GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS

The following Terms and Conditions of are applicable to the supply of Surveying, Engineering, Planning, Project Management and Landscape Architecture services offered by Development Nous Limited.   These terms and conditions are current and effective from 1 February 2021.

OUR SERVICES

The services we  provide for you are outlined in our Short Form Agreement (SFA) or Client Proposal.  These are provided to you prior to us commencing the work.  Our client proposal or SFA will include scope of work, nature of services, indicative time frames, an estimate of our fees, a copy of our  Terms and Conditions of Engagement and any other terms mutually agreed between us and you at the time.  Your request for us to commence the work in accordance with the Client Proposal or SFA constitutes your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions of Engagement.

VARIATIONS AND ADDITIONAL TERMS

Any instructions from you to vary or alter the scope of services will be treated as a variation and charged on a time cost basis at our standard hourly billing rates. These rates are available on request.  Any variation to the SFA must be agreed to in writing. 

FEES/FINANCIAL

Fees

The estimates of our fees provided to you apply for 30 calendar days from the date of your receipt of the Client Proposal and/or SFA.  Our rates and pricing structures are based on what we deem fair and reasonable for the nature of the work, having regard to:

• The time and labour expended.
• The skill, specialised knowledge, and responsibility required to perform the services properly.
• The urgency and circumstances in which the matter is undertaken and any time limitations imposed by you.

Pricing structures may include (but not limited to):

• Hourly rates (charged in 15-minute increments)  
• Fixed price

We reserve the right to request a deposit to be payable within 7 days of commencement of the work.

GST

All charges and fees outlined in either our client proposal or SFA are exclusive of Goods and Services Tax (GST).  GST is calculated and included in the amount payable by you to us.

Disbursements and Expenses

We charge a fee to cover office expenses (photocopying, printing, phone calls).  This will be included separately on your account.

We may be required to cover expenses and/or payments to third parties on your behalf.  These disbursements costs may include (but not restricted to): search fees, council application fees, sub-contractor expenses, travel costs and survey materials.  You authorise us to incur these expenses, which will be itemised on your account.  Any disbursements covered by Development Nous may incur a 10% surcharge.

Initial consultation/introduction meeting is free of charge.  Further (pre-engagement) consultation meetings are charged at an hourly rate and payable on completed of the meeting.

Invoices

We will send invoices to you monthly or at certain stages of the matter, on completion of the matter, or on termination of our engagement.  We may also send you an invoice to obtain reimbursement for a significant expense incurred on your behalf.

Payment of invoices

Invoices are payable within 7 days of the date of the invoice unless alternative arrangements have been made with us.  Payment options include: 

• Bank direct credit  
• Cash
• Credit card (Mastercard or Visa only). Additional Stripe transaction fee of 2.9% will apply.

If you are anticipating having difficult paying an invoice on time, please contact administration.  We reserve the right to charge interest on any invoices remaining unpaid after the due date unless prior arrangements have been made.  If any account is not paid within thirty days (30) days, interest will be charged on the outstanding balance at the rate of 2% per month from the date on which payment was due and you will be responsible for any debt collection cost that we incur in recovering outstanding amounts from you.

Ceasing work following non-payment 

If your account remains outstanding after 60 days and no appropriate arrangements have been made with our company, no further work will be undertaken by any staff member until arrangements are made to bring the account back into good standing, or a repayment plan is mutually agreed and recorded in writing.  You will be informed that work has ceased.

Collection Costs 

If you do not pay our fees and disbursements as they fall due, you may be liable for our costs, expenses and charges (including legal costs) that are incurred by us in collection of our fees and disbursements.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

We will carry out the work in accordance with our Standard Conditions of Engagement.  If you would like a pdf version of these please ask.  We encourage you to read our terms and conditions before accepting.

DELIVERABLES

All deliverables will be provided in Portable Document Format (pdf) via e-mail for easy storage and retrieval.

GOVERNING LAW

These terms and conditions are governed by the law of New Zealand.

CONFIDENTIALITY

We will hold in confidence all information concerning you that we acquire whilst consulting for you. We will not disclose any of this information to any other person or party.

Neither will we disclose to you, confidential information which we have in relation to any other client.

INTELLECTURAL PROPERTY

Any intellectual property rights held by the parties at the commencement of the work will belong to that respective parties.  Intellectual property jointly created has been for your benefit.

You must not distribute intellectual property jointly created for the benefit of a third party without prior consent from us.

We will strongly protect and defend our intellectual property rights in connection with our Website and/or Services including copyright in the content, whether provided by us or by any other content provider.