Terms of Service

What Structa is

Structa is software for UK builders and the homeowners who hire them.

• For builders: describe a job in your own words, price it in your rates, send the quote to your client, track the work as it is done, and keep a public page built from the jobs you finish.
• For homeowners: describe a job, see a typical price for it in your area, and ask builders near you to quote.

We provide software and, when a homeowner asks, an introduction. We are not a contractor, builder, broker or agent. Any contract for building work is between the builder and the client alone; we are not a party to it. We do not vet, employ or guarantee builders, and we do not supervise their work.

Structa never takes, holds or moves money between a builder and a client. The payment terms on a quote are the builder's; the client pays the builder directly.

"Service", "we" and "our" refer to Structa, thestructa.buildwebsite and any related software supplied by us.

Agreement to terms

By using the service, you agree to these terms.

Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use Structa.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

Accounts

• One account per person or business.
• Accounts are personal and non-transferable. Keep your login details secure.
• Provide accurate information, including your trading name, and keep it current.
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.

Builders

Your quotes

The quote you send is yours. You are responsible for its figures, scope, payment terms and any contract you make on it, and for holding the insurance, registrations and qualifications the work requires.

Your page

• Your page shows what you add (your name, photo, the areas you work in, a few words about you) and your record on Structa: the jobs you tracked and finished here, whether they finished on time and at the quoted price.
• Every job you finish on Structa counts in that record. You cannot remove a finished job from the numbers.
• A finished job, its photos and your client's words appear on your page only with your client's consent, which they can withdraw at any time. You may not edit or hide your client's words, or write them yourself.
• Upload only photos you took or have the right to use, and never a photo showing a client's address, face or belongings they would not want shown.
• Past work. You may list jobs you did before Structa. List only jobs you did, and give us a client's email only if they are that job's client and you may share it with us so we can ask them to confirm it. A past job shows on your page, and counts toward what homeowners ask for, only once its client has confirmed it to us.
• We may remove anything on a page that breaks these terms, and suspend a page while we look into a complaint.

Homeowners' jobs

• When you take a homeowner's job you receive their name and contact details. Use them only to quote for and carry out that job; never for marketing, and never pass them on.
• From then you are responsible for their personal data under UK data protection law, as its controller.
• At most three builders receive each homeowner's job.

Homeowners

• The typical price we show is a guide to what a job like yours usually costs in your area, from the answers you gave. It is not a quote, and no builder is bound by it.
• When you ask for builders, your job (without your name, address or contact) is shown to builders near you who meet what you asked for. Your name and contact details go only to the builders who take the job, at most three, and only if you agreed when you asked.
• Choosing a builder is your decision. A builder's record on Structa shows only jobs tracked here; check their insurance, references and any registration the work needs before you agree to anything.
• You can withdraw a request at any time from the link in the email we send you. If no builder can take it within 30 days, we close it and tell you.

Prices

While we launch, Structa is free for builders and homeowners, and we take no card details.

Quoting, sending, tracking jobs and your page stay free after that. When we start charging, the prices will be:

• A homeowner's job, for a builder: paid in credits when you take the job, by the job's typical price including VAT: £5.00 for a job under £1,000; £10.00 up to £5,000; £20.00 up to £20,000; £35.00 for a job over £20,000. When you run that job on Structa and finish it here, 50% of what you paid comes back as credit.
• Posting a job, for a homeowner: £1.99 a job, refunded in full if no builder takes it.
• No monthly fee to be listed or to receive jobs.

Credits

Credits are bought in advance and used only on Structa. They have no cash value, cannot be transferred, and are not refunded once spent on a job, except where these terms or the law say otherwise. The full credit terms, including how long unused credits last, will be published before charging starts.

Notice and payment

We will give at least one month's notice, by email and on the pricing page, before any of these charges starts or any price changes. Payments are processed by Stripe under their own terms. If you think you were charged in error, email info@structa.build and we will look into it.

Homeowners' right to cancel

If you post a job as a consumer, you have a right to cancel within 14 days. By posting, you ask us to show your job to builders straight away. If you cancel before any builder takes it, the fee is refunded in full; once a builder has taken it, the service is complete and the fee is not refundable.

Acceptable use

You will not

• Scrape, mine or otherwise extract data from the service by automated means without our written permission.
• Use the service to build, train or evaluate a competing cost-estimation product.
• Get around a price, a limit or a rate limit, including by creating more than one account.
• Post a job you do not mean to have done, or ask for a job under someone else's name.
• Make your record look better than it is: finishing jobs that did not happen, writing or arranging your own client's words, or confirming a price as your own client.
• Contact a homeowner you met through Structa about anything other than their job.
• Upload content that is unlawful, defamatory, or that infringes a third party's rights.
• Interfere with the service's security or introduce malicious code.

Breaking these rules may lead to content being removed, a page being taken down, or the account being suspended or closed, without a refund of credits.

Intellectual property

What we own

• The service's design, software and algorithms.
• Structa trade marks and branding.
• Aggregate, anonymised analytics derived from service use.
• Our database rights in the assembled cost data.

What you own

• What you submit: the job as you described it, the answers you gave, your postcode, your rates and material prices, your photos and your words.
• The quote you generate, including any edits you make in the builder editor.

By using the service you grant us a non-exclusive licence to host, process and display what you submit for the purpose of providing the service, including showing your page and, with consent, your finished jobs; and to derive aggregated or de-identified data from it for running and improving the engine and its cost data and for building further services. That derived data identifies no builder, job, client or homeowner, and we may keep and use it after your account closes. A builder's rates, prices and quotes are never shown to another builder.

A job or quote of yours is used in Structa's own marketing only where you have ticked the box that says so on that job; you may untick it at any time. That is separate from showing a finished job on your page.

Quotes, typical prices & cost estimates

Prices produced by Structa are estimates based on the inputs supplied, published UK industry rates and regional factors, and material prices from merchants’ pages, each with its date. They are not a fixed price, a contractor's tender, or professional advice. Actual build cost will vary with site conditions, design choices, the people and suppliers used, and market movement.

A builder is responsible for checking a quote's figures, scope and terms before sending it to a client and before entering into any contract on it.

Termination

We may suspend or close an account or a page for breach of these terms, or for legal or operational reasons. You may close your account at any time. On closure, your stored jobs, quotes and page may be deleted or anonymised; unused credits lapse unless the credit terms say otherwise; we may retain transactional records to the extent required by law. Quotes you sent stay available to their recipients.

Disclaimer & limitation of liability

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for a particular purpose.

We are not responsible for the work a builder does or does not do, for what is agreed between a builder and a client, or for anything a user says or does outside the service.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any reliance placed on an estimate or a typical price. Our aggregate liability for any claim arising from your use of the service is limited to the greater of (a) £100 or (b) the amount you paid to us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited (including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation).

Indemnity

If you use Structa for your business, you agree to indemnify Structa, its directors, officers and employees against any claim brought by a third party arising from your unlawful use of the service or breach of these terms.

Changes

We may update these terms for legal, business or operational reasons. Material changes will be flagged on the service and, where they affect what you pay, emailed at least one month before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date of an update constitutes acceptance.

Disputes

A dispute between a builder and a client, or a builder and a homeowner, is between them. If something on a builder's page is wrong or unfair, tell us at info@structa.build and we will look into it.

We will attempt to resolve disputes with us informally first. If unresolved, disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights under UK consumer law, including the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Accessibility

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. If you encounter an accessibility barrier, please email us at the address below.