Legal
Terms of Service
Last updated: 3 August 2026
These terms govern the services ZerNess Lab provides and your use of this website. A signed quote or written acceptance of a quote brings them into effect. If we sign a separate written agreement with you, that agreement takes precedence wherever the two differ.
1. Who you are contracting with
ZerNess Lab is the trading name of Surika Elizabeth Ozoh. Your contract is with that person directly.
Legal status: Sole proprietor (not registered as a company)Based in: Kempton Park, Gauteng, South Africa (full physical address on request)Email: elizabethsozoh@gmail.com · Phone: +27 76 520 68002. What we do
We provide web design and development, search engine optimisation, automation, and AI assistant integration. The specific work, deliverables and price for your project are set out in your quote. Anything not written in that quote is not included.
3. Quotes and prices
Prices are quoted in South African Rand.A quote is valid for 30 days from the date we issue it.Prices shown on this website are indicative starting points. Your quote is the binding figure.Third-party costs — domains, hosting, paid plugins, stock imagery, AI usage fees — are yours unless the quote says we carry them.4. Payment
Unless the quote says otherwise, 50% is payable before work begins and the balance on completion, before the site goes live.Monthly retainers and care plans are billed in advance and continue until either of us cancels in writing.Invoices are due within 7 days.We may pause work on overdue accounts. We will tell you before we do.5. What we need from you
Projects stall for the same reasons every time, so to be clear about what sits on your side:
Copy, images, logos and any other material, in usable formAccess to domains, hosting and any accounts we needA single person who can give approvals and make decisionsFeedback within a reasonable timeYou confirm that you own, or have permission to use, everything you give us. If a project goes quiet on your side for more than 60 days we may close it and invoice for work completed.
6. Revisions and scope
Each project includes the rounds of revision stated in your quote. A revision means refining agreed work. New pages, new features, or a change of direction after approval are new scope, and we will quote for them before starting. We will not do extra work and surprise you with a bill for it.
7. Timelines
Timelines in a quote are estimates made in good faith and depend on your material and approvals arriving. We are not liable for delays caused by late input, third-party outages, or anything outside our reasonable control.
8. Ownership of the work
Everything we create specifically for your project becomes yours once the final invoice is paid in full.Until then, it remains ours.We keep ownership of our own underlying tools, components, frameworks and know-how, including anything we reuse across projects. You get a perpetual licence to use those as part of your site.Third-party assets — fonts, imagery, plugins — stay under their own licences, which you must observe.We may show the work in our portfolio and describe what we did, unless you ask us in writing not to.9. Hosting, domains and third-party services
Where your site depends on services we do not own — hosting, domain registrars, analytics, payment gateways, AI providers, social platforms — those services set their own terms, prices and availability, and can change or withdraw them. We will help you deal with it, but we are not responsible for their decisions or downtime.
10. Support and care plans
Unless you are on a care plan, our involvement ends when the project is delivered and paid for. We are happy to fix anything that was broken on delivery. Later changes, updates, and problems caused by edits made by others are billable.
11. Cancellation
You may cancel a project in writing at any time. Work completed up to that point is payable, and deposits already earned are not refundable.Monthly services may be cancelled in writing with 30 days' notice.We may cancel if payment is more than 30 days overdue, or if we are asked to do something unlawful.12. What we do not promise
We do our work carefully and to a professional standard. We do not warrant that a website will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that it will produce any particular commercial result. Search rankings in particular depend on Google, not on us — please read our Disclaimer, which forms part of these terms.
13. Limitation of liability
To the extent the law allows, our total liability arising out of any project is limited to the amount you have paid us for that project. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost profit, lost revenue, lost data or business interruption. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including under the Consumer Protection Act where it applies to you.
14. Confidentiality
Each of us will keep the other's non-public business information confidential and use it only for the project. This continues after the work ends.
15. Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction. We would always rather resolve a disagreement by talking about it first.
16. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms for future work. The terms that apply to your project are the ones in force when your quote was accepted.
Questions about this document? Email elizabethsozoh@gmail.com or call +27 76 520 6800.