us or to any user of our websites.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you have copyright and permission to use all photos on your advertisement. We may use your photos and advertisement on our subsidiary advertising websites and on other websites.  By advertising with us, you give us permission to do so (full details available from us upon request).

6.4 You have the intellectual property rights of the content that you submit to our websites. By submitting such content you grant us irrevocable permission to display such content on any of our websites and on any partner websites. You permit us to modify, translate and display your content as we deem appropriate on any of these websites.

6.5  You permit us to call your property by the name we decide best fits the website.  This is for marketing purposes and also to ensure that bookings generated by www.cottagegems.com go via the site and that the appropriate commission fee is paid.

6.6  You are not permitted to enter programming code in to any part of your ad with us. Where such code is entered to our system in contravention of our terms and conditions, it will be removed without notice.

6.7  You are not permitted to enter in website links to external websites outside of www.cottagegems.com to your advertisement.


7.8  Availability Calendar Updating

Cottage Gems uses an availability calendar booking system and wherever possible we expect that owners keep their availability and pricing updated via integration with booking systems like Supercontrol.  Where you are using our manual system, we rely on you keeping your availability calendar and pricing information section up to date.  You agree to keep your availability calendar up to date via your log in to avoid double bookings, inconvenience or misleading information being provided to holidaymakers.  In the case of your availability calendar not being kept up to date we will take your ads offline until you have made the necessary updates.  

7.9 Pricing Data

You are responsible for the accuracy of pricing data supplied to us.  It is required that owners have pricing data available for a period of 18 months (from the current date to 18 months in the future).  If you do not have pricing information available for at least 18 months in the future, we will take your ads offline until you have updated the system with the necessary data.
 

Handling Holidaymaker Complaints

8. In the event of a customer complaining about your property you agree to liaise directly with the customer to work to resolve the complaint in a timely way.  You understand that we reserve the right to remove your ad from our site if we receive one or more legitimate and serious complaint(s) from one or more user(s) of the sites about your property;

 
Availability of Website

9. We use top quality hosting for this website to ensure that the website is available for visitors and advertisers. We cannot however guarantee that the website will be available at all times – this is beyond our control. For example, in the unlikely incidence of server errors from the website hosting company we will work with the hosting company to get the website back online asap. However, by paying for top quality hosting, we make all reasonable possible efforts to mitigate the risk of website downtime. We aim to ensure that our websites operate error free wherever possible but cannot guarantee that the websites will be error free. If you come across any errors we ask that you notify us straight away and we will investigate and address the issue as soon as possible.

Registration & Log In

10.1  Your registration is for a single user only and we do not permit you to share your user name and password with any other person or parties.

10.2  You are responsible for the security of any passwords issued to you.

10.3  You must notify us immediately of any suspected improper use or suspected security breach.


Termination and suspension

11.1 We are entitled to remove or suspend your advertisement without notice and retain payment in any of the following events:

(a) your advertisement contains incorrect or misleading information;
(b) a material breach of this agreement such as failure or delay in payment, breach of rate or availability parity guarantee, insolvency, bankruptcy or offer of an inducement to a user to get them to book directly with you.

(c) we receive one or more legitimate and serious complaint(s) from one or more user(s) of the sites about your property;

(d) inappropriate, abusive, unreasonable or unprofessional behaviour from you towards users of the site or our staff;

(e) you fail to accept a reservation at the price stated on the reservation.

(f) you overcharge users making a booking with you and fail to resolve any dispute satisfactorily.

(g) you fail to update information regarding your property which subsequently results in complaints or overbookings.

(g) misuse of the guest review facility on www.cottagegems.com

(e) you refuse to agree to any reasonable revision to any term of this Contract.

11.2 If you wish to have your advertisement removed from our site, this will be done within one month, following receipt of formal notice in writing.

After termination or suspension, you will honour outstanding bookings previously confirmed with us and shall pay us all due commissions (plus interest if applicable) on those bookings in accordance with this agreement.


www.cottagegems.com Rights and Obligations

12.1 We provide a review facility on the website so that guests who have stayed at your property can add reviews and rate your property.  We reserve the right to post these reviews and ratings on www.cottagegems.com We will not enter in to negotiation with regards to reviews and feedback.  We disclaim any liability and responsibility for the content and consequences of any reviews howsoever or whatsoever.

12.2  All intellectual property, trademarks, database rights and copyright in our sites and the material published on them belong to us.

12.3   You may download material from our sites for the purpose of using our sites, but you must not copy, transmit, modify, duplicate, republish, save or pass off any content on our site or publish the content elsewhere without our prior written consent.

13. Claims and indemnity

13.1 Your contract for the rental of any property you advertise on our sites is with the relevant holidaymaker/user of our sites. We are not involved or party to that contract.

13.2 You acknowledge that any claim you may have that is connected with a dispute with a user of our sites must be brought against the user of our sites and not against us.


The Limits of our liability
14.1 We act as an online advertising service through which owners or agencies can advertise self catering properties to users of our websites and we make no representations or guarantees regarding the capacity of any user of our site to make a booking with you. Nor do we promise any guaranteed sales or revenues.

14.2 As far as is permitted by law, we exclude:

(a) any loss you suffer or incur as a result of:
(i) the omission or act of any user of our websites or any failure of any user to comply with any of the terms applicable in the contract between you and the user. This includes any user’s failure to pay sums set out in your contract with that user.
(ii) any damage to the property or loss or damage to items of the property;
(iii) any incident, accident or other occurrence which takes place at the property;
(b) Any liability for any direct or indirect loss caused by any user in connection with the use, results of using our sites or inability to use our sites correctly including:
(c) loss of income, loss of contract, goodwill, indirect of consequential losses or damages, liabilities, costs, data or wasted time.

15. About the internet and out websites

15.1 We and all other internet businesses have no control over the global network that is the internet. In common with the majority of online advertisers, we take website security very seriously and take all reasonable steps to ensure high standards. However we cannot be held responsible for service interruption or the transmission of viruses, or other malicious computer code through our websites.

15.2 We advise that you take care and manage risks when it comes to dealing with internet transactions. Certain scams do operate via the internet and we advise that you do due diligence to ensure your safety online.

15.3 Whilst we take all reasonable steps to ensure that our websites are available at all times, we cannot be held liable if for any reason our websites are unavailable at any time or for any period.

15.4 Access to our websites may be suspended without notice for any reason including (but not limited to) maintenance or system failure.

16. Changes to our Websites

We are constantly improving and updating our website. As part of that process, we may change or cease to continue any facet of or content on www.cottagegems.com/ at any time.

17. Written communications

When using our site, you accept that communication with us will in the main be via electronic modes of communication such as via email or notices on the websites. For contractual purposes, you agree to this means of communication and you acknowledge that all contracts, notices, information and other communications that we provide to you electronically comply with any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.

18. Notices

All notices given by you to us must be given to X.E. Website Solutions Ltd trading as Office 6, Nags Corner, Wiston Road, Nayland, Essex, CO6 4LT or at the email address specified on the sites from time to time. We may give notice to you at either the e-mail or postal address you provide to us. Notice will be deemed received and properly served immediately when posted on our website, 24 hours after an e-mail is sent, or three days after the date of posting of any letter. In proving the service of any notice, it will be sufficient to prove, in the case of a letter, that such letter was properly addressed, stamped and placed in the post and, in the case of an e-mail, that the e-mail was sent to the specified e-mail address of the addressee.

19. Transfer of rights and obligations

19.1 The contract between you and us is binding on you and us and on our respective successors and assignees.

19.2 You may not transfer, assign, charge or otherwise dispose of a Contract, or any of your rights or obligations arising under it, without our prior written consent.

19.3 We may transfer, assign, charge, sub-contract or otherwise dispose of a Contract, or any of our rights or obligations arising under it, at any time during the term of the Contract.

20. Events outside our control

20.1 We will not be liable or responsible for any failure to perform, or delay in performance of, any of our obligations under a Contract that is caused by events outside our reasonable control (“Force Majeure Event”) such as strikes, civil riots and so on and so forth.

21. Waiver

21.1 If we fail, at any time during the term of a Contract, to insist upon strict performance of any of your obligations under the Contract or any of these terms and conditions, or if we fail to exercise any of the rights or remedies to which we are entitled under the Contract, this will not constitute a waiver of such rights or remedies and will not relieve you from compliance with such obligations.

21.2 A waiver by us of any default will not constitute a waiver of any subsequent default.

21.3 No waiver by us of any of these terms and conditions will be effective unless it is expressly stated to be a waiver and is communicated to you in writing.


22. Severability

If any of these terms and conditions or any provisions of a Contract are determined by any competent authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable to any extent, such term, condition or provision will to that extent be severed from the remaining terms, conditions and provisions which will continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

23. Entire agreement

23.1 These terms and conditions and any document expressly referred to in them constitute the whole agreement between us and supersede all previous discussions, correspondence, negotiations, previous arrangement, understanding or agreement between us relating to the subject matter of any Contract.

23.2 We each acknowledge that, in entering into a Contract, neither of us relies on, or will have any remedies in respect of, any representation or warranty (whether made innocently or negligently) that is not set out in these terms and conditions or the documents referred to in them.

23.3 Each of us agrees that our only liability in respect of those representations and warranties that are set out in this agreement (whether made innocently or negligently) will be for breach of contract.

24. Our right to vary these terms and conditions

24.1 We have the right to revise and amend these terms and conditions from time to time by amending this page or by publishing notices elsewhere on our site.

25. Law and jurisdiction

Contracts for placing advertisements on our sites and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) will be governed by English law. Any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with such Contracts or their formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) will be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.