Terms and Conditions of Business

1. Company and contact details

The Supplier is Noise Survey Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 04284291.

Business and correspondence address: 27 Ashbourne Road, Kirk Langley, Ashbourne, Derby DE6 4NS.

Registered office: Finlayson & Co, Whitby Court Abbey Road, Shepley, Huddersfield, HD8 8EL. This is the registered office and is separate from our business contact address.

We provide services across England and Wales. Use the contact details below for enquiries, booking changes, cancellations and complaints.

Email: info@noisesurvey.co.uk

2. Your agreement with us

The Customer is the person or organisation commissioning the Services. Services and Deliverables mean the acoustic work and outputs specified in our written quotation and booking confirmation. A Private Individual is an individual acting wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession.

Your instruction or acceptance of a quotation is an offer to engage us. A Contract is formed when we confirm acceptance in writing. An enquiry through the website, a suggested assistant reply or a starting price does not make a booking or create a binding quotation.

Our written confirmation identifies the agreed scope, fee, Deliverables and any booked start date and time. We will draw attention to the cancellation and preparation requirements before you commit. These terms and the agreed written quotation form the Contract. A specifically agreed written variation takes priority where it conflicts with these terms, subject always to rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Quotations are normally valid for 30 days unless a different period is stated. Website information is general guidance. Statements about the Services on which a Private Individual relies remain binding where the law requires. A later website update does not retrospectively change an existing Contract.

3. Professional services and scope

We will perform the agreed Services with reasonable care and skill. The scope may include noise at work, environmental noise, BS8233, BS4142 noise impact or vibration assessment, as specified in the quotation.

The assessment method, representative operating conditions, monitoring period, measurement positions and report requirements are agreed for the project. A change in the site, plant, operating pattern, planning requirement or information provided may require a revised scope and fee, which we will agree with you before additional chargeable work.

We explain material assumptions and limitations in the report. An assessment is evidence and professional advice; it does not guarantee planning permission, approval by a regulator or a particular site outcome. The Customer remains responsible for implementing agreed recommendations and meeting their own legal duties.

We will confirm any agreed completion deadline. Otherwise we will perform the Services within a reasonable time. We will tell you promptly about material delays or necessary changes and discuss reasonable alternatives.

4. Prepare for the survey

Please provide accurate project information, a site contact and the permissions, safe access and representative operating conditions agreed for the survey. Tell us before we travel if the site will not be ready. We will explain the project-specific arrangements in the booking confirmation.

Noise at work: prepare a list of the machines and processes to be assessed and a list of production staff by job role, work area and shift, including typical tasks and time spent on them. Arrange for representative work to take place and for relevant staff to be available. Staff codes or first names can be used where sufficient; share any necessary personal information privately and securely.

Environmental assessments, including BS8233 and BS4142: arrange access for the survey day and throughout any other agreed monitoring period. Provide keys or an escort where necessary, permissions for measurement locations and a site map or plan. Overnight access or unattended equipment arrangements are agreed in advance where needed.

BS4142: also provide the operating hours and operating modes of the machinery or plant, its location on the site plan and available manufacturer sound data. Where the survey requires it, arrange safe opportunities to observe plant running and switched off, agreed in advance with the consultant.

Tell us about site hazards, induction requirements, restricted areas, changes to production, unusual events and any access limitations before the visit. Please do not post staff lists or confidential site plans on the public website.

5. Cancellation, postponement and an unprepared site

Less than 24 hours’ notice: the cancellation charge is 50% of the agreed fee for the cancelled Services, subject to the loss limits and rights for private individuals below. The period is measured backwards from the agreed start date and time in our written booking confirmation, using UK local time. Exactly 24 hours’ notice is not less than 24 hours.

We normally make no cancellation charge if we have not set off for the site. If costs have already been committed, such as a non-refundable hotel booking, or there is another unavoidable direct loss, we will explain it and apply only a justified charge under these terms. Early notice gives us the best opportunity to avoid or reduce costs.

The charge addresses the direct loss caused by the cancellation. This may include preparation already undertaken, wasted travel time, fuel and transport, non-recoverable hotel costs and net earnings lost where the reserved appointment cannot reasonably be filled by alternative work. Lost earnings means the relevant net loss after saved costs, rather than the gross value of another job or a speculative opportunity. We take reasonable steps to reduce the loss, including seeking refunds and replacement work. We deduct costs saved, refunds recovered and income from replacement work covering the same time, credit payments already made, and do not recover the same loss twice. If the reasonable direct net loss is less than 50%, the charge is reduced to that lower amount. We will explain the calculation on request. This is compensation for loss, rather than a penalty.

For a distant visit we may travel the day before the survey and stay overnight, for example before a morning appointment in London. Cancelling before the survey date can therefore still leave travel and hotel costs. We will explain significant travel and overnight arrangements in advance. The 24-hour notice period is still measured from the agreed survey start date and time; starting travel earlier does not move that deadline.

Please notify us as soon as you need to cancel or postpone, preferably by email, giving the project reference and booked start date and time. You can also telephone; we will record the notification and confirm it in writing. An unambiguous cancellation does not depend on us issuing an acknowledgement to be effective. Cancellation notices from private individuals can use any clear statement as described in section 6.

If agreed access, staff availability, site preparation or representative plant operation is unavailable at the booked start and this prevents the agreed work, we will first discuss whether the problem can reasonably be resolved or useful agreed work can proceed. If the appointment cannot proceed because of the Customer’s failure to provide the agreed arrangements, it is treated as a late cancellation of that appointment and the same 50% maximum and direct net loss calculation apply. A minor omission that does not prevent the work does not trigger the charge.

For cancellation with 24 hours’ notice or more, no percentage cancellation fee applies. Any amount payable is limited to Services already properly performed and reasonable, agreed, non-recoverable costs directly caused by the cancellation, with the same loss-reduction and no-double-recovery principles. Statutory cancellation rights still take priority.

A request to postpone will be considered reasonably. We will agree whether the original slot can be moved and explain any justified charge before confirming the change. No late cancellation charge applies where the cancellation results from our breach of Contract. Unsuitable survey weather or another event outside both parties’ control is considered under section 11, rather than automatically treated as Customer cancellation.

6. Cancellation rights for private individuals

This section applies where you are a Private Individual and the statutory distance or off-premises cancellation rules apply, for example to a qualifying booking agreed entirely by telephone or email. You normally have until the end of 14 days after the day the Contract is made to cancel without giving a reason. The statutory period can be longer if required cancellation information has not been supplied. These rights override the late cancellation charge in section 5.

To cancel, tell Noise Survey Limited at the business address in section 1, by email or by telephone using the details on this page. You can use the optional form below, but any clear statement is sufficient. Send your notice before the cancellation period expires. We will acknowledge a cancellation received by email.

We will start Services during the statutory cancellation period only if you expressly request this. We record the request in writing and explain the consequences before starting. If you then exercise your statutory right to cancel, you pay only a proportionate amount for Services properly supplied up to cancellation, and only where the required information and early-start request requirements have been met. If they have not been met, no charge is due for those Services during that period.

You lose the statutory right to cancel only once the Services have been fully performed, and only if performance began after your express request and your acknowledgement that full performance would end that right. Booking a survey date or submitting an enquiry alone is not that acknowledgement.

Any refund due following statutory cancellation will be made without undue delay and within 14 days of us being informed, using the same payment method unless you expressly agree otherwise, without a refund fee. Nothing here removes your rights if Services are not provided with reasonable care and skill or otherwise fail to meet the Contract.

Optional cancellation form: To Noise Survey Limited, 27 Ashbourne Road, Kirk Langley, Ashbourne, Derby DE6 4NS; email info@noisesurvey.co.uk. I/we give notice that I/we cancel the contract for these Services: [describe Services and booking reference]. Contract agreed on: [date]. Customer name: [name]. Customer address: [address]. Date of notice: [date]. Signature: [only if sending on paper].

7. Fees, expenses and payment

The agreed quotation states whether the fee is fixed, based on time, or a combination, and identifies any travel, overnight monitoring, third-party costs or other expenses. Any time-based rate and charging basis must be agreed in the quotation; these terms do not set a separate daily rate. Additional costs or changes require your agreement before they are incurred, except where the Contract already expressly authorises them.

Current starting prices and VAT wording are shown on our Pricing page. The written quotation confirms the total payable for your project, including any applicable taxes and agreed expenses. Changes to the website price list do not change an accepted fixed-price quotation.

Unless the written quotation agrees a different schedule, invoices are payable within seven days of the invoice date by the payment method stated on the invoice. Deposits and staged payments, if required, are stated before you accept. Payments already made are credited against the total due and any refund is calculated fairly.

For overdue business-to-business invoices, we may claim statutory interest and debt recovery costs where the law permits. Statutory rights for private individuals, the right to dispute an invoice and other rights that cannot lawfully be excluded are preserved. Please contact us promptly about a genuine payment query.

8. Reports, equipment and intellectual property

We retain copyright in our reports, calculations and original materials, subject to any specifically agreed rights. Once the agreed fees are paid, you have permission to use and share the final Deliverables for the purpose of the commission, including with your advisers, the relevant planning authority or regulator where appropriate. This does not transfer ownership of our underlying methods or third-party copyright.

Reports must not be altered or used for another site, materially changed operating conditions or an unrelated purpose without our written agreement. Third parties may rely on a report only where we expressly agree reliance in writing, subject to rights that the law gives them.

Our instruments and materials remain our property. Where equipment is left on site, we will agree reasonable arrangements for access, security and collection. These terms do not sell equipment to the Customer and do not permit entry to premises without lawful authority.

British Standards remain the copyright of their rights holders. We refer to the relevant standard and explain our assessment approach in our own words; we do not supply or publish the full standard or copied tables through this website.

9. Confidentiality and information

Each party will protect the other’s confidential technical, commercial and project information. We use client information to perform the commission and share it only with people who need it for that purpose under appropriate confidentiality obligations, with the Customer’s authority, or where disclosure is required by law.

Private client reports, client site addresses, photographs, measurements and project conclusions will not be published as website examples or put into a public enquiry assistant’s knowledge without the relevant express authority. Confidentiality obligations continue after the Contract ends.

Personal information is handled as explained in our Privacy page. Please share only relevant staff information through agreed private channels. General website service guidance does not disclose confidential client report content.

10. Liability and statutory rights

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. Nothing excludes the obligation to use reasonable care and skill.

For a business Customer, and only so far as the law permits and the limitation is reasonable, our total liability arising from the Contract is limited to the agreed Contract fee. On the same basis we exclude indirect or consequential loss and loss of business profits, revenue, opportunity or goodwill. These business limitations do not apply to Private Individuals.

For a Private Individual, we are responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of our breach of Contract or failure to use reasonable care and skill. Your statutory remedies, including repeat performance or a price reduction where applicable, are preserved.

11. Weather, unavoidable events and termination

Some assessments require suitable weather and representative site conditions. If unsuitable weather or an event outside our reasonable control prevents valid or safe work, we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible, take reasonable steps to limit the effect and discuss rearrangement. We do not automatically charge the Customer a cancellation fee for those circumstances.

If a material delay or necessary change means the agreed Services can no longer reasonably meet their purpose, we will discuss an alternative or termination and a fair refund for Services not provided. Work already properly performed and expressly agreed unavoidable costs will be explained; statutory protections for private individuals remain unaffected.

Either party may terminate for a serious breach that is not remedied within a reasonable period after written notice. We may suspend work for a material overdue business invoice after notice and a reasonable opportunity to resolve the issue. Any amounts payable or refundable on termination must relate to properly performed Services and legitimate losses, without double recovery.

12. Questions and complaints

Please contact us using the details in section 1 with the project reference, the issue and the outcome you are seeking. We will investigate and respond within a reasonable time. If an issue concerns the scope or findings, a consultant will review the relevant evidence and explain the response.

13. General provisions

A change to an existing Contract must be agreed in writing. We may use suitably competent subcontractors while remaining responsible for our contractual obligations. We will not transfer the Contract in a way that reduces a Private Individual’s rights without their agreement.

If part of these terms is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue so far as lawful. A delay in enforcing a right does not waive it. The Contract does not create a partnership or agency. A third party has no contractual right to enforce these terms unless expressly agreed or required by law.

English law applies and the courts of England and Wales have non-exclusive jurisdiction. Any mandatory protections for private individuals and rights to bring proceedings in the courts available to the Private Individual by law are preserved.