Our Terms and Conditions

If you continue to browse and use this website you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions of use, ('terms') which govern the relationship between those offering accommodation ('homeowners') and those who wish to book accommodation ('guests') ( together 'you' or 'your'), and bed&fed ('us' or 'our'). Your access to and use of our website means you accept these terms. If you do not accept these terms do not continue using the website.

Please review the following terms carefully. We reserve the right to make changes to these terms at any time. If you continue to use our website and its services, it means you accept any changes we have made.

General

    1. The content of the pages of our website is subject to change without notice.

    2. Whilst we do not publish anything on our website which we know to be wrong, we do not check the information provided by homeowners. Neither we, nor any third parties, provide any warranty or guarantee, as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose, of the information and materials found or offered on our website. You acknowledge that the content may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law. You specifically acknowledge that we are not liable for defamatory or offensive content published on our website by homeowners or guests, and you accept responsibility for any injury arising there from.

    However, if you discover that anything we publish is incorrect, inaccurate, defamatory or misleading, please let us know, so that we can make the appropriate amendments. We reserve the right to remove any material that we consider obscene, lewd, lascivious, violent, harassing or in any way objectionable.

    3. Your use of any information or materials which you find on our website is entirely at your own risk. It is your responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information offered or available through our website meet your specific requirements.

    4. Our website may also include links to other websites. These links are provided for your convenience, and to provide you with further information. Their provision does not signify that we endorse the websites. We accept no responsibility for or control over the content of any linked websites.

    5. You may view, download and print pages from our website for your own personal use, subject to the restrictions set out as part of 'Your Responsibilities' at clause 8.

    6. Your use of our website and any dispute arising out of such use is subject to the law of Scotland without regard to its conflict of laws rules.

    7. We may, in our absolute discretion and without notice and without liability to you,: (a) terminate your access to our website, (b) deactivate or delete any of your accounts with us and all related information and files in such accounts and (c) bar your access to any such files.

    8. We may, in our absolute discretion without prior notice and at any time, modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, any portion of our website.

Your conduct and responsibilities

  1. You must be at least 18 years old to use our website. By using our website or registering for a bed&fed profile, you warrant that you are over 18.

  1. We do not introduce homeowners and guests to each other. Our website is a service for guests to learn about accommodation opportunities and, if they wish, to arrange stays with homeowners. We are not involved in the actual contract between users. We have no control over, or liability for the conduct of, either homeowners or guests.

  1. Because user verification on the Internet is difficult, we cannot confirm anyone's purported identity. We do not accept responsibility for determining the identity and suitability of any homeowner or guest you meet via our website, and we do not investigate anyone's conduct, reputation, criminal background, or morality. We encourage guests and homeowners to communicate directly with each other via telephone or e-mail and we advise homeowners to request photographic identification upon receiving a guest into their home. We expect guests to oblige willingly.

  1. We do not accept responsibility for your interactions with others or for any damage or harm resulting from such interactions. If you stay with, or offer hospitality to, anyone who you feel is acting or has acted inappropriately, including but not limited to their behaving in an offensive, violent or sexually inappropriate manner, stealing or engaging in any other disturbing conduct, please let us know by e-mailing us at chiefchick@bedandfed.co.uk. Please also report such person to the appropriate authorities. We reserve the right, but shall not be obliged, to take any action we consider appropriate.

  1. We will not be liable for damages of any kind (including, but not limited to any direct, indirect, incidental, general, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages) arising from or relating to: (a) your use or inability to use our website; (b) your use or the performance of information or services offered through our website; (c) your use or the performance of software, or documents, or the provision of or failure to provide services or information available offered through our website; (d) any errors, inaccuracies or omissions, or other defects in the information contained on our website or (e) any delay or untimeliness arising in the provision thereof.

  1. You shall defend, indemnify us and hold us harmless and defend, and hold each of our officers, directors, members, employees, agents and affiliates harmless from and against all claims and expenses, including, without limitation reasonable solicitor's fees arising out or relating to your use of our services.


  1. You accept that you are responsible for registering with, and abiding by, as may be necessary depending on your circumstances, the laws of, any local government or authority, so that you may legally offer or accept accommodation and other services offered through our website. You warrant to us that, by using our website, you will not violate, or cause us to violate, the laws of your country. You indemnify us against any loss or expense borne by us in the event of any breach of law or regulation on your part.

  1. In your use of our website you must act responsibly and exercise good judgment and must not:

    1. violate any law or regulation
    2. use information obtained through our website for unauthorised purposes
    3. infringe the rights, including, without limitation, the intellectual property, privacy, publicity or contractual rights, of any third party,
    4. interfere with or damage our website, including, without limitation, through the use of viruses, Trojan horses, cancel bots, harmful code, denial-of-service attacks, flood pings, packet or IP spoofing, forged routing or similar methods or technology
    5. use our website to transmit, distribute, post or submit any information concerning any other person or entity (other than accomodation reviews), including, without limitation, photographs of others, personal contact information, credit or debit account numbers, without their permission
    6. collect or store any information about any homeowner or guest other than for the purposes set out on our website
    7. use our website in connection with the distribution of unsolicited bulk e-mail or any other e-mail of a commercial, religious, political or other nature not associated with the purposes of our website ('spam')
    8. stalk or harass any homeowner or guest
    9. register for more than one bed&fed profile or register for a bed&fed profile on behalf of someone other than yourself
    10. impersonate any person or entity, or falsify or otherwise misrepresent yourself or your affiliation with any person or entity
    11. use our website for any commercial purpose whatsoever (except where we are in control of this in the 'Events' area)
    12. assist any third party in doing any of the foregoing
    13. republish (on another website or elsewhere) material from our website
    14. sell, rent or otherwise sub-license material from our website
    15. reproduce, duplicate, copy or otherwise exploit material from our website for a commercial purpose
    16. edit or otherwise modify any of the material on our website
    1. redistribute material from our website, other than content specifically and expressly made available for redistribution
    1. systematically retrieve data or other content from our website to create or compile, directly or indirectly, in single or multiple downloads, a collection, compilation, database, directory or the like, whether by manual methods, through the use of 'bots', or otherwise.

9. You are solely responsible for any content that you submit, post or transmit via our website. You may not post any content that:

    1. is defamatory
    2. contains nudity or sexually explicit content
    3. may disparage any ethnic, racial, sexual or religious group
    4. depicts use of illicit drugs
    5. makes use of offensive images or language
    6. characterises violence as acceptable, glamorous or desirable
    7. provides links to any commercial websites
    8. contains any of your personal contact information, except as specifically required or requested as part of your registration on our website

Bookings

Any information placed on our website relating to accommodation including, but not limited to, details of a house, the availability of rooms at the house, the price of the rooms, the facilities available at the house, any accreditations afforded to the house and/or any details relating to any other services advertised on our website, have been placed on our website by homeowners who are independent businesses and are not our agents or employees.

Homeowners providing the services advertised on our website do so in accordance with their own terms and conditions, which may limit or exclude their liability to you.

All issues concerning your booking are matters for you and the homeowner.

Homeowner registration and content

If you are a homeowner:-

    1. you must only post accommodation opportunities on our website which are real opportunities from legitimate homeowners

    2. by submitting any content to our website, you hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, display, perform, adapt, modify, distribute, have distributed and promote such content in any form, in all media now known or hereinafter created, and for any purpose until such time as you give written notice to us to remove your information from our website.

    3. you hereby authorise us to send you communications relating to your account, such as service announcements and administrative messages

    4. you acknowledge that we aim to be impartial and take no responsibility for reviews written on our website. However, we do read the reviews submitted and may remove them where we believe it appropriate to do so.

Intellectual property

Our website contains material which is owned by or licensed to us. This material includes, but is not limited to, design, layout, look, appearance, illustrations and graphics. Reproduction is prohibited other than in accordance, with the following copyright notice, which forms part of the terms.

You must comply with all copyright laws worldwide in your use of the contents of our website to prevent any unauthorised access or copying of its contents. All material on our website is protected by rights of publicity, copyright, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets or other proprietary rights and laws, as may be applicable. Except as expressly authorised by us, and on the conditions set out, in the terms (, you may not sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit or create derivative works from, such material.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may use such material in the course of your normal, personal, non-commercial use of our website. You may establish ordinary links to our homepage without our written permission. You may not, however, use any of our copyright material as metatags on other websites, written materials, or otherwise.

Accessibility and navigating this website

We take seriously our responsibility for making web content and software accessible to all users and we follow the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

To navigate through our website once you have gone beyond the homepage, please use the menu at the top of each page.

Font sizes and stylesheets

On our website you can control the size of the text, the colours and the style-sheets, dependent upon the functionality of your browser. You may change the font size of this document to your preference through your browser by doing the following:-

  1. If you are using Internet Explorer, select View, then Text Size, and then your preferred size; or

  1. if you are using an alternative browser, please refer to the specific browser's instructions.

You may import your own style-sheet into this website by doing the following:-.

  1. If you are using Internet Explorer select Tools, then Internet Options, and then Accessibility. Next click on any or all of three checkboxes to ignore colours, font styles or font sizes. In the same window you can change your style-sheet by clicking the checkbox that says, 'format document using my style-sheet' then simply browse to your style-sheet and click 'OK'

  1. If you are using Netscape select Edit, then Preferences, and then Appearance. You will then be given the choice to specify your own colours and fonts

  1. If you are using an alternative browser, please refer to the specific browser's instructions.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how we use and protect any information that you give us when you use our website.

Your Privacy

We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using our website, you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

We understand the concerns that you may have about your privacy and respect your right to protect your personal information while online. However, our website is designed to allow homeowners to post information and photographs of their home for public information and review. Accordingly, by submitting your photograph and/or any other personal information, you waive any privacy expectations you have with respect to use of such likeness or personal information. If you do not wish to have information about your home viewed by or disclosed to others, do not use our website.

We may use your personal Information to contact you about changes to our website, and new features products and services, or to send you news. If we want to use your information for purposes not disclosed above, or at the time we collect your information, we will tell you and ask you to "opt out." If you were not prepared to share your personal information for such purposes, you would have to advise us.

Information Collection and Use

Security

When you browse our website, we do not collect personal Information about you. The only way we can collect any kind of personal information is if you give it to us.

We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

Our website takes technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. We store all personal information that you provide on our secure servers. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and off-line: all electronic transmissions you make to, or receive from us will be protected by SSL encryption technology. You can be sure of this security when giving us sensitive information as the padlock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The padlock does not appear when you are just 'surfing' on the website in general.

What we do with the information we gather

We may use the information you give us for the following:

  1. internal record keeping and website administration
  2. to improve our products and services
  3. to send promotional e-mails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the e-mail address which you have provided
  4. to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by e-mail, letter or telephone
  5. to improve your browsing experience by personalising the website
  6. to enable your use of our website
  7. to supply the services (profiles) you purchase from our website
  8. to send statements and invoices to you, and to collect payments from you
  9. to send you general and necessary communications concerning your profile
  10. to send you e-mail notifications which you have specifically requested
  11. to send to you our newsletter and other marketing communications (relating to our business or the businesses of carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you) by post or, by e-mail or similar technology
  12. to provide third parties with statistical information about our users ' but this information will not be used to identify any individual user
  13. to deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to the website

In addition to the disclosures reasonably necessary for the purposes identified elsewhere in these terms, we may disclose information about you:

  1. to the extent that we are required to do so by law
  2. in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings
  3. in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights, and this may include providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention
  4. to a purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset which we, are (or are contemplating) selling

How we use cookies

A cookie is a small file which helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to your needs. Use of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information.

Our website only uses this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may, however, prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.

Our website uses Google Analytics to analyse the use made of it. Google Analytics uses information gathered from cookies for the purpose of statistically evaluating the use of our website, and compiling reports on website activity for us. Google's privacy policy is available at http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.

Controlling your personal information

You may, under the Data Protection Act 1998, request details of personal information which we hold about you. We will need to charge you a small fee to provide them. If you would like a copy of the information held on you, please write to Forbes Office, Keig, Alford, Aberdeenshire, AB33 8BL. We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office, our data protection reference is jtt368.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect, incomplete or needs updating, please write to us as soon as possible, at the above address or e-mail chiefchick@bedandfed.co.uk. Chief Chick or Mother Hen will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.

Any Questions?

If you have any questions about these terms, please write to us at the above address or e-mail chiefchick@bedandfed.co.uk.

Conclusion

By using and/or visiting our website you expressly consent and agree to be bound by the terms, and all applicable laws and regulations that govern our website and your use of it and its services.

These terms, constitute the entire agreement between you and us in relation to your use of our website, and supersede all previous agreements in respect of your use of our website. Last updated May 2009.