TERMS OF SERVICE

WEBSITE TERMS OF USE AND SERVICE

These terms and conditions set out the basis upon which Plugged Limited (company number 721858 whose registered office is located at 3 Carlisle House, Adelaide Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow) is prepared to allow you, a registered member (“You”, “Your” “Yourself”) to use our website and content, as well as the other resources found on our website www.plugged.ie, unless Plugged has agreed different Terms with you in writing.

Plugged cannot provide you with the Services until you have agreed to these terms of service. They represent the contract between you and Plugged. When you use any of our Services you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.

We hope that you find them to be useful, helpful and insightful and we’d be delighted to answer any questions you have about them!

We have developed our content to help make legals simple, accessible and affordable for your business, provide you with legal information, answer common legal queries and in the case of our legal document templates, provide you with access to great legal contracts and letters.

In this website terms of service, We, Us or Our means Plugged.

Republic of Ireland only

Our website is intended for residents of the Republic of Ireland only. Other countries’ laws may restrict the distribution of the information and products available on our website, so the website is not applicable to or aimed at residents of other countries. If you are a non-Irish resident and you have chosen to access this website from outside the Republic of Ireland, this is at your own risk.

How you consent to these terms of service

If you access or use, or download any of our Publications, Guides or Templates, you are taken to have agreed to these terms and conditions (Terms), and our privacy policy. We ask you to please read these Terms carefully. If you’re not happy with any of our Terms, please leave our website immediately. It’s the only way that you can prevent our Terms from applying to you. You can ask us questions about out Terms by contacting us at karl@plugged.ie

 Our content

We collaborate with great lawyers, law firms and other experts to bring you the expert information comprising Our Content on our website. This means you can be confident on what you find here. However, please note that materials and content on this website, including but not limited to our Templates (Content) are not comprehensive. Our Content is designed for you to be able to inform yourself, generally, of common legal concepts and issues.

For the avoidance of doubt, we are not a law firm and we do not provide any legal advice. However, our Partner law firm(s) may provide legal advice in accordance with their separate terms of engagement.

Though we have not created our Content with your specific needs, objectives or circumstances in mind, we use our legal expertise to bring you expert information comprising our content on our website.  However, while our content is for your guidance, and we hope you find it very helpful, it is not intended to be a substitute for legal advice, and it is not legal advice of itself. While we use reasonable effort to ensure that our Content is accurate, current and complete, we don’t represent, warrant or guarantee its accuracy, currency or completeness (to the maximum extent permitted by law). Before you act, or rely on any of our Content, you need to seek your own legal or other advice.

We endeavour to keep our content up to date and we take this endeavour very seriously.  This is not a contractual commitment, however. Our content only comprises legal information and we are not liable to you for any loss or damage caused by your use of our content or delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in any of our content or materials available on our website, or that might arise in the transition or delivery, of all or part, of any of these materials. We will not be liable to you for any changes or amendments you make to our templates which we provide ‘as is’ and with appropriate guidance to help you.

We take a lot of care over our content that we provide on our website. We want you to be delighted with it and to always find it relevant, user-friendly and valuable. So, as you’d expect, we own or hold the rights to the copyright on our website and our content. Please do not use our content or any material from this website, including documentation, code and software, in any way that infringes our intellectual property rights in it (we cover those particular rights in more detail below).

Using this website doesn’t mean that you become our client, or that we become your lawyers

If you use this website, receive any information from us (such as a legal guide or other piece of Content) or download any of our Templates, this does not mean that we become your lawyers or that a solicitor-client relationship is created.

We give you a licence to use our website

So that you can use and access our website, we grant you a non-exclusive, royalty-free, revocable, non-transferable licence to use our website in accordance with these Terms.  All other uses of our website are prohibited unless we give you our written consent.

Our Services

Our services are as follows:

• The Website offers a Membership Subscription Plan (the Member Services) and a Pay Per Use Service (the User Services).

• The Member Services are available to paid up members.

• The User Services are available to non-members (and their authorised personnel, if applicable), and to Members with respect to individual services not covered by their subscription.

Our Membership Subscription Service

The Plugged Membership Subscription Plan service is an annual subscription-based membership and is for use by companies, partnerships, sole traders, self-employed and individuals.

Your membership serves as a basic legal protection for your business. As a member you can ask for legal guidance on matters relating to the running of your small business including employment issues, contracts, business structuring, buying and selling a business and more.

Naturally, there will be some legal issues that require legal advice that falls outside of our subscription plan service.

For example, services such as, but not limited to the following, do not form part of your subscription plan:

1. review and drafting of templates
   
2. litigation, arbitration and mediation
3. enforcement proceedings and other quasi-judicial proceedings
4. review and drafting of contracts
5. property sales or purchases
6. leasing arrangements
7. written advices
8. legal representation
9. proofreading
10. supervising or checking the due and proper execution of any Document

For these matters our Partner(s) can offer a pay as you go or fixed fee service.

Our Membership subscription service is subject to a fee (‘Fee’). The fee is payable annually or in monthly instalments. If you select the monthly payment option when you subscribe, it will amount to a minimum 12-month obligation to make such monthly payments under the subscription plan you have chosen. Your subscription term will be automatically renewed for a further 12-month term, and you will continue to be charged Fees for your subscription, on a monthly (if you’re on a Monthly plan) or annual (if you’re on an Annual plan) basis unless your subscription is cancelled 30 days prior to your renewal date in accordance with our termination terms. The current fees for our subscription plans are detailed on the Membership page of our Website.

In subscribing to the Plugged Subscription Plan, you agree to pay the Fee at the rate applicable from time to time.

The Fee may be paid by credit card or debit card. In providing us with card details, you warrant to us that you are an authorised user of the relevant card.

Only when you have paid the Fee will you become a Plugged Subscription Plan ‘Member’ and receive access to the Members’ section of the Website (‘Members’ Area’).

Once you are a Member, you will be entitled to receive an email containing details of the Member Services, access the Members’ Area of the Website, and be able to use the Member Services. The Member Services are for use only by you in connection with your business. You shall not use the Member Services for any other purpose. You shall not permit any other party to have access to the Members’ Area. You shall not sell, license or otherwise commercially exploit any of the Member Services. If you breach this term, we can, without notice, revoke your username or password and refuse access to all or any part of the Website.

If you do not pay the Fee or any instalment of the Fee for whatever reason, we reserve the right to terminate your Plugged Subscription Plan membership, and any unpaid balance of the Fee will become immediately due and payable.

We reserve the right not to accept an application for membership for any reason and without giving any explanation.

Fair work policy

If you avail of our membership subscription service, we will aim to provide you with guidance quickly and efficiently. We expect that in most cases the work that we undertake in guiding you as part of your subscription plan will take no more than 30 minutes per issue. We reserve the right to manage our guidance to ensure that, so far as possible, that expectation is fulfilled.

What this means in practice is as follows:

• We expect that correspondence and communications between you and us will take place by telephone or video. We are not able to offer face-to-face meetings.
• We may limit the extent to which we engage in communications with you if we reasonably consider that to do so would be incompatible with the efficient conduct of our membership subscription plan service.
• We reserve the right to terminate our guidance on any issue at any time if, by reason of the volume and/or complexity of the legal issue, we reasonably consider that it is impractical or inappropriate to continue to work on the basis of your subscription plan. If such a situation arises, you will be offered a fixed fee or hourly rate service from a Partner where such a service will facilitate a resolution of your legal issue.
• We may decline to deal with, as part of your membership subscription plan, any requests, issues or questions made or raised by you if they do not fall within the parameters of our membership subscription plan service.

You can’t do certain things on this website

To use our website and our Content, we expect you to abide by a certain standard of behaviour. You must not do or attempt to do anything that is unlawful, prohibited by any laws applicable to our website, anything which we would consider inappropriate or which might bring us or our website into disrepute. This includes:

1. anything that would be a breach of any other person’s privacy (including if you upload personal information about an individual without their consent) or any other legal rights;
2. using our website to defame, harass, threaten, menace or offend any person;
3. interfering with anyone using our website;
4. tampering with or modifying our website, knowingly transmitting viruses or other disabling features, or damaging or interfering with our website, including using trojan horses, viruses or piracy or programming routines that may damage or interfere with our website;
5. using our website to send unsolicited email messages; or
6. facilitating or assisting a third party to do any of the above acts.

Competitors are excluded from using our website to compete

You are prohibited from using our website and the Content in any way that competes with our business.

Availability

We want you to have access to Plugged whenever you need it, on any device and as quickly and easily as possible. That means that we diligently monitor and protect our website, like any good business.

Sometimes we will need to interrupt the availability of our services to perform routine maintenance and upgrades. This agreement gives us the right to do so. We will always strive to do this during low usage hours and to keep these disruptions to a minimum, although this intention is not a contractual obligation.

Because we are dealing with the internet there will always be some things that we cannot control or guarantee and that may cause unscheduled disruption to the website’s availability. Like all other good website providers, we provide our website on an ’as available’ basis. This means that, if for any reason, our website is suddenly unavailable (for reasons beyond our control such as governmental order, extreme weather, disease, war or other extreme event), at any time and for any period, we will not be liable to you, including for any loss, damage or inconvenience this causes you. Having said that, you can rest assured that even though we’re not contractually bound to do so, we will be working hard to prevent this from happening and to remedy any interruption in availability to you should this happen.

Passwords and your security commitments

A limited part of our website is accessible to non-members, who do not need a password or user identities to enjoy the publicly available content provided.

If you are a registered member of our Plugged community, you will have chosen or been provided with a username, password and potentially other information as part of our security procedures. Please use these responsibly and securely as they are strictly confidential. You must not disclose to anyone else without our express written permission.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you, knows your identity and/or password, you agree to promptly notify us on karl@plugged.ie and to immediately change your password.

We have the right to suspend or to permanently deactivate your access permissions at any time if, in our opinion, you have not complied with any of these Terms, including the disclosure of these confidential access permissions.

Our intellectual property

A huge amount of creative effort and expertise has contributed to the creation of this website and Our Content. The designs, logos, photos, videos, pictures, documentation, information and our Content on this website are owned by or licensed to Us, unless we indicate otherwise. Your use of our website and your use of and access to any of our Content does not grant or transfer to you any rights, title or interest in relation to our website or our Content.

You agree not to use any of Our Content and material on Our Website that would in any way infringe the intellectual property rights that protect that material and respect those creative and expert efforts.

In relation to our Templates, you must not reproduce, exploit or use any of the Templates for the purpose of re-selling the Templates, or offering products or services similar to ours or for any purpose other than to assist you in operating your own non-law firm business. You may amend Templates in order to tailor them to your circumstances. All other use, copying or reproduction of Templates is prohibited (except to the extent permitted by law).

For Content other than Templates, you must not:

1. copy or use it, in whole or in part; or
2. sell it to any third party.

You must not breach any intellectual property rights connected with our website or our Content, including (without limitation) altering or modifying any of our Content or creating derivative works from the Content.

Providing us with testimonials

We really appreciate your feedback. If you review us, or provide us with a testimonial, you permit us to post or otherwise transmit the review or testimonial on our social media or other channels. You can email us and ask us not to do this, at any time.

We are not responsible for websites run by third parties

Our website may contain links to websites operated by third parties. Unless we tell you otherwise, we do not control, endorse or approve, and are not responsible for, the content on those websites.  We recommend that you make your own investigations to ensure those websites are suitable for you.

Varying these Terms

We may, at any time and at our discretion, vary these Terms by publishing the varied terms on our website. We recommend you check our website regularly to ensure you are aware of our current terms. Content is subject to change without notice.

Discontinuing our website

We have a right to discontinue this website. This can be at any time and may be without notice. We may also exclude any person from using our website, at any time and at our sole discretion. We are not responsible for any liability you may suffer arising from or in connection with any such discontinuance or exclusion.

Warranties and disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we make no representations or warranties about our website or the Content, including that:

1. they are complete, accurate, reliable, up-to-date and suitable for any particular purpose;
2. access will be uninterrupted, error-free or free from viruses; or
3. our website will be secure.

You read, use and act on our website and the Content at your own risk.

Monitoring

We do lawfully monitor usage of Our website by Our members, according to the terms of Our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy. We do this to be able continuously to improve Your Website experience and Our products and services, and to ensure that Your needs are being well catered for. We may also do this to comply with the rules of any applicable regulatory or self-regulatory organisation.

Our liability is limited

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for any loss, damage or expense, howsoever arising, whether direct or indirect and/or whether present, unascertained, future or contingent (Liability) suffered by you or any third party, arising from or in connection with your use of our website and/or the Content and/or any inaccessibility of, interruption to or outage of our website and/or any loss or corruption of data and/or the fact that the Content is incorrect, incomplete or out-of-date.

We make no representation and give no warranty with respect to any of our Content.  We do not suggest any document or Content is suitable for your particular use. We are not and do not pretend to be a law firm.

We shall not be liable for:

• any loss resulting from the provision of any of the Member or User Services by other Service Providers
• any loss for which liability is disclaimed elsewhere in the Conditions; or
• loss of profits; or
• loss of business; or
• depletion of goodwill or similar losses; or
• loss of anticipated savings; or
• loss of goods; or
• loss of use; or
• loss or corruption of data or information; or
• any special, indirect, consequential or pure economic loss, costs, damages, charges or expenses.

If we are held liable to you for any loss or damage, such liability shall in all cases be limited to the payment of an amount not exceeding €50,000, including costs and expenses in respect of any one claim. By accepting these terms and by using the Website you confirm that you are in agreement with this level of limitation. For the avoidance of doubt, a claim shall be defined as a claim or a series of claims (whether by one or more claimants) arising from, or in connection with, or attributable to, any one act, error, omission or originating cause or source or the dishonesty of any person or group of persons acting together, and any such series of claims shall be deemed to be one claim for all purposes under this clause.

You acknowledge that these exclusions and/or limitations are reasonable, having regard to the fact that the Website, the Guides and Publications are freely accessible and available at nominal or no cost.

Our right to be indemnified by you

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you must indemnify us, and hold us harmless, against any Liability suffered or incurred by us arising from or in connection with your use of our website or any breach of these Terms or any applicable laws by you. This indemnity is a continuing obligation, independent from the other obligations under these Terms, and continues after these Terms end.  It is not necessary for us to suffer or incur any Liability before enforcing a right of indemnity under these Terms.

Partners

This Website belongs to us, Plugged. We partner with established and regulated law firms to provide Our products and services to You. Our current law firm Partners are set out below:

• LawPlus Solicitors  LLP is a limited liability partnership of 3 Carlisle House, Adelaide Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow

Bugs, worms, viruses, hacking and other offences

Please don’t hurt Our Website. And please don’t put Yourself at risk either. By browsing and otherwise using and interacting with Our Website, You agree not to damage or misuse Our Website in any way, including by knowingly introducing Viruses, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious and/or technologically harmful. This also means that You mustn’t attempt to gain unauthorised access to this Website, or attack it via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack. We will report any breach of these Terms to the relevant law enforcement authorities and We will co-operate with these authorities by disclosing Your identity to them. It follows that if You commit any of these activities, Your rights to use this Website will immediately and automatically cease.

Termination

Without affecting any other right or remedy available to us, we may terminate your Membership Account, access to our Content and your ability to use the Services with immediate effect by giving written notice to you if you:

• fail to pay any amount due under this Agreement on the due date for payment, and you remain in default for 30 days or more after being notified in writing to make such payment;
• commit a material breach of any other term of this Agreement and that breach is irremediable or, if such breach is remediable, you fail to remedy that breach within a period of 30 days after being notified in writing to do so;
• suspend, or threaten to suspend, payment of your debts, or you are unable to pay your debts, or you inform us that you are unable to pay your debts; and/or
• pass a resolution for winding up (otherwise than for the purposes of a solvent amalgamation or reconstruction) or a court makes an order to that effect, or become or are declared insolvent, or convene a meeting of, or make or propose to make any arrangement or composition with, Your creditors, or have a liquidator, receiver, administrator, trustee or similar officer appointed over any or all of Your assets or cease, or threaten to cease, to carry on business.

Although we hope that you want to continue to access our Content and your Membership Account, if at any point after your initial 12-month subscription period you want to cancel your subscription with us, then you may terminate your subscription by emailing karl@plugged.ie requesting cancellation at least 30 days before your next renewal date. You will continue to have access to your Membership Account, our Content and will be able to use the Services for the remainder of the billing period you have paid for. Your access will be terminated at the end of that period. If you wish to cancel your subscription after the 30-day termination period has expired, there will be no automatic refund of the remaining unused portion of your subscription. If you want to make a refund request for the remainder of your billing period, please contact us by emailing karl@plugged.ie. Though we have no obligation to make refunds, we will consider refund requests, without obligation, in good faith on a case-by-case basis. You must still comply with the terms of this Agreement during any remaining billing period after you have notified us that you wish to terminate your subscription.

On termination of your Membership Account, access to our Content or your ability to use the Services for any reason:

1. all licences granted under this Agreement shall immediately terminate and you shall have no further use of the Services or access to our Content;
2. You shall return and make no further use of any equipment, passwords and other items (and all copies of them) belonging to us;
3. You will pay all outstanding Fees due to us pursuant to this Agreement; and
4. any rights, remedies, obligations or liabilities of the parties that have accrued up to the date of termination, including the right to claim damages in respect of any breach of the Agreement, which existed at or before the date of termination, shall not be affected or prejudiced.

Complaints

We work really hard to bring you an experience that positively exceeds your expectations at all times. If you’re feeling dissatisfied about any part of your experience, including in relation to how we handle your personal information, please email karl@plugged.ie

Jurisdiction

Use of our website and these Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Ireland. You irrevocably and unconditionally submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts operating in the Republic of Ireland and any courts entitled to hear appeals from those courts and waive any right to object to proceedings being brought in those courts.

If you access our website and you are based overseas, we do not represent that our website complies with the laws (including intellectual property laws) of the country in which you reside (if you reside outside Ireland).  You are responsible for complying with the laws of the jurisdiction where you access our website and please note that you access our website at your own risk.

If you have any questions for us, we would be delighted to hear from you. You can write to us here:

Plugged, 3 Carlisle House, Adelaide Road, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland

or email: karl@plugged.ie