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Local Heroes – Trader Terms of Use

Last modified on 03 November 2023

Where we refer to “we”, “us” or “our” in this agreement we mean Local Heroes, a trading name of Bord Gáis Energy Limited, registered in Ireland (Company No. 463078) at One Warrington Place, Dublin 2. Where we refer to “you”, we mean you, your employees, contractors and anyone who performs services on your behalf. Reference to “Services” means the work performed by you following a request from a customer for a job to be completed through the Local Heroes platform which you accepted.

The agreement between us includes these Terms of Use, the Trader Commercial Terms, our Information Transparency Policy, the Code of Conduct, the Trader Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy as made available on the Local Heroes Trader website or by email to you. Together these documents set out the legally binding agreement (we refer to this as the “Agreement”) between you and us.

You automatically agree to this Agreement simply by applying to become a Local Hero.

For details on how we use your personal data, please see our Trader Privacy Policy

Please note that we may amend these Terms of Use and any other parts of the Agreement between us from time to time. We will notify you by email of any proposed changes. For more information on this please see clause 19 below.

1. Application, insurance and skills

Access to Local Heroes is subject to first successfully completing the application process. It is your responsibility to ensure that you and anyone completing Services on your behalf have and continue to hold and maintain:

1.1 all the qualifications that are necessary to complete the Services; and 1.2 all insurance policies of the type and amounts specified by us in advance.

You shall keep records confirming the continued compliance by you of this clause and permit us access to these records in accordance with clause 21. You must provide us with a current certificate of insurance within 7 days of registration and also within 7 days of receiving a written request from us. You shall not allow anyone to perform Services on your behalf who do not meet the requirements of these terms and in the event of any changes to the skills, qualifications and/or insurance you confirm as being held by you in your application, you must let us know of such changes as soon as possible and in any case before you carry out any further Services. You agree to comply with any reasonable request by customers to evidence identification and applicable trade accreditations and qualifications.

2. Status

You shall act as principal in the provision of the Services and not in any circumstances as our agent. There will be no liability on us as a result of any breach of any third-party agreement or your negligence. The relationship between you and us will be that of independent trader, and nothing in these terms shall render you an employee, worker, agent or partner of Local Heroes and you shall not present yourself as such. You are responsible for all personal and business tax and national insurance contributions in respect of the Services.

3. VAT registration

It is your responsibility to ensure that if you are required to do so, you register for VAT. If you are not VAT registered when you join Local Heroes, but later become registered, you must notify us as soon as possible. If we have any concerns as to your ongoing VAT status, we reserve the right to suspend allocating you jobs from the Local Heroes platform in accordance with clause 16 below until you can prove to our reasonable satisfaction what your correct VAT status is and that you are correctly making payments to the Office of the Revenue Commissioners for all work conducted via Local Heroes.

4. Work requests

We will notify you of requests for work which match the services you offer, in the location/s in which you confirm you operate. If you confirm via the Local Heroes websiteplatform or App that you are available for the work, we may offer it to you and you are free to accept or decline it. The basis on which we offer work is at our sole discretion. For more information on how we make these decisions please see our Information Transparency Policy.

If you are offered the work and accept it, you must: 4.1 engage with the customer in accordance with the Code of Conduct; and 4.2 provide a formal quote which should be accepted by the customer through the Local Heroes platform before you start work.

We do not vet customers or their requests for work on your behalf and we will not be liable to you in any way for the Services (including but not limited to payment to you by the customer on completion of the job). We therefore recommend you assess each request for work and carry out any checks and/or risk assessments you deem necessary before you start the Services. You should not agree to do any work you cannot legally and safely carry out or which you are not qualified to carry out.

5. Cancellations

If you accept a job but then cancel without good reason, we reserve the right to charge a cancellation fee of €50 to cover our reasonable costs in finding another tradesperson to complete the work.

6. Quality

6.1 The Services should be carried out to the satisfaction of the customer and in accordance with your terms of business, the Code of Conduct and all applicable laws and regulations. You shall ensure that all works, and installations are completed to applicable standards, but not superseding the following regulations and standards: i. IS813, Product Manufacturers Instructions, ii. IS10101, Building Regulations, iii. SEAI Domestic Technical Standards and Specifications, iv. RGII, Safe Electrical and SEAI.

Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, you shall take and upload to the job page on https://www.localheroes.ie, in accordance with the instructions set out therein, clear digital images of the Services which you have undertaken and completed for the customer. Without prejudice to any other right of BGE, if at any time we are not satisfied with the quality of the digital images or any part thereof, we may so notify you and you shall promptly use all reasonable endeavours and dedicate such resources as are required to upload replacement digital images without delay.

6.2 In addition, you agree:

6.2.1 to use the highest standard of skill and care ordinarily exercised by experienced and competent traders performing services of a similar nature;

6.2.2 that goods and materials you provide will be of satisfactory quality and fit for their common or specified purpose;

6.2.3 to evidence, if required, that you have taken suitable and sufficient steps to control the risks from the tasks you are carrying out. This is a legal requirement on you and cannot be delegated to others. These controls will include having available appropriate equipment and materials to safely undertake work, as well as acquiring appropriate competencies to ensure that you understand the risks and how to control them; and

6.2.4 that the following list of documents is presented to the customer on completion of the Services, where applicable:i. RGII conformance certificate; ii. Notice of Hazard; iii. Electrical conformance certificate; iv. Electrical safety notice.

From time to time we may appoint an independent third party to check the Services to ensure that it conforms with law and regulations. We may recover from you the costs, in accordance with clause 15, of any remedial work we have to carry out or find another tradesperson to carry out if such checks demonstrate a breach of this clause 6;

7. Call out fees and diagnostic work

You must not charge call out fees. If we find evidence of you doing so, we reserve the right to immediately suspend or terminate you from the platform. in accordance with clause 16 below. You may charge a fee where it is not possible to identify, or locate, a problem without extensive investigation work; however in such circumstances you should provide the customer with a quote for the diagnostic work and should not begin the diagnostic work until the quote has been agreed.

8. Price, payment and fees

You must not attempt to collect payment for the work from the customer or encourage payment outside of the Local Heroes platform; we will make reasonable efforts to collect payment from the customer, acting as agent on your behalf. In the event we are unable to collect payment from the customer for 28 days, we will pass the debt to you for collection and waive our fee. See also the Trader Commercial Terms.

Payment to you will be made via our appointed third party payment provider, Stripe Connect Platform (“Stripe”) (www.stripe.com/ie) in accordance with the payment terms set out in the Trader Commercial Terms. Payment processing services for all traders using the Local Heroes platform are provided by Stripe and are subject to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, which includes the Stripe Terms of Service (collectively, the “Stripe Services Agreement”). By agreeing to these terms or continuing to accept work via Local Heroes, you agree to complete the Stripe account process and be bound by the Stripe Services Agreement. Where Stripe requires further information to approve your application, you agree to provide it as soon as reasonably possible. As a condition of Local Heroes enabling payment processing services through Stripe, you must provide Local Heroes and/or Stripe with accurate and complete information about you and your business. As part of the performance of the Services, Local Heroes will share with Stripe such information, together with any transaction information related to your use of the payment processing services provided by Stripe. We will only share the information in accordance with our Trader Privacy Policy and Information Transparency Policy. You will need to set up and keep up to date a Stripe account in order to receive payment.

9. Additional and follow up work

If a customer you have been introduced to through Local Heroes requests additional or follow up work at any time, you agree to ensure that such work is placed through the Local Heroes platform. If we suspect or are made aware that you are not doing so, we reserve the right to immediately suspend or remove you from the service. in accordance with clause 16 below.

10. Exclusivity and volume

This is a non-exclusive arrangement and you are free to carry out work outside the Local Heroes network. Likewise we may utilise other tradespeople in your area. We cannot guarantee you any volume of work.

11. Inactivity

If you have not indicated that you are available for work for a period of 28 days, then we reserve the right to turn off your alerts. This means that you will remain on the Local Heroes platform, but you will no longer receive notifications when a job is available in your area. We will write to you by email to let you know before we turn the alerts off, and if at any time you want to start receiving notifications again, just let us know.

12. Substitute

You may, with our and the customer’s prior approval and subject to the following proviso, appoint a suitably qualified and skilled substitute to perform the Services on your behalf, provided that we have vetted the substitute and they enter into and conform to the terms with you which are the same as those set out in this agreement and all associated documentation. For the avoidance of doubt, you will continue to be subject to all duties and obligations under this agreement and you will be responsible for all payments due to the substitute.

13. 12 month guarantee

The work you carry out and the parts you fit must be guaranteed by you for a period of 12 months from the date of completion. Certain jobs such as temporary repairs may not be suitable for a 12-month guarantee, in these cases you must notify the customer and specify this on the quote and the customer should agree that there will be no such guarantee before you start work.

In the event that you fail to inform a customer that a repair is temporary, the work will be deemed to be guaranteed for 12 months. Should you fail to meet your obligations under the guarantee, you agree to pay us an amount equal to the cost of any remedial work we, or another tradesperson, has to undertake to perform the terms of the guarantee, in accordance with the indemnity contained in clause 15.

14. Complaints

Customers are encouraged to resolve complaints with you, although if necessary we will provide assistance. In the event a customer complains to you, you agree to attend the property and carry out any remedial work necessary at your own cost. If a customer complains directly to us we will ask them to contact you first and try to resolve the issue directly with you, however if they already have contacted you and the matter remains unresolved we will request further information from you and you must facilitate any such requests. We will investigate the complaint and in the event we find the complaint is justified, we will ask you to return to the property to rectify the problem. If you are not available in a reasonable timescale, we will find someone else to resolve the issue and you will reimburse us for our reasonable costs in doing so.

If you’re not satisfied with us, you can raise a complaint in line with our Complaints Handling Policy.

If you’ve been mistreated by a customer, you must let us know so that we may investigate and take such appropriate action as is necessary.

15. Indemnity and limitation of liability

You will indemnify us against all claims loss, damage, costs, legal costs, professional and other expenses of any nature incurred or suffered by us however caused arising out of: 15.1 any breach by you of the agreement between us; 15.2 any remedial work or payment made by us or any other tradesman we have to appoint under the guarantee in relation to the Services; and 15.3 any customer complaint and the resolution of such complaint.

We shall not be liable to you for loss of profits, business, depletion of goodwill (or similar losses), anticipated savings, goods, contracts; or any special, indirect, consequential or pure economic loss, costs, damages, charges or expenses. Nothing in these terms of use limits or excludes liability of either party for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or wilful misconduct by the other.

16. Restriction, Suspension or termination

We reserve the right to restrict, suspend or terminate your use of the Local Heroes platform should there be any questions over the quality of the Services or if you breach this Agreement.

If we restrict or suspend your access to the Local Heroes Platform (or any part of it), we will provide you with a clear explanation of our reasons for doing so (including referencing any specific relevant facts and circumstances, along with the applicable grounds we're relying on to do so) by email before the date on which the restriction or suspension becomes effective, in order to give you the opportunity to clarify the facts and circumstances.

If we terminate your access to the Local Heroes Platform or the Agreement, we will provide you with a statement setting out our reasons for that decision (including referencing any specific relevant facts and circumstances, along with the applicable grounds we're relying on to do so) by email at least 30 (thirty) days' before termination takes effect, except where:

16.1 we are obliged by a legal or regulatory obligation to terminate the provision of the Local Heroes Platform or the Agreement; or

16.2 you have repeatedly infringed your obligations under the Agreement;

If either of 16.1 or 16.2 apply we will provide you reasonable notice in the circumstances (if we can) and the statement of reasons for that decisions by email as soon as reasonably possible).

You may clarify the facts that led to any restriction, suspension or termination using our Complaints Handling Process

You are under no obligation to accept work and are free to leave Local Heroes at any time. If you no longer wish to be offered work by Local Heroes, you should notify us immediately and we will remove you from the platform. However, please note that you will continue to be bound by clauses 12, 13, 14, 15 and 18 in relation to Services completed prior to your removal from the Local Heroes platform even after you terminate this Agreement.

17. Brand

The intellectual property in the Bord Gáis Energy and Local Heroes Brands, logos and Local Heroes platform belongs to us. You are not permitted to use the Local Heroes brand, and in particular our trademarks, without our express written consent.

Your decision to enter into this Agreement with us has no impact on the ownership of the intellectual property rights in any brand, logo or website that you own. We will not use your brand logo or any intellectual property belonging to you without your express written consent.

18. Representations, undertakings and warranties

By entering into this Agreement, you confirm that you have full power and capacity to execute, deliver and perform your obligations under this agreement, and that: 18.1 you have, and will maintain, all qualifications, licences, materials and insurances required to provide the services; 18.2 you shall not infringe the intellectual property rights (including patents, copyright, trademarks, design rights and rights to apply to any of the foregoing) of us or any other third party when performing your obligations; 18.3 you will comply with all relevant anti-bribery legislation; and 18.4 the Services you provide will comply with all laws and regulations applicable and relevant, and will be formulated, designed, constructed, finished and/or performed as to be fit for the purpose for which they are intended, of satisfactory quality, safe and without risk to health.

Without prejudice to our other rights and remedies, where any breach of this clause 18 is capable of being remedied by you, you shall remedy the same in a timely manner and meet all the cost of, and incidental to, the performance by you of the remedial workcosts associated with doing this.

19. Modifying or varying the service

Please note that we may amend these Terms of Use and any other parts of the Agreement between us time to time. We will notify you by email of any changes. Except in the limited situations described below, the proposed changes will not apply until at least 15 (fifteen) days from the date on which we notify you about them (and we will set out the date that the changes will apply from in the relevant notification).

Situations where the 15 day notice period will not apply 19.1 If a change(s) to the Agreement mean that you then need to make technical or commercial adjustments in order to comply with the Agreement, we will always give you a longer notice period before the change(s) apply.

19.2 In certain situations we will not be able to give you the full 15 (fifteen) day notice of changes. For example where:

  • we are subject to a legal or regulatory obligation which requires us to change the Agreement in a way which does not allow us to give you that length of notice period; and
  • we need to change the Agreement to address an unforeseen and imminent danger that relates to defending our Local Heroes platform and our traders and customers from fraud, malware, spam, data breaches or other cybersecurity risks

Whenever we notify you of a proposed change to the Agreement, you will have the right to terminate the Agreement before expiry of the notice period. If you do wish to terminate please let us know during that period. The termination will then take effect 15 (fifteen) days from when we receive your request to terminate.

You may also choose to give up your right to terminate by either letting us know in writing, or by taking a clear affirmative action that you accept the change to the Agreement. For example, accepting a new work requests during the notice period will be considered by us as clear affirmative action that you wish to give up your termination right, and accept the changes to the Agreement. Please note this does not apply if we have given you more than 15 days notice in accordance with clause 19.1

20. Confidentiality and data protection

You shall treat all customer information as confidential and must not share that information with others. You shall only use customer information for the purpose of contacting them in relation to the work and for no other purpose whatsoever. When we provide you with customer information, you become the data controller of that information, and you shall, at all times and in all respects, comply with data protection and privacy laws in respect of it. If you receive a question or complaint from a customer about the personal data you process about them, or from a regulator, you are responsible for dealing with it. If we receive a question or complaint about your processing activities we will refer the question or complaint to you and we will not respond further to it other than to say that we have referred it to you.

If you receive a question or complaint about our processing activities, you shall refer the question or complaint to us promptly at dataprotection@bordgais.ie, and you shall not respond to it other than to say that you have referred it to us.

21. Records and audit access

21.1 You shall maintain accurate records relevant to: i. your continued compliance with clause 1; and ii. the Services you have completed; and upon request permit us access to such records. You shall keep your records safe and in good condition for a period of no less than 7 years from completion of the Services. If an inspection by us reveals that you have overcharged a customer, you shall pay us the reasonable costs of such inspection in addition to the excess charges.

21.2 Without prejudice to clause 6 (Quality), we intend to audit works or installations carried out by you at approximately 10% of all assigned jobs, to be assessed in compliance to the required quality of service as provided in clause 6 of this Terms of Use. Any failure of an audit will trigger further audit assessments at other assigned jobs completed by you. If any unsafe works or installations carried out by you, are identified in an audit, we may immediately suspend or terminate you from the Local Heroes platform in accordance with clause 16 above.

22. Assignment

We reserve the right to reassign or otherwise transfer the work jobs given to you as a result of working with us whole or part to another trader and will not be liable to you in any way for acting upon such right.

23. Local Heroes Boilers

23.1 You are responsible for specifying all parts required for the installation at the time of creating the quote. If you make any additions to the quote after the customer has accepted it and do not get a further acceptance from the customer, you will be liable for any such additions.

23.2 Where a customer accepts the quote and pays the deposit, we will notify you that the installation is ready to proceed and we will make any core materials specified in the referral available for your collection from a merchant. It is your responsibility to collect these core materials within 14 days of notification of their availability.

23.3 If the customer decides not to go ahead with the installation after you have collected the materials, you must return those materials to the same merchant from which they were collected within 48 hours of your receiving notice of the customer’s withdrawal. Until the installation is complete, any core materials in your possession remain our property and are held by you at your own risk.

23.4 On completion of the installation, you must provide us with the serial number of the boiler and filter. It is your responsibility to register the installation of the boiler with the manufacturer. You accept that you will not be able to claim any additional rebates or incentives from the manufacturer in relation to the boiler or its installation.

24. General

  • The agreement between us constitutes the entire agreement between the parties and supersedes all prior communications, representations, warranties, stipulations and agreements between us.
  • If any parts of the agreement are held to be illegal or unenforceable, the rest of the agreement shall continue in force and effect unless the business purpose is substantially frustrated, in which case it shall terminate giving rise to no further liability.
  • No waiver shall be effective unless in writing.
  • The agreementThis Agreement and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with it or its subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) is governed by and construed at all times in accordance with the laws of Ireland and the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Ireland.