Terms and Conditions

Please read these Terms and Conditions of Use (‘Terms’) carefully before using www.uksoc.com (‘the Website’). These Terms apply to all users of this website including casual browsers.

Part A applies to all users of the UKSOC website

Part B applies if you join UKSOC as a member

Part A

Terms Applying to all Users of the United Kingdom Society of Celebrants Website.

Please read these Terms and Conditions of Use (‘Terms’) carefully before using www.uksoc.com, uksoc.co.uk, uksocdesign.co.uk and uksocmembers.co.uk, (‘the Website’). Additional terms and conditions apply if you register as a member of United Kingdom Society of Celebrants via this Website (Part B) and if you enrol on a course . These will be drawn to your attention on registration or enrolment as applicable.

In these Terms, ‘we’, ‘us’ and UKSOC means:

UKSOC which is the owner of this Website and the UKSOC trademark and brand, and ‘you’ means the user of this Website. We reserve the right to withdraw all or part of the Website at any time

By using this website, you agree to be bound by these Terms, the Privacy Statement and the Copyright Statement below.

You acknowledge that you are responsible for making back-up copies of all your data and taking appropriate precautions against viruses, hacking and other types of computer misuse.

While we try to ensure that the website does not contain any error, defect, malfunction or corruption, we do not accept responsibility for any damage to or loss of data on your computer system, network or server that results from the download or use of the website or any materials made available via the website (except for death or personal injury caused by our negligence).

We cannot promise that access to the website will be uninterrupted or error free. We reserve the right to suspend access to the website between the scheduled maintenance window of about 01.00 and 02:30 GMT each day. There may also be occasions when access to the website is interrupted for emergency maintenance or repairs or to carry out upgrades to improve the performance or functionality of the website. Access may also be interrupted due to failures of telecommunications links and equipment, which are beyond the control of UKSOC.

You accept that you will not have a claim for breach of contract against us in respect of such period of unavailability. You also acknowledge that we cannot be held responsible for any delay or disruptions that are inherent in the operation of the internet and the World Wide Web, including viruses.

We shall not be liable to you for any of the following types of loss or damage arising out of or in connection with your use of the website or any or content and/or facilities provided via the website:

any loss of profits, loss of earnings, loss of anticipated savings, goodwill or revenue;
any loss or corruption of data; or
any indirect or consequential loss.

The exclusions and limitations of liability contained in this section do not apply to:

any loss or damage resulting from death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
loss or damages arising from our fraudulent misrepresentation; or
any other losses which may not be excluded or limited by law.

Each provision of this paragraph shall be construed separately as between you and us. If any part is held by a court to be unreasonable, inapplicable or unenforceable, then the other parts shall still apply.

The receipt of the services is personal to you and you may not transfer your rights to access the course materials or to receive the services to another person unless we have consented in writing to you doing so.

If any provision of these Terms becomes void or otherwise unenforceable in whole or in part, the validity of the remainder of these Terms shall not be affected.

If either we or you fail to enforce, or delay in enforcing, any of our respective rights or remedies under these Terms, such failure or delay shall not operate as an agreement to waive that right or remedy, and shall not prevent us from exercising that right or remedy in the future.

These Terms are governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law. Any dispute arising between us under or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Purpose of the Website

The purpose of the website is to provide individuals and businesses with information on the range of courses, centres, products and other services offered by or via UKSOC including enrolment in the United Kingdom.

Please note that the courses advertised on this website are provided by approved UKSOC learning providers, and not necessarily by UKSOC itself.

Copyright

The materials on this website are protected by our and by third party copyright and other intellectual property rights as described in the UKSOC Copyright Statement below.

Third Party Links

UKSOC may provide links to third-party websites from time to time. This may include links to sites owned by associated companies of UKSOC. These third-party links are provided for your convenience only and are accessed at your own risk. UKSOC is not responsible in any way for the content of any third-party website or for goods or services provided by the operators of such websites.

Amendments to the Terms

We reserve the right to amend these Terms from time to time. When we make a change, we will update this page of the Website. The date of the last revision to these Terms is provided at the end of this page. We recommend that you revisit this page from time to time to ensure that you are aware of any changes that we have made to these Terms.

Part B

Terms Applying if You Join UKSOC as a Student or Member

Please read Part B carefully before registering as a student or member of UKSOC via the website. These Terms govern the process of registering as a member of UKSOC and the use of the facilities provided to UKSOC student or members.

Registration

To register as a member of UKSOC you must be at least 19 years old. You agree that the information that you provide to us on registration and at all other times will be true, accurate, current and complete and you agree that you will ensure it is kept accurate and up to date at all times.

We may refuse to accept your application to register as a member of UKSOC for any reason in our absolute discretion.

Password

When you register as a member of UKSOC you will be allocated a username and password enabling you to access Member Resources. As you will be responsible for all activities that occur under your username and password, you should take care to keep your username and password confidential. You must notify us immediately of any unauthorised use of your username or password or if you believe that your username or password are no longer confidential. We reserve the right to require you to alter your username and password if we believe that they are no longer secure.

If you do not log on to a member for a period of 90 days or longer your password will expire. To regain access, you will need to request a new password.

The information that you provide to us upon registration and at any other time is subject to the UKSOC Privacy Statement below.

Availability of the Website

We use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the Website is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We reserve the right to suspend access to the Website between the scheduled maintenance window of approximately 01:00 and 02:30 GMT each day. There may also be occasions when access to the website is interrupted for emergency maintenance or repairs or to carry out upgrades to improve the performance or functionality of the Website. Access may also be interrupted due to failures of telecommunications links and equipment, which are beyond the control of UKSOC.

Liability

We shall not be liable to you for any of the following types of loss or damage arising out of or in connection with your use of the website or other services provided via the website:

any loss of profits, loss of earnings, loss of anticipated savings, goodwill or revenue.
any loss or corruption of data.
any indirect or consequential loss.

The maximum aggregate liability of UKSOC for all claims, whether made in contract, tort under statute or otherwise (including in each case negligence) which are not otherwise excluded under these Terms (“Claims”) shall be limited to £250 in respect of one incident or series of incidents arising from a common cause in each twelve month period commencing with the date that you became a member of UKSOC, provided that the maximum aggregate liability of UKSOC for all claims arising as a direct result of technical advice provided by us shall be subject to the monetary cap on liability.

The exclusions and limitations of liability contained in this section do not apply to:

any loss or damage resulting from death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
loss or damages arising from our fraudulent misrepresentation; or
any other losses which may not be excluded or limited by law.

General

Subject to the terms of any agreement we conclude with you if you enrol on a course via the website, we reserve the right to withdraw all or part of the website at any time.

These Terms are governed by and will be construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes arising under or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.

We reserve the right to amend these Terms from time to time. When we make a change, we will update this page of the website. The date of the last revision to these Terms is provided at the end of the Terms. We recommend that you revisit this page from time to time to ensure that you are aware of any changes that we have made to these Terms. If you continue to use the website or other services provided to members of UKSOC you will be deemed to have accepted those changes.

Our Rights to Stop Providing the Services to You

If you are an online learner, we will make the course materials available to you via the website from course fee payment until the earlier of:

1. your notifying us in writing, by email or by telephone that you have completed the course and no longer require access to the services.
2. your failing to access the course materials for a period of 180 days or more.
3. you have failed to complete your course in the allocated time period:
within 4 months of course enrolment date for Certificate in Family Celebrancy (Distance Learning not Fast Track or Face-to-Face)
within 4 months of course enrolment date for Certificate in Funeral Celebrancy (Distance Learning not Fast Track or Face-to-Face)
within 6 months of course enrolment date for Diploma in Family and Funeral Celebrancy (Distance Learning not Fast Track or Face-to-Face)

On the occurrence of the earlier of the events above, we will suspend your access to the course materials. If you wish to subscribe for the services after your access to the course materials has been terminated, you will need to enrol again and pay the prescribed fee which is 50% of the current course fee.

We reserve the right to stop providing the services to you immediately in the event that:

you fail to comply with Section 15 of these terms which deals with the manner in which you are permitted to use the course materials and the website
you fail to conduct yourself in an appropriate manner when communicating with or receiving support from us or when attending any UKSOC centre. By this we mean that you act in such a way as to threaten, intimidate or otherwise harass our staff, or that your conduct is violent or threatens the physical safety of either our staff or any other person at a UKSOC centre
if we exercise this right, we will notify you via email or your chosen route. We will then immediately suspend your access to the course materials.

Complaints

In the event that you are not satisfied with any aspect of the services, please contact us in the manner described in the UKSOC Student Charter below.

Our Liability to You

The exclusions and limitations of liability contained in these Terms do not apply to:

any loss or damage resulting from death or personal injury caused by our negligence
loss or damages arising from our fraudulent misrepresentation
any other losses which may not be excluded or limited by law.

We shall not be responsible to you in the event that we cannot provide the Services to you due to an event beyond our reasonable control, which includes (but is not limited to) events such as, fire, flood, epidemic, pandemic, storm, strikes or other industrial action, failure of telecommunications services, war, riot, or the actions of any government or public body. In the event that we are prevented from providing the services by such an event, we will take all reasonable steps to try to reinstate the provision of the services to you as soon as is reasonably practicable.

In no event shall we be responsible to you for any loss of profit, loss of earnings, loss of anticipated savings, loss of revenue or loss of goodwill that you may suffer. Further, in no event shall we be liable to you for any indirect or consequential loss that you may suffer.

We are not responsible to you for any data that you lose either as a result of accessing the course materials during completion of any course via the website.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you regularly save and back up all data which you hold on the computer from which you are accessing the course materials, and all data that you are inputting when completing the course.

Except where the above applies, our maximum aggregate liability to you for any claim that you may have against us under or in connection with the provision by us to you of the services which is not otherwise excluded in these Terms (including without limitation where such claim arises as a direct result of any negligent technical advice provided by UKSOC) shall be limited to the amount of the course fee which has been paid or is payable by you or on your behalf (before such course fee is reduced by the amount of any public funding for which you are eligible).

Your Right to Use the Course Materials and your Related Obligations

In consideration of receipt by us of the course fee, we grant to you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license for you to use the course materials for the sole purpose of non-commercial home, work or UKSOC centre use in connection with the receipt of the services. As such, you may make copies of the course materials as they appear on the website as necessary incidental acts during your viewing of it, and you may print for your personal use so many pages of the course materials on the website as are reasonable for private purposes. You may not make copies of any course materials supplied to you in hard copy format.

Save as expressly set out in these Terms, you may not modify, copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute in any way any of the course materials. Any use of the course materials not expressly permitted in these Terms is strictly prohibited and will constitute an infringement of either our copyright or our other intellectual property rights, and/or the copyright or other intellectual property rights of our licensors.

Social Media

UKSOC from time to time offers social media facilities to all learners who have enrolled on a course. This enables you to post comments on and discuss both the content and service provided on the website, the courses offered via the website and the general learning experience with your fellow learners, members and tutors. For the avoidance of doubt, any comments or materials that you post on any area of the website are subject to this paragraph.

UKSOC provides its social media facilities to you free of charge. As a consequence of this UKSOC does not make any guarantee as to the availability, performance or continued provision of these services and reserves the right to modify or to terminate the provision of all or any of these services at any time. UKSOC also reserves the right to establish general rules and limits concerning use of its social media facilities. We shall notify you via these terms and conditions if we amend any such rules or limits.

You agree that we have no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any messages or other communications that you send or receive using our social media facilities.

You acknowledge that you are solely responsible for any content or other materials that you send or post to the social media facilities or any part of the website and that all messages are moderated by UKSOC and that UKSOC reserves the right to remove any message which is inconsistent with our aim of promoting an inclusive environment. All chat sessions are logged, and any complaints will be investigated by UKSOC. You agree not to use the social media facilities or any part of the website:

for any unlawful purposes;

to transmit or communicate any material which is obscene, offensive, blasphemous, pornographic, unlawful, threatening, menacing, abusive, harmful (particularly to minors), an invasion of privacy, defamatory, libellous, vulgar or otherwise objectionable
to transmit or communicate any material which infringes our or any other person’s copyrights, trademarks, patents, moral rights or other intellectual property rights of any nature
for commercial purposes including without limitation the publishing or circulation of any promotion, or advertisement, or the solicitation of funds or the sale or supply of goods or services
to transmit or communicate any material which is likely to have a detrimental effect on our or any other person’s reputation
to transmit or communicate any unsolicited or unauthorised materials, chain letters, junk mail or spam
to transmit any material which is likely to cause harm to UKSOC or anyone else’s computer systems, including but not limited to any virus, code, worm, data or other routine purposely designed to damage or cause any defect, error, malfunction or corruption to any computer system
to transmit or communicate any material in breach of the Computer Misuse Act 1990
to impersonate or falsely state or misrepresent your association with any entity or person including without limitation UKSOC, the UKSOC centres, tutors, members or other learners.
to obtain, collect or store any personal data about any visitors, members or learners of the website.
to transmit applications which make excessive demands on bandwidth.

If you post any comments or content on the website you grant UKSOC and the provider a non-exclusive royalty free perpetual irrevocable right and licence to reproduce, modify, edit, adapt, publish, translate, distribute and display such materials in any and all media now known or in future created throughout the world and authorise others to do so. You further agree to irrevocably and unconditionally waive all moral rights which you may have in respect of any material posted by you on the website.

Removal of Content and Response to Complaints

In the event that you send any content that breaches the provisions of the above paragraph, UKSOC reserves its right to remove that content or disable access to it and to respond to any complaints made by a third party in respect of that content. UKSOC will not be liable to you if it removes any content because it believes that such content breaches the provisions of these Terms.

UKSOC may also preserve any content that you send or receive if required to do so by law or if reasonably required to ensure compliance with the Terms or to respond to third party complaints about such content.

Course Fees

Face-to-Face / Personal Tuition / Fast Track Fees are payable in full prior to course commencement.
Distance Learning Course Fees are usually paid in full prior to course commencement, however, we have the facility to offer discretionary instalment plans.
Refunds are considered on an individual basis subject to the following:

If course materials or member resources access details have been dispatched by UKSOC to the candidates registered email and or postal address – refunds are limited to 50% of the total course fee.
Face-to-Face, Fast Track and Personal Tuition Courses if cancelled by the candidate within 28 days of requested registered commencement date will be limited to a 25% refund or offered an alternate course date with no penalty.
Face-to-Face, Fast Track and Personal Tuition Courses if cancelled by the candidate within 14 days of requested registered commencement date will receive no refund nor will they be offered an alternate course date.
If distance learning course materials or member resources access details have been dispatched by UKSOC to the candidates registered email and or postal address and the candidate is paying fees via our discretionary instalment plan. Refunds are limited to the amount paid above 50% of the total course fee listed on this website.

All candidates who request refunds in line with 18.1, 18.2 and 18.4 above will be offered deferred course dates for up to a maximum of one calendar year from the date of the request subject to full payment of any fees due to increased fee rates as stipulated on this site on new commencement / recommencement date.
All candidates who request refunds in line with 18.1 and who have booked or attended any tutorials will receive a further reduction on their refund of £100 per tutorial booked or attended.
Deferral of course requests must be made in writing to your assigned tutor at least one calendar month prior to the time limit on your course being reached as provided by Section 12 above.

19. Switching Courses

Students can change courses at the discretion of UKSOC on condition that all outstanding course fees have been paid, any additional transfer related course fees have been paid.
Any student who switches course are then subject to the terms and conditions related to the course switched too.

20.Certification

On successful completion of any of the courses offered by UKSOC, the candidate will receive an appropriate electronic course completion certificate or diploma provided there are no outstanding fees due for the course in question.

21.General

These Terms are governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law. Any dispute arising between us under or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between us in relation to the provision by us to you of the services, and they replace and supersede any prior arrangements between us in relation to the services. You acknowledge that you are not relying on any statement made by us or any of our representatives with regard to the services other than those expressly set out in these Terms (which includes, for the avoidance of doubt, the description of the services set out on the website or provided to you in a UKSOC centre). Nothing in this paragraph shall exclude or restrict our liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

The agreement between us which is comprised of these Terms is not intended to be for the benefit of any third party and shall not be exercisable by any other person under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.

The continued use of the website following any changes to the Terms will mean that you accept such changes.

22. Computer Literacy

All UKSOC students must have access to and use of a Laptop or Personal Computer which have a webcam and microphone. Use of Tablets and Mobile Phones are not acceptable for completing course work.
All UKSOC students must be familiar with and competent in the use of a word processor (MS Office preferred), spreadsheets ( MS Excel preferred ) email (including attachment of documents), social media (Facebook, Instagram, Linked In recommended), VOIP (Zoom or Skype)

23. Contacting UKSOC

You can contact us:

by telephone on 0800 772 0762 between [09.00 and 17.00 Mondays to Fridays];

by email at enquiry@uksoc.com

Last updated: 24^th March 2024