Terms of service

Last updated: [DATE]. Version 0.1 (draft).

These terms cover your use of Cut Cares — the website, the app, and the visits booked through them. Sections 2 to 3 and 8 to 12 apply to everyone. Section 4 to 7 apply if you work as a barber on the platform.

Please also read our privacy notice, which explains what we do with your information.

1. Who we are, and what Cut Cares is

Cut Cares is a trading name of [COMPANY NAME] Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number [NUMBER], registered office [REGISTERED ADDRESS]. Contact: hello@cutcares.uk.

Cut Cares is a platform. We verify barbers, take bookings, handle payment and hold the record of each visit. The haircut itself is provided by the barber, who is an independent professional and not our employee. We say plainly which of us is responsible for what throughout these terms rather than leaving it to be inferred.

2. Accounts

• You must be 18 or over to hold an account. Someone under 18 can receive a visit if an adult with responsibility for them books it and is present.
• Give us accurate details. Your address in particular is used to route the barber and to verify check-in.
• Keep your password to yourself. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has access.
• You may hold an account on behalf of someone you care for. If you do, section 11 of the privacy notice explains whose rights are whose — in short, the information and the decisions belong to the person receiving the service.

3. Booking a visit

Making a booking

A booking is a request until a barber accepts it. Once accepted, you have a contract with that barber for the service, and a contract with us for the platform and payment handling.

Price

The price shown at booking is the price you pay. Barbers work within the price band of their tier, shown on their profile. Volunteer visits are free. If the work needed turns out to be different from what was booked, the barber must tell you and agree any change before starting.

Paying

You can pay by card in the app or in cash to the barber. Card payments are handled by [PAYMENT PROVIDER]; we never hold your card details.

Cancelling

• You can cancel free of charge up to [PERIOD] before the appointment.
• Cancelling later than that, or not being home, may incur a fee of [AMOUNT] to compensate the barber for the journey.
• We will not charge that fee where the reason is illness, a hospital admission, a care emergency or anything else outside your control. Tell us what happened and we will cancel it. We would rather be wrong occasionally than penalise someone for being ill.
• If the barber cancels, you pay nothing and we will help you rebook.

Because a visit is a service delivered at a time you choose, the 14-day cancellation right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations does not apply once the visit has been carried out with your agreement. Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 — that the service is carried out with reasonable care and skill — always apply and are not affected by anything in these terms.

4. For barbers: your status and obligations

You are an independent, self-employed professional. You choose which jobs to accept, your own hours and your own coverage area. You are responsible for your own tax and National Insurance. Nothing here creates employment, and nothing here prevents you working elsewhere, including for competitors.

To work through Cut Cares you must at all times:

• Hold a current Enhanced DBS check obtained through us or verified by us.
• Hold valid public liability insurance.
• Hold a qualification at or above the minimum for your tier. Level 1 is an introduction to the sector, not a barbering qualification, and satisfies the Volunteer tier only; paid tiers require Level 2 or above.
• Keep those documents current, and upload replacements before they expire.
• Follow safe hygiene practice and carry your own equipment.

5. For barbers: verification and suspension

Your standing on the platform is worked out from your documents every time it is looked at. It is not a flag someone sets by hand, which means it cannot quietly go stale.

• Expiring soon. You keep working. You will see a warning and so will we. This is a prompt, not a penalty.
• Expired. You cannot accept new jobs until the document is replaced. This is automatic and immediate — there is no grace period, because the people you visit are entitled to rely on the check being current on the day.
• Under review. A newly uploaded document is checked by an administrator before it counts.
• On hold. We can suspend an account while we look into a safeguarding concern or a complaint. We will tell you why, unless doing so would prejudice a safeguarding investigation, and you can respond.

A DBS certificate does not itself expire. What lapses is our re-check policy and, if you subscribe, your annual Update Service subscription. We will ask your permission before every Update Service check — each time, not once when you join.

6. For barbers: commission and payouts

• We take commission on paid visits. The rate depends on your tier and is shown in your account before you accept any job. Current default rates: [RATES].
• For card payments we deduct commission before paying out.
• For cash payments you keep the cash, and the commission is deducted from your balance.
• Withdrawals are requested in the app and paid by [PAYOUT PROVIDER], usually within [PERIOD] of approval.
• We may hold a payout while we investigate a complaint about the visit it relates to. We will tell you, and we will not hold it longer than the investigation takes.
• If we change commission rates we will give you [NOTICE PERIOD] notice. A change never applies to a job you already accepted.

7. Conduct in someone’s home

Most of our customers are disabled or older, and the visit happens where they live. That raises the standard, and these are conditions of using the platform, not guidance.

Barbers must:

• Arrive when agreed, or tell the customer as soon as you know you will not.
• Identify yourself and let the customer verify you before entering.
• Respect the home: no photography beyond the two required shots, nothing moved without asking, nothing shared about what you saw there.
• Stop immediately if asked, at any point, for any reason.
• Never ask for money outside the app, never ask for bank details, and never accept a gift of significant value.
• Report a safeguarding concern to us the same day.

Customers: please give the barber a safe place to work and tell us in advance about anything that affects their safety. Abusive or discriminatory behaviour towards a barber will end the visit and may close your account.

8. Check-in, codes and photographs

Each visit is recorded in three ways, and each one protects both people:

1. The barber’s device location is checked against your address at check-in.
2. You are given a four-digit code. The barber asks you for it. Your code is never shown to the barber — that is the whole point of it. A carer can read it out for you, and there is a route for continuing when you are unable to confirm it.
3. Two timestamped photographs are taken. What is photographed, and your right to refuse, are set out in the privacy notice.

No single one of these can stop a visit going ahead. If the location reading is poor, the code cannot be given, or the camera is unavailable, the visit continues and the record notes what happened.

A profile badge saying a barber wears a body-worn camera means they have registered one with us. It does not mean recording is taking place, and we neither receive nor store any footage. See section 4 of the privacy notice.

9. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are not affected by anything here.

Subject to that:

• The barber is responsible for the service they provide, and carries public liability insurance for it.
• We are responsible for running the platform with reasonable care and skill — verifying documents as described, handling payment, and keeping your information as set out in the privacy notice.
• We do not supervise the work itself and we are not liable for a barber’s acts or omissions during a visit, except where we have been negligent in verifying or supervising them.
• We do not promise the service will be uninterrupted or error-free.
• Except as above, our total liability to you for any claim connected with a visit is limited to [AMOUNT / the amount you paid for that visit].

10. Complaints and safeguarding

Tell us at hello@cutcares.uk or through the app. We will acknowledge within [PERIOD] and aim to resolve within [PERIOD].

If you tell us someone is at risk of harm we will act on it, which may mean suspending an account immediately and contacting the local authority safeguarding team or the police. We will do that whether or not you ask us to, and we will tell you what we have done unless telling you would increase the risk to someone.

11. Ending your account

• You can close your account at any time, in the app or by emailing us. Any booked visits are cancelled under section 3.
• Barbers: any balance owed is paid out; commission owed to us is settled first.
• We can suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, and will do so immediately where there is a risk to someone’s safety. Otherwise we will give you notice and a chance to respond.
• Closing your account does not delete records we are required to keep — see section 9 of the privacy notice.

12. Changes, and the law that applies

We may change these terms. For a material change we will give at least [NOTICE PERIOD] notice by email and in the app. If you do not accept a change, you can close your account; the previous terms continue to apply to anything already booked.

These terms are governed by the law of [ENGLAND AND WALES / SCOTLAND / NORTHERN IRELAND], and the courts of that jurisdiction have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory law of the part of the UK where you live.