Site Guarantee

[exbionic]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone had experience of being asked to provide a warranty or guarantee on a web site?

The site I am working on is dynamic, uses ASP & MySQL, and has a content managment system. The client is also paying for a maintainance contract to do general housekeeping duties on the back end.

The client is claiming that there is a statutory one year guarantee on any product provided in the UK, to cover, and I quote, "any latent defects within the design that might surface in the first year".

I would appreciate anyone's opinion on this, especially if your are in the UK.

Cheers

Scott.

[tone001]

UK here and have done similar projects for years ... never had this crop up before, apart from a particularly big project where there was a fairly standard maintenance contract.

He might be talking about products? I'm no lawyer so I'm not sure if there is a difference between software solutions and, say, a hoover.

If a client is asking you to sign a contract, you need to get a layer to look at it ... you'd be surpised how dodgy they can be sometimes ... and a good lawyer will get it changed so it benefts you both.

[The Lore]

I am only speculating here so don't take my word as law!

There is a statutory law which garrentees your money back if the product design has any flaws. However I am not sure how this would work out for a product which was bespoke'ly commissioned and created.
My understanding of this law would only ever be applied to something I had bought in a shop. I don't really know why I think this though.

However saying that if I created an application and sold it to a client, and six months later they discover that that the CMS is erroring when they try to use a comma, or single quote or something. I would fix that for free with no problems, you have a duty to provide a system that works for all reasonable situations and if it fails to do that then you have failed your duty to the customer.

Hope this has helped a bit.

L.

ps. I am in the uk

[sk8Krog]

I always thought of web design as a service, rather than a product. Are there guarantees on services like plumbing, cable, hair cuts? If not, then I wouldn't think there would be one for web design, if it is considered a service.

[JabezStone]

A decent contract will take care of this issue, anyway, and will protect both the client and the developer.
Before a project is released, it should be thoroughly tested, and then approved and accepted by the client. There is ample time to determine that the project was completed to specs... as much time as you want actually... before the final release.

I agree with sk8Krog here, also. This is a service, not tangible goods.

Just have a solid contract and everyone will be protected.