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Terms of Service

Let’s work together: our Terms of Business

While The Exchange is not a formal membership body, it’s important that we have a set of processes and expectations in place to protect the organisation and to ensure that it runs smoothly.

We’ve tried to keep these processes and expectations as straightforward and reasonable as possible, and it’s very likely that you won’t have to refer to the Terms below in your day-to-day membership of our community.

(registered in England with number 14878387)

1. Exchange Terms

Throughout these Terms of Business (Terms) the words ‘Group’, ‘We’, ‘Us’ and ‘Our’ all mean us, the Exchange – a community run by its members that connects all stakeholders in the Shared Ownership sector.

Our HQ (registered office) is at 4 Pavillion Court, 600 Pavillion Drive, Brackmills Business Park, Northampton. NN4 7SL

The words ‘member of our community’, ‘member’, ‘you’, and ‘your’ all refer to you. We also refer to members of our community as ‘members’ in this document.

2. Responsibilities of our community

These Terms explain the responsibilities of members of the Exchange community. The Terms spell out what you can expect of us while you are a member, and what we expect from you. They help The Exchange run smoothly and form part of a legally binding contract. Please read these Terms carefully before you apply to join our community. We will ask you to agree to them before you’re allowed to join and before you renew membership.

Any rights these Terms give you when you join only apply to you. They can’t be extended to anyone else or to a business. If your membership ends for any reason, these rights will no longer apply to you.

By becoming a member, you agree that you will:

  • Follow the terms
  • Be fair, honest and reasonable when it comes to working and interacting with other stakeholders and companies in our Shared Ownership community
  • Not say or do anything to harm our reputation
  • Not claim you are speaking or acting on behalf of the Exchange unless we say you can in writing

We always try to do everything in the best interests of you, all our other members and the Shared Ownership sector. But if anything negative or unwanted happens because of someone reading our advice and information, we can’t be held responsible. While it’s very unlikely that would ever happen, we must make that point for legal reasons.

3. Membership levels

The Exchange is for everyone. Membership is free for most, but we do have a paid level of membership for sponsors, advertisers and corporate supporters. The revenue from this paid membership contributes towards our running costs. Officially, our two membership levels are: • Basic • Patron If we decide it’s for the good of the community, we can:

  • Change what these levels membership include
  • Add new membership levels and remove old ones

4. Membership costs and length

Membership for both our membership levels lasts one year. Basic level membership is free. Patron level is paid for. You can find the price on the log in page If we decide we need to, we can change the price of Patron level membership at any time. If you’re a Patron level member, we’ll let you know about any changes to the cost of membership when we send you your membership renewal reminder.

5. Membership benefits

We offer our members all sorts of useful services, which we can change from time to time if we decide to. To use any of these services you might have to agree to additional Membership T&Cs from us or our partners.

By becoming a member of the Exchange, you agree to follow our Articles of Association. That includes agreeing to contribute a maximum of £1 to the assets of the Exchange in the unlikely event it becomes insolvent.

6. Becoming a member

When you submit your application on our website, you agree that if we approve it all our Membership T&Cs apply to you as soon as we send you the email that confirms you have joined our community. It’s up to us if we approve or decline an application and we don’t have to say why we made our decision.

7. Renewals and cancellations

If you are a Basic-level member, your membership will automatically continue after the end of every term of membership.

If you are a Patron-level member, your membership will automatically continue after the end of every term of membership as long as we receive the payment for your renewed membership before your membership runs out.

We will send you a membership renewal notice about a month before your membership runs out. It will include the price you need to pay to renew your membership, the date you need to pay it by (which will be before your membership runs out) and a reminder that you are free to cancel your membership if that’s what you’d prefer to do.

If you decide you want to cancel your membership, you must let us know us in writing (an email is ok) at least ten working days before the anniversary of the date that you became a member.

If you don’t, your membership will automatically renew on the day that your current membership expires. When we get payment for the renewal of your membership, that confirms this contract has been renewed for your next membership term.

8. Lapsed membership

According to the rules of membership renewal mentioned above, your membership will lapse on the day before the expiry of each membership term. If you renew your membership within 30 days from the date that it has lapsed, your membership will be considered continuous, which means it’s continued from one membership term to the next without a gap.

9. Ending your membership

You can cancel your membership at any time by letting us know in writing (an email is fine). You are not entitled to any refund in respect of any unexpired portion of your membership as the membership fee for the relevant period is payable in full and is non-refundable or transferable.

The membership fee for Patron-level membership is non-refundable and non- transferable, so once it is paid, it can’t be refunded.

As soon as your membership ends or is cancelled or suspended, you will no longer be able to use any of our services and will no longer get any membership benefits.

10. Suspending and cancelling memberships

If we decide it is necessary, we can suspend or cancel your membership at any time. If we do, we don’t have to say why. But these are some reasons why we might decide to suspend or cancel a member’s membership:

  • They do or say something that could damage the reputation of the Exchange
  • They are a Patron-level member and don’t pay the membership fee when the time comes to renew membership
  • A complaint is made against them, and we decide the complaint is justified

If we decide to suspend or cancel a membership, that happens as soon as we notify the member of our decision. If your membership is suspended or cancelled, you might not be allowed to become a member again.

11. Member Behaviour Policy

We want the Exchange to be a safe and welcoming community for all its members. To make sure that’s the case, we ask all members to follow these rules which we call our Member Behaviour Policy:

  • All members must always treat us and each other with respect
  • All members must understand and respect that some of us and some other members might have disabilities that can make communicating and expressing themselves difficult

12. Using the Exchange Brand

If you are a member of the Exchange, you can use our name and logo to tell others that you’re a member as long as you don’t:

  • Claim you have any relationship with the Exchange other than that you’re a member of it
  • Change our logo or any other form of our branding in any way
  • Include any aspect of the Exchange’s brand in your business or trading name(s) or any other name or trademark that your business uses or is associated with
  • Tell anyone else they can use the Exchange brand

Let us know straight away if you find out that someone else is using the Exchange brand without our permission. If your membership ends or is suspended or cancelled, you must immediately stop using our brand in any way.

13. Third-party T&Cs

When any Exchange service is provided by a third party (the Provider) their T&Cs apply. If there happens to be a clash between a Provider’s T&Cs and ours, ours will overrule theirs.

14. If we introduce you to other companies…

If we introduce you to other companies or you meet them through the Exchange community, any contract you agree for use of their services is between you and them and won’t involve us in any way.

15. Making a complaint

We aim to provide an excellent service to all our members. If we don’t live up to that commitment or another member’s behaviour falls short of your expectations, please tell us. To make a complaint, send an email to hello@thesoexchange.co.uk We’ll reply as soon as we can.

16. Data protection and use of personal data

The Exchange is committed to respecting your privacy and protecting the information about you that you share with us. We hold and process information about you in strict accordance with our Privacy Notice and GDPR regulations.

You must make sure that all information you share with us about you is correct, accurate and not misleading.

You must not use the Exchange to share personal details of any of your colleagues or customers.

17. Limitation of our liability

We put a great deal of effort into making sure that everything we say in our guides, newsletters, articles, educational resources and document templates is true and accurate. We try and ensure that none of them contain errors. But if any do, we are not liable for them.

Some of the guides on our website are based on official Government guidelines and generally accepted good practice. We believe that they were compliant with all relevant laws at the time that they were published. That being said, if you want legal advice, it’s always best to ask a solicitor.

This does not affect our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation, or any other liability which can’t be excluded or limited under UK law.

These Membership Terms don’t affect your statutory rights as a consumer.

18. Entire agreement

These Membership Terms override any other different Terms that relate to any membership subscription between you and us.

19. Variation

We can change any part of these Membership Terms at any time. If we decide to, we

will give you as much notice of changes as possible before they’re made.

20. Third parties

Anyone who is not a member of The Exchange doesn’t have any of the rights given to Exchange members explained in these Terms.

21. Force majeure

Neither you or us will be liable to the other for any delay, loss or inconvenience because of reasons beyond our control or yours. These reasons including but are not limited to:

  • Fire, flood or storm
  • Strikes or any other industrial dispute
  • Power failure
  • Any event that cannot reasonably be planned for or avoided

22. We’ll keep in touch by email

Whenever we’ve got something important we need to tell you, we’ll say it to you in an email. That’s why when you become a member, you automatically agree to join our mailing list. You’re free to opt out at any time (but we do reserve the right to contact you with important membership news).

23. If we need to send you notice…

If we need to send you notice, we will send it to the email address registered on your

account. When we send a notice email, that counts as notifying you.

24. Legal bit

These Membership T&Cs are managed by English law. And here comes a (necessary) legal bit: You hereby irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts notwithstanding the jurisdiction where you are based.

25. Want to ask us something?

If you have any questions or comments about Exchange membership, let’s have a chat. Please send us an email to hello@thesoexchange.co.uk

If you want to ask us about Data Protection, it’s hello@thesoexchange.co.uk