Terms of use

Contents

1. NB: limitations of our services
2. Our service
3. Users and households
4. Conditions of use
5. Passwords and security
6. Employee subscriptions
7. Payments and prices
8. Rewards
9. Savings
10. Termination
11. Miscellaneous
12. About us

1. NB: Limitations of our services

1. Limitations of tools. We offer a number of tools to help you understand the cost and benefits of service providers - including those you use and those you may use. For example, the automatic summarising of bills, personalised savings estimates or our forecasting tools. These tools are offered on an “as is” basis. For example, we are able only to estimate the amounts you may have paid in the past and we do not know what your future usage might be or how the market will behave in the future and so we are unable to offer anything other than a good faith estimate of future savings.
2. Personalised forecasts. We are under no obligation to produce a personalised forecast or to explain to you why no forecast was produced.
3. No guarantee. In supplying the Nous managed service, we do our best to give you useful information and make the right choices on your behalf, but we can do no more than that. We do not guarantee that our choice of service provider is the best possible, or that you will encounter no difficulties with the service provider; nor do we guarantee that you will save any particular sum of money or achieve any benefit. If you do not find the Nous service satisfactory, you are welcome to end this agreement, but for the reasons we have explained in this paragraph, we exclude liability for failure to achieve any particular saving or benefit for you.
4. Energy management. Nous regularly monitors the energy market so that we can recommend the best option to you. We compare tariffs from our panel of specially selected suppliers to find something most suited to your household. We do not compare every supplier in the energy market. Prices can change quickly so we cannot promise that the chosen tariff will be the cheapest available.

2. Our service

1. We help you manage relationships with service providers, for example by  monitoring the prices they charge. In addition, you may ask us to take a more active role in managing the selection of service providers for you. What we do will depend on the choices you make for your household and the nature of the service. For more information see FAQ: What are savings modes? 
2. In these terms “your services” means all the services that are associated with your household, which will include services we may have identified when you signed up and others that have been included over time. Your services may include services to people who are not users of Nous, for example a mobile phone contract for one of your children. 
3. If we believe that switching to a new service provider may be of benefit to you, we will seek out providers – such as utilities or home or vehicle insurance providers – that we believe will provide a better value service than remaining with the  existing provider without intervention (or if you do not already have such a service provider, the best value service from the providers we partner with). When recommending suppliers to you we ensure they meet the standards for good service that we detail in our knowledge base (for more information see here).
4. The total number and kinds of service providers covered by our service may depend on the pricing tier to which you have signed up.
5. Other services we provide may depend on the choices you have made for your household; your pricing tier; and their availability for your household and situation. They include:
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   i. Switching to new providers.
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   ii. Calling providers to challenge price rises.
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   iii. Updating your personal details; and
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   iv. Consolidating accounts.
6. While we understand that there will be times when you have good reasons for not wanting to use or switch to a particular service provider, we ask that you decline our proposals only where there is a good reason to do so. Where we believe a customer is unreasonably and repeatedly refusing our suggestions, we reserve the right to terminate this agreement.
7. In some cases, we may not be able to carry out one of these steps without you taking some additional action, for example by supplying us with missing data, giving us explicit permission to go ahead or interacting with a provider’s website yourself. If this is the case, we will explain to you what needs to be done.
8. We do not handle any other part of your (or any other person’s) relationship with service providers. For example, if a utility such as electricity is unexpectedly unavailable or if there are any other difficulties with the delivery of the service or you need to make a claim on an insurance policy, it will be your responsibility to contact the service provider directly. This applies also to any complaints you may have about that service. If you are having difficulties with a service provider, please let us know. While we may sometimes be able to assist, we do not promise that we can do so. If we find a service provider is consistently providing bad service to customers, we are less likely to recommend them in the future.

3. Users and households

1. In these terms a “household” is a collection of users on whose behalf we collectively manage services. You may be associated with a household because you created one when you signed up to Nous, or because an existing user invited you to become associated with their household. All users associated with a household are treated equally and have the same power to monitor and manage the household.
2. Each household constitutes a separate contract (referred to as “this agreement”) between us, on the one hand, and all users associated with a household on the other. Termination of this agreement and closure of a household means the same thing and affects users associated with a household together. With the exception of obligations relating to security of passwords, which are individual obligations of each user:
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   i. Each user associated with a household is jointly and severally liable for all obligations owed to us under these terms, including the payment of any fees owed.‍ii. References to “you” in these terms, refer to each user associated with a household individually or collectively (depending on context).
3. You may invite users to become associated with a household and you may leave a household at any time, but if you are the last user associated with a household, leaving the household constitutes a closing of the household, the consequences of which are set out later in these terms.
4. You authorise us to accept the instructions of any other user associated with the same household under this agreement, for example an instruction to terminate this agreement; exercise our authority to access bank accounts; or to modify or cancel contracts for your services; or sign up to new services that are, or will be, managed as part of your use of Nous.
5. Where you ask us to manage services where you are not a party to the relevant service agreement, for example a utility for which you are not an account holder, you warrant that you have the authority to enter into this agreement on behalf of the relevant party.
6. You may “close” a household - terminating this agreement (see above)-  at any time by emailing accounts@nous.co, unless you have an annual or other contract with Nous with periods longer than one month, in which case you must give us at least 30 days’ notice in advance and you may only close the household at the end of a period.
7. If you are not the only user associated with a household, you may withdraw from the household at any time by emailing accounts@nous.co.

4. Conditions of use

1. You authorise us to act as your agent in negotiating, forming, modifying and cancelling contracts for your services (where you have instructed us to do so in accordance with the other terms set out in this agreement). At the same time you give us authority to do the other things set out below.
2. We may offer a service to you where we monitor the payments being made directly from your bank account. We will do so only with your authorisation. We may also need you to confirm your authorisation to a third party (for example your bank or via Open Banking) as a condition of our supply of the service. 
3. In some cases, we may need you to take action; give us additional information; or give further authorisation to enable us to manage your services. If you do not promptly respond to any such request from us, it might seriously impair our ability to manage your household. This could have serious consequences, including the loss of insurance cover; or a utility supply. A failure to engage will also create difficulties for us in administering the household which may result in our exercising our right to terminate this agreement, closing your household.
4. If you authorise us to (and provide us with the means to) access your email account, we will do so in order to identify your existing providers and monitor any communications with providers that relate to our duties under this agreement. We will not send any email on your behalf or amend or delete any emails you have received and we will not interfere with your privacy or the integrity of your email in any other way. Our access will be “read only”.
5. You authorise us to use a proxy email address with providers to allow us to access emails they send and communicate with them on your behalf. If we do this, we will either automatically forward emails we receive to your email address or store them so you can access them on demand.
6. In some cases, setup fees or deposit payments may be required when switching you to a new service provider. You authorise us to use a proxy payment card to make such payments to providers on your behalf. You further agree that such fees will be charged back to your household, either by deducting them from your household rewards or via direct debit, where relevant.
7. You must answer any relevant questions we ask you in a timely fashion. If you fail to do so we may not be able to renew some services (such as insurance cover) or assess whether an alternative service provider is appropriate.
8. You must ensure that all information you supply to us is accurate and complete.
9. You must ensure that the electronic mail address or addresses that you have registered with us are valid and correct. If we are in any way obliged to communicate with you under this agreement – for example to inform you of a change in terms, or give you notice – we may do so by emailing an email address you have registered with us regardless of whether it is valid.

5. Passwords and security

1. Users may access our system by use of a password, an individual magic link email or by means of a third party authorisation service you nominate such as Google or Microsoft. You may not share the magic link with anyone else (even other users in your household) nor permit any other person to login using your login details. If you choose to use a third party authorisation service, you must ensure that no-one else is able to use that service to access our systems. We offer third party authorisation services for your convenience but we cannot take responsibility for their operation.

6. Employee subscriptions

1. If you have an “employee subscription”, your employer has arranged with us to pay for some or all of your fees for our service. Depending on the nature of the employee subscription, you may not have to pay any fees or they may be reduced according to your employer’s contribution.
2. Your employer may terminate an employee subscription, for example If you leave your employer. In that case, we will inform you that the employee subscription will end, and give you the option of continuing to use our service – either on a paid tier or on the free tier.
3. If your employer has paid for a period of subscription in advance (for example for an annual subscription), we may be able to allow you to continue on the same basis until that period has ended. Similarly if your employee subscription started with a free trial of a paid for tier, we may allow you to continue with the free trial period. We will make your options clear to you when we inform you that your employer has terminated the employee subscription.
4. Having an employee subscription does not prevent you terminating this agreement as usual (see “Termination” below).
5. An employee subscription may only be used by someone who has a household to manage, otherwise there is nothing we are able to do for them. If this applies to you, we will not be able to offer the service to you even if your employer has nominated you to receive it as an employee benefit.

7. Payment and prices

1. You must pay the advertised fees for your financial tier unless you are covered by an employee subscription (see “Employee subscriptions” above) in which case some or all of the fees may be paid by someone else). Fees may depend on your financial tier, or any particular special offer you may have responded to.
2. Unless otherwise specified our fees are payable monthly at the rate currently advertised. All prices are inclusive of VAT where applicable.
3. We may change our prices, by giving you at least 30 days’ advance notice of the change. If your subscription is monthly, the new price will take effect on the date your next payment is due. If your subscription has longer periods, for example if it is annual, then the new price will not take effect until the start of your next period.
4. By default, payment must be made by direct debit. You authorise us to use the bank account details you have supplied to set up a direct debit for your fees (or the balance of your fees if you have accrued rewards). 
5. We may offer you the ability to pay by one or more of the following alternative methods: credit/debit card, open banking or via a third party payment provider. In each case, you may need to give us additional information (such as credit card numbers) or agree to additional terms relating to that payment method.
6. If you pay using a payment provider, you may be required to agree to that provider’s own terms. We will usually treat the payment as having been made when we receive confirmation from the payment provider, but we do so on an interim basis only.
7. You retain ultimate responsibility for the payment of our fees whatever payment method is selected. If, for whatever reason, including a chargeback where we are required to repay any sum for which we received confirmation, we are left out of pocket, you will pay us any shortfall in our fees.

8. Rewards

1. On the premium tier, you may be able to earn “rewards” for switching to some service providers. Some service providers may pay us a commission for transferring supply of the service to them, we will usually be able to pass some or all of that commission on to you as a reward, we will let you know in advance if there is any reward for switching and how it may be earned. We will keep track of all commissions we receive relating to your household.
2. In order to reward customer loyalty, any reward will usually accrue steadily over a period of time so long as you remain with the service provider. Unless otherwise specified, one twelfth of the reward will be available for you to use each month that your subscription continues on a premium tier, so that the whole reward will be available to you after a year. Rewards will stop accruing if you are on a free tier. Precise conditions for a reward will vary, but we will make them clear to you in advance.
3. You may request a cash pay out of accrued rewards at any time. We endeavour to process any such requests within 30 days. 
4. Once a reward has accrued to you, it will remain available to your household even if you move to the free tier unless it is frozen (see below), but if you terminate your agreement with us, you will lose all rewards.
5. By default we will use rewards on your household to pay for your subscription – we would withdraw the subscription from your household and only charge you for subscription charges that exceeded what was on your household. We reserve the right not to do this and charge you in the usual way, but we will inform you in advance that we have made that decision. You can at any time ask us to pay accrued rewards to you.
6. If your household is inactive for more than 12 months, we reserve the right to freeze your rewards. Once frozen, rewards may not be withdrawn as cash. Use of frozen rewards to pay for your subscription will be at our discretion. A household is inactive when: (i) neither you nor any other user associated with the household have logged in; and (ii) no service has been switched; and (iii) no new reward has been earned.
7. If you are in debt to us for any reason, for example because you have not paid any of our fees, we reserve the right to deduct that from any reward that has accrued to your household.

9. Savings

1. In this agreement “savings” represents an estimate for the amount of money we have saved your household versus what would have been expected had provision from the previous providers carried on without intervention. Because service provider charges may depend on information we do not know – for example your usage of energy in the future – and may change in complicated ways, it is not practical for us to try to produce an exact amount for savings.
2. What we promise to do is to perform our estimation diligently based on a combination of historic actual usage and our best understanding of what their current providers are likely to do based on what they have done in the past (for example their typical observed policy upon expiry of a current fixed rate contract). You may inspect the current level of savings at any time, along with any commissions earned in respect of your household, from the dashboard. If you wish to know more about the reasoning behind our estimate, then contact us at support@nous.co
3. For energy savings: Your energy savings may come from a cheaper tariff, and from rewards for switching. We may recommend a tariff where the savings come from rewards only if it has greater benefit to you. We will make this clear to you at the time.
4. If you have any questions concerning savings, please contact us at support@nous.co

10. Termination

1. You may end this agreement at any time. If you do so, all your rewards will be lost whether they have accrued or not.
2. We may end this agreement by giving you 30 days’ notice in advance. If you have an annual or other contract for which you have made advance payment, we will refund you for the remainder of the contract which has been unused, together with any unfrozen rewards that would have accrued to you in that time.
3. We may also end this agreement without notice if: (a) we are unable to obtain payment by whatever method you have designated for payments to be made or for some other reason you do not pay money you owe to us, despite having made reasonable attempts to resolve this with you; (b) you are in breach of any of the terms of this agreement. We may do so by sending you an email giving you notice of the date on which termination takes effect. if the agreement is terminated in this way, all rewards will be lost, whether they have accrued or not.
4. If this agreement is terminated:
   
   i. Any debt owed by either party to the other will survive termination.
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   ii. We will cease to be involved with any service provider, but we will not terminate any existing relationship you have with service providers, accordingly you will continue to be liable to any contracts with providers entered into or modified on your behalf during this agreement.

11. Miscellaneous

1. These terms are to be interpreted in accordance with English law and the courts of England shall have jurisdiction to settle any disputes arising from your use of the website or this agreement.
2. Nothing in this agreement is intended to create any third party rights.

12. About us

1. We are a company limited by shares registered under the name Eighteen and a Half Limited in England (company number 13236360). Our registered address is 5 New Street Square, London, EC4W 3TW, England. Our VAT number is 374 9867 30.
2. We may be contacted by email at hello@nous.co