Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated: 10 June 2026

Before You Pay provides a public records research tool — not legal, financial, or professional advice. You are responsible for all decisions made before, during, or after using this service.

1. Who we are

Before You Pay ("we", "us", "our") is operated by Phillips. and is accessible at beforeyoupay.uk. By using this website or purchasing a report, you agree to these Terms of Service in full.

2. What Before You Pay does

Before You Pay is an information aggregation tool. We retrieve and compile data from publicly available sources — including Companies House, trade registers, review platforms, and news indexes — and present it in a single report. We do not:

Conduct investigations or physical checks
Contact the tradesperson or any third party on your behalf
Provide legal, financial, professional, or regulatory advice
Guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of any information we retrieve
Make binding statements about whether any individual or business is legitimate, safe to hire, or otherwise fit for purpose

3. Not advice — for information only

Nothing in a Before You Pay report constitutes legal advice, financial advice, professional advice, or a regulated opinion of any kind. Reports reflect publicly available information at the time the check was run. Information may be outdated, incomplete, or subject to change.

A result of "Looks legitimate" does not mean the trader is verified, recommended, or endorsed by Before You Pay. A result of "Concerns found" or "Unable to verify" does not mean the trader is dishonest, unqualified, or unfit to be hired.

All decisions about whether to hire a tradesperson, pay a deposit, or proceed with any work remain entirely your own. Before You Pay accepts no responsibility for any decision made in reliance on a report.

4. Your responsibility to verify

You acknowledge that:

Public records can be out of date, incomplete, or inaccurate
Trade register data is provided by third parties and may not reflect the current status of any accreditation
A report is a starting point for due diligence — not a substitute for it
You should independently verify any information that is material to your decision before committing to work or payment
We recommend obtaining multiple quotes and seeking independent professional advice where significant sums are involved

5. Payment and refunds

Reports are priced at £5 per check. Payment is processed securely by Stripe. All prices include VAT where applicable.

Because a report is a digital product delivered immediately upon completion of the check, we do not offer refunds once a report has been generated and delivered. This does not affect your statutory rights under UK consumer law.

If a report fails to generate due to a technical error on our side, we will issue a full refund or re-run the check at no additional cost.

6. Accuracy and limitation of liability

We retrieve data from third-party sources and present it as-is. We make no warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, or completeness of any information in a report.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Before You Pay shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages arising from:

Reliance on any information in a report
Decisions made before, during, or after using our service
Inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated public records
The conduct, qualifications, or actions of any tradesperson

Our aggregate liability to you for any claim shall not exceed the amount you paid for the report in question (£5).

7. Data and file retention

Any files you upload (such as a quote document or image) are used solely to generate your report. Uploaded files are permanently deleted within 7 days of your check. We do not store, sell, or share your uploaded files. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to use Before You Pay to:

Conduct checks on individuals for purposes other than your own legitimate pre-payment due diligence
Harass, defame, or publish false information about any person or business
Resell, redistribute, or commercially exploit report data without our written permission
Attempt to scrape, reverse-engineer, or automate access to our service

9. Intellectual property

The Before You Pay website, brand, software, and report format are our intellectual property. Public records data included in reports is Crown copyright or third-party copyright and is used under applicable open data licences. You may use your own report for personal reference only.

10. Third-party services

Our service relies on third-party data sources including Companies House, Gas Safe Register, NICEIC, and others. We have no control over the availability, accuracy, or continuity of those services. We are not responsible for any interruption or inaccuracy caused by a third-party data source.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms at any time. The current version is always available at beforeyoupay.uk/terms. Continued use of the service after any update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

13. Contact

For any queries relating to these terms, please contact us at hello@beforeyoupay.uk.