Terms of service

The short version

Sit&Co is a marketplace that connects families with local babysitters. Sitters are independent and do not work for Sit&Co. We review sitter applications and references, provide the tools to arrange bookings and handle payments.

We do not carry out DBS or other criminal-record checks on sitters.

The babysitting arrangement itself is between the parent and the sitter. Parents remain responsible for deciding whether a sitter is suitable for their family.

If something in these terms is unclear, contact us at [email protected].

1. Who we are

The service is operated by SIT&CO LTD ("Sit&Co", "we", "us"), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17409295, with its registered office at 16 Dedmere Road, Marlow, England, SL7 1PG.

We operate the babysitting marketplace at sitandco.uk and app.sitandco.uk (together, "the service"). You can contact us at [email protected].

2. What Sit&Co is (and isn't)

Sit&Co introduces parents and guardians ("parents") to independent babysitters ("sitters") and provides tools to search, communicate, arrange bookings and make payments.

When a parent books a sitter, the babysitting service is provided by the sitter directly to the parent. Sit&Co does not provide the babysitting service and does not supervise babysitting appointments.

Sitters are not employees, workers or agents of Sit&Co. Sitters choose whether to accept a booking and provide babysitting services independently.

Before a sitter can appear in search, we review their application and may contact any references they provide. We do not carry out DBS checks, criminal-record checks or police checks on sitters.

Our application and reference process is intended to give parents useful information when choosing a sitter. It is not a guarantee of a sitter's character, conduct, experience or suitability for a particular family or child.

Parents must make their own decision about whether a sitter is suitable for their children and circumstances.

3. Accounts

You must provide accurate information when registering and keep it up to date.

Parents must be at least 18.

Sitters who are under 18 may only use Sit&Co to accept bookings with the consent of their parent or legal guardian ("sitter guardian").

The sitter guardian gives this consent by confirming a link we email to the address the sitter provides for them; that confirmation is their consent to the young person:

• having a Sit&Co sitter account;
• appearing in sitter searches;
• communicating with prospective parents through the service;
• accepting babysitting bookings; and
• receiving payments through the payment arrangements made available by Sit&Co.

Our payment provider does not permit a person under 18 to hold a payout account, so a sitter guardian may be asked to set up and hold the payout account for the sitter's earnings in their own name, and to receive those earnings on the sitter's behalf. We tell the sitter guardian this before they confirm.

We may contact a sitter guardian about bookings, payments, complaints, account issues or anything concerning the safety or welfare of the sitter or a child.

In particular, whenever an under-18 sitter accepts a booking we email their sitter guardian with the date, the times and the general area, and a private link showing the booking address, a contact number for the parent, whether the booking is still going ahead, and the messages exchanged between the parent and the sitter about that booking. The sitter guardian is also emailed when the sit starts, when it finishes, and if the booking is cancelled. This applies to every booking an under-18 sitter accepts and cannot be turned off; a sitter guardian who does not want to receive it should not consent to the young person using the service. The link expires two days after the booking ends. Parents accept that this information is shared with the sitter guardian as a condition of booking a sitter who is under 18.

A sitter aged 18 or over may name one or more trusted contacts, who receive the same booking emails once they have confirmed by email that they wish to (but not the messages, which stay between the parent and the sitter). Parents accept that this information may be shared with a sitter's confirmed trusted contacts on the same terms.

You are responsible for keeping your login details secure and for activity carried out through your account.

We may restrict, suspend or close an account where we reasonably believe that:

• these terms have been broken;
• information provided to us is false or misleading;
• there is a safeguarding or safety concern;
• there has been inappropriate or abusive conduct;
• another user has raised a serious complaint;
• the service is being misused; or
• continuing to provide access would create an unreasonable risk to another person or to Sit&Co.

Where appropriate and lawful, we'll explain the reason.

4. Bookings

A booking exists once a sitter accepts a parent's booking request.

The booking is an agreement between the parent and the sitter for the sitter to provide the babysitting described in the booking.

The sitter's hourly rate, minimum duration and applicable platform fee are fixed when the booking is accepted.

Bookings currently have a minimum duration of 1 hour. If a sit finishes sooner than the minimum duration, the parent is still charged for the minimum.

The booking details will show information such as the date, expected start and end time, location and agreed rate.

Parents are responsible for providing accurate information about the booking and anything the sitter reasonably needs to know to perform it safely.

The sitter records the actual start and end of the sit in the service. The final sitter charge is calculated from those recorded times, billed by the minute at the agreed hourly rate and subject to the minimum duration above. Part-minutes are not charged.

Once the sitter submits the times, the parent has a confirmation window in which to confirm them or raise a query in the app. The window is shown in the app and is currently 24 hours. If the parent does neither, the recorded times are treated as agreed, the booking is finalised automatically and the parent's saved payment method is charged.

Where a query is raised and the available information supports it, corrections can be made through the service.

Contact details and private household information are only shared as necessary for a confirmed booking.

Either party may cancel before the booking starts subject to our Cancellations & refunds policy. Cancellation is free of charge. Where a parent cancels a confirmed booking at short notice, the app may offer the parent the option of an entirely voluntary goodwill payment to the sitter, as described in that policy and in section 7. A short-notice cancellation of a confirmed booking - by either party - may be shown against them in the service for a limited period, as described in that policy.

After a completed, paid booking, each party may be asked a short review question. A parent's answer and any written review appear on the sitter's profile in anonymised form; a sitter's answer about a family is not published and is used only within the service and by Sit&Co.

5. Safety and responsibilities

Sitters must take reasonable care of children in their charge and follow reasonable instructions given by the parent.

Sitters must not undertake a booking where they do not reasonably believe they can care for the children safely.

Sitters must tell Sit&Co if information on their profile or application becomes materially inaccurate.

Parents must provide sitters with information reasonably necessary to care for their children safely, including where relevant:

• allergies or important medical information;
• emergency contact details;
• relevant behavioural or additional needs;
• important routines or restrictions;
• information about pets;
• known hazards in the home; and
• anything else that might materially affect the safety of the sitter or children.

Parents remain responsible for deciding whether a particular sitter is appropriate for their children.

Sit&Co does not supervise bookings or provide an emergency response service. In an emergency, users should contact the appropriate emergency service before contacting Sit&Co.

6. References and checks

Sitters may provide references as part of the application process, and Sit&Co may contact them.

References and information supplied to us must be truthful.

References are not a guarantee that a sitter will be suitable for every family or booking.

Sit&Co does not undertake DBS checks or other criminal-record checks on sitters.

Parents should not assume that a sitter has undergone a DBS check unless they have separately established this themselves.

Where a particular qualification, authorisation or other requirement is legally necessary for a booking, or has been expressly made a requirement of the booking, the booking may only proceed where the relevant requirements have been satisfied.

7. Payments and fees

Payments are processed using Stripe. Payment-card information is provided directly to Stripe and is not stored on Sit&Co's servers.

The parent pays:

• the sitter's charge, calculated from the sitter's agreed hourly rate and the recorded booking time; and
• Sit&Co's platform fee.

The platform fee is currently 10% of the sitter's charge, capped at £4 per booking.

A parent may choose to send one booking request to several sitters at once, in which case the first sitter to accept is booked and the other requests are withdrawn. A flat shortlist fee (currently £1.50) is added to that booking and charged with the rest once the final time has been confirmed. No shortlist fee is charged if no sitter accepts, the requests expire, or the booking is cancelled before completion.

The fee applicable when a booking is accepted remains the fee for that booking even if our fees subsequently change; the shortlist fee quoted when the requests are sent remains the fee for that booking.

Tips are optional. Tips are passed to the sitter in full and no additional Sit&Co platform fee is charged on them.

A parent who cancels a confirmed booking at short notice may choose to send the sitter a voluntary goodwill payment through the service. The goodwill amount is passed to the sitter in full; a flat service fee (currently £0.50) is added to the payment to cover the cost of processing it. The service fee and short-notice window that applied when the booking was accepted are the ones that apply to it.

The parent's saved payment method is charged once the final time has been confirmed, either by the parent or automatically when the confirmation window in section 4 runs out.

If payment fails, we may retry the payment method and prevent the parent from making further bookings while an amount remains unpaid.

Sitters receive payments through Stripe using the payout arrangements associated with their account. Where permitted by the payment provider, payments relating to an under-18 sitter may be administered through a payout account held by their confirmed sitter guardian.

Users must not deliberately arrange payment outside Sit&Co for a booking introduced through the service in order to avoid the platform fee.

If a booking or payment takes place outside Sit&Co, we may be unable to verify what was agreed, assist with payment disputes or rely on the booking records normally available through the service.

8. Insurance

Unless we expressly state otherwise, Sit&Co does not provide insurance covering parents, sitters, children, homes, possessions or other losses arising from a babysitting booking.

Users are responsible for considering whether they require their own insurance and whether any insurance they already hold provides appropriate cover.

9. Behaving properly

Profiles, applications, references and booking information must be truthful.

Reviews must reflect a genuine experience.

Parents and sitters must treat each other appropriately and respectfully, both through the service and in person.

Harassment, threatening behaviour, discriminatory abuse, sexual misconduct or conduct that puts another person at risk is not permitted.

10. Concerns and safeguarding

If you have a concern about a sitter, parent or booking, you should report it to Sit&Co as soon as reasonably possible.

We may investigate reports using information available to us, including booking records, messages and account information.

We may restrict or suspend an account while we investigate a serious complaint or safeguarding concern.

Where we reasonably believe there may be an immediate risk to a child or another person, we may take whatever action we reasonably consider appropriate, including restricting accounts and providing information to the police, emergency services, safeguarding authorities or other organisations where permitted or required by law.

Sit&Co is not an emergency service.

11. Problems, charges and refunds

If something goes wrong with a booking, raise it through the service or contact us.

We may review booking times, messages, payment records and other information available through the service when helping resolve a dispute.

Where the available information supports a correction to a charge, we may correct it.

Refunds are made to the original payment method unless another method is required by the payment provider or law.

Our ability to assist with a dispute does not make Sit&Co a party to the babysitting agreement between the parent and sitter.

12. Our responsibility to you

We will provide the Sit&Co marketplace with reasonable skill and care.

We are not a party to the babysitting agreement between a parent and a sitter. We do not supervise babysitting appointments, and we are not responsible for the acts or omissions of any parent or sitter, including the way a sitter carries out a booking.

If we fail to meet these terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of that failure. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it is obvious that it will happen, or if both of us knew it might happen when you started using the service.

Except for the liabilities we cannot limit, set out below, our total liability to you in connection with the service is limited to £1,000.

We supply the service for domestic and private use only. If you use it for any commercial or business purpose, we have no liability to you for loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption or loss of business opportunity.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability where doing so would be unlawful, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or our obligations under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Nothing in these terms affects any statutory rights you have that cannot legally be excluded.

13. Tax and other obligations

Sitters provide babysitting services independently and are responsible for understanding and complying with any tax, registration or other legal obligations that apply to the income they receive through Sit&Co.

Sit&Co may provide information to tax authorities or other public authorities where we are legally required to do so.

14. Your data

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and share personal information.

Because babysitting bookings can involve children, users should avoid sharing unnecessary sensitive information through profiles or messages.

15. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms from time to time.

If a change materially affects account holders, we'll give reasonable notice before it takes effect.

Changes do not retrospectively alter the commercial terms of a booking that has already been accepted.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.

The courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction, but nothing in these terms prevents a consumer relying on any mandatory rights or protections applying in the part of the United Kingdom in which they live.