1. What these terms cover

These terms govern the hosting, domain, and care plan services that Two Toques Web Design and Development, a partnership between John Curtis and Melanie Curtis, of Surrey, British Columbia (“Two Toques”, “we”, “us”) provides to you (“Client”, “you”).

Your agreement with us is made up of two parts. These terms set out the rules that apply to everyone. Your service details set out what you specifically receive, what you pay, and when your term renews. Those details are recorded either in a signed Schedule of Services, or in the checkout summary and confirmation email you receive when you enrol or renew online. Where the two conflict, your service details govern.

You accept these terms by signing a Schedule of Services, or by checking the acceptance box at online checkout. We keep a dated record of that acceptance.

If we have also signed a Master Services Agreement or a Website Design Agreement with you, that document governs the design, development, or consulting work described in it. These terms govern hosting and ongoing care only.

We publish the current version of these terms at twotoques.ca and keep prior versions available on request.

2. Term and renewal

Your initial term is twelve months, beginning on the start date shown in your service details.
At the end of each term your services renew automatically for a further twelve months, unless either of us gives written notice at least thirty days before the renewal date that we do not intend to renew. Notice by email is sufficient.

We will send you a renewal notice at least thirty days before your renewal date setting out what you will be charged for the coming term.

3. Fees and payment

All services are billed annually in advance in Canadian dollars. Applicable taxes are added to every invoice.

Where you have provided a payment method to be kept on file, we will charge it on your renewal date. Where you are invoiced instead, payment is due on the renewal date shown in your service details.

Overdue amounts accrue interest at 2% per month, being 24% annually, or the maximum permitted by law if that is lower. Work that falls outside the services described in Section 4 is billed at $150 per hour, and we will tell you the estimated time and cost and obtain your written approval before starting any such work.

4. What your plan includes

Your care plan covers the work required to keep your site and services running on the platform where they are hosted. This includes:
• Management of your hosting environment and platform subscription
• Provisioning and renewal of SSL certificates
• DNS administration and configuration (when applicable DNS service is purchased)
• Registration and renewal of the domains listed in your service details (when applicable DNS service is purchased)
• Backups of your site, taken on the schedule described in Section 9
• Security monitoring, and remediation of platform-level and server-level issues
• Response to outages affecting the hosted environment

5. What your plan does not include

Your care plan does not include any work on the content, design, or functionality of your site. The following are examples of work that falls outside your plan and is billed hourly:
• Edits to text, images, or any other content
• Changes to design, layout, or branding
• Adding new pages or sections
• Installing or configuring plugins, apps, or integrations
• Search engine optimization work
• Analytics configuration or reporting
• Training
• Support for third-party tools and services that you use alongside your site

We are always happy to quote this work. It is separated from the plan so that clients who do not need it are not paying for it.

6. Your responsibilities

• Keep your contact and billing details current, and tell us promptly when they change
• Provide accurate information and any access we need to perform the services
• Ensure you hold the necessary rights to all content on your site, including text, images, fonts, and video
• Use the services lawfully, and not to send unsolicited bulk email or to host malicious or infringing material
• Maintain your own copies of any data that is critical to your business

7. Domains

Where we register or renew a domain for you, we do so in our registrar account and hold it for your benefit. The domain is yours. You may ask us to transfer it to a registrar account of your choosing at any time while your account is paid current, and we will do so promptly and without charge.

We renew a domain only after the invoice covering that renewal has been paid. If payment is not received before the domain expires, the domain will lapse. Once a domain lapses it may be recovered only during a limited redemption period, at a fee set by the registry which is typically many times the normal renewal cost, and after that period it may be registered by anyone. We are not responsible for a lapsed domain or for the cost of recovering one.

Because the consequences of losing a domain are permanent, we send domain expiry reminders separately from, and earlier than, our ordinary renewal notices. Please treat them as urgent.

8. Personal information and data protection

Running your website and services means we handle personal information. Some of it is about you, and some of it belongs to the people who use your site, where your site collects it.

You decide what personal information your site collects and what it is used for, and you remain accountable for it. We handle that information only to deliver the services described in these terms, and only on your instructions. We do not use it for our own purposes, we do not disclose it to anyone except as described below, and we do not sell it.

We apply technical and organizational safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, including access controls, two-factor authentication on administrative accounts, encrypted connections, and server-level security monitoring. Access is limited to the people who need it to do the work. Section 9 sets out the limits of what we can guarantee.

We rely on third parties to deliver these services, including server and hosting providers, domain registrars and registries, email and productivity providers, backup and security services, and payment processors. Each receives only the information it needs. Some of them store or process information outside Canada, including in the United States, where it may be subject to the laws of that country and accessible to its courts and law enforcement. We will tell you the current list of providers on request.

If we become aware of a security breach affecting personal information on your site or in your account, we will tell you without undue delay and give you the information you reasonably need to assess it. Deciding whether to report the breach to a privacy regulator or to affected individuals is your responsibility, because the information is yours, and we will help you do it.

If an individual contacts us directly about personal information held on your site, we will refer them to you rather than answering on your behalf.

What happens to your data when services end is set out in Sections 10 and 13.

How we handle personal information about you as our client, as distinct from the information your site collects, is described in our privacy policy at accentweb.ca.

9. Service levels, backups, and security

Services are provided on an as-available basis. We do not guarantee any level of uptime or availability, and we do not offer service credits. Your site depends on infrastructure operated by third parties, including your hosting platform, registrar, and DNS provider, and we cannot commit to a standard stronger than the one they provide to us.

We take regular backups and we will use them to restore your site if something goes wrong. We do not warrant that any particular backup will be complete, current, or restorable, and backups are not a substitute for your own copies of business-critical data.

We monitor for security issues and will act on what we find. No monitoring prevents every compromise. We do not guarantee that your site will not be attacked, defaced, or infected, and we are not liable for the consequences if it is.

Where we have taken over responsibility for a site, domain, or hosting account that was built or operated by someone else, we provide those services on an as-is basis. We have not audited the prior work and we are not responsible for defects, vulnerabilities, or licensing problems that existed before our involvement. We will tell you if we find something that needs attention, and quote the work to fix it.

10. Late payment and suspension

We would much rather send a reminder than take a site down. The steps below exist so that you always know what happens next and when. All days are counted from your renewal date.

30 days before renewal date – Renewal notice and invoice issued, or notice that your card on file will be charged.

Renewal date – Payment due, or card on file charged.

10 days after renewal date – First reminder sent.

20 days after renewal date – Written suspension warning sent, naming the exact date your site will be taken offline.

30 days after renewal date – Website suspended and replaced with a holding page. Email continues to work.

60 days after renewal date – Services terminated. Any email we host for you is suspended. Final notice sent regarding your data.

90 days after renewal date – Your data is deleted. We have no further obligation to restore or retain it.

Restoring a suspended site is manual work, so reinstatement is charged at one hour at our standard hourly rate. The timetable above applies to hosting and care plan services. Domains follow their own timetable, set by the registry, and are covered in Section 7.

11. Changes to pricing

We review pricing annually. If your price is changing at renewal we will tell you in writing at least sixty days before your renewal date. You may decline to renew at any point up to thirty days before the renewal date, and nothing further is owed.

Separately from the annual review, we may pass through increases in the cost of third-party platforms, licences, registry fees, or currency movement affecting those costs, on thirty days written notice. We pass through the actual increase and nothing more.

12. Ending your services

You may end your services by giving written notice at least thirty days before your renewal date. We may do the same. Either of us may end the agreement immediately if the other is in material breach and has not fixed it within fifteen days of being asked to.

If you end your services partway through a term that you have already paid for, amounts already paid are not refunded. If we end your services partway through a paid term for any reason other than your breach, we will refund the unused portion on a pro rata basis.

13. Leaving with your site

If you decide to move on, you take your site with you. What that looks like depends on the platform your site is built on, and both cases are set out below. In either case the request must be made within thirty days of termination and your account must be paid current.

For a site hosted on WordPress or a similar server-based platform, we will provide a full site archive and a database export in a standard format. We are not responsible for installing or configuring that site with another provider, although we are happy to quote the work.

For a site built on Wix, we will initiate transfer of the site to a Wix account that you nominate, subject to Wix’s transfer requirements at the time. You will need your own Wix plan, because the plan we purchased on your behalf does not transfer with the site.

14. Limitation of liability

Our total liability to you for any and all claims arising out of or in connection with these terms, whether in contract, tort, or otherwise, is limited to the total amount you paid us for hosting and care plan services in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.

We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, punitive, or consequential damages, including lost profits, lost business, lost revenue, or lost or corrupted data, whether or not we were told such damages were possible. This limit applies even if a remedy in these terms fails of its essential purpose.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

15. Indemnity

You will indemnify us against claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising from the content you publish, from your use of the services in breach of these terms, or from your failure to hold the rights to material you supply to us or place on your site.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Each version is dated and published, and prior versions remain available on request. Material changes take effect at your next renewal, not immediately, and we will give you at least sixty days written notice before that renewal. Minor corrections that do not affect your rights or what you pay take effect when published.

17. General

These terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. If a dispute arises we will first try to sort it out directly. Failing that, either of us may bring the matter before the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal or the Provincial Court of British Columbia (Small Claims Division) where the amount falls within their jurisdiction, and otherwise before the courts of British Columbia.

You may not assign your agreement without our written consent. We may assign it to a successor of our business, including on incorporation or sale, on written notice to you.
Notices under these terms may be given by email to the address on your account.

These terms together with your service details are the entire agreement between us regarding hosting and care plan services, and replace any earlier understanding or arrangement covering the same services.

18. Contact

Two Toques Web Design and Development
info@twotoques.ca | 778.288.3835 | twotoques.ca