Terms of Service.

What you're agreeing to.

"The Service" is Watchdog HQ — a regulatory and industry monitoring service that scans UK government, regulator and industry sources, classifies the publications it finds by impact, and delivers them to you as a weekly email brief.

"We", "us" and "our" mean Clear Skies Consulting Ltd (company № 09316512, registered in England & Wales, VAT № GB 211 3250 72), trading as Watchdog HQ.

"You" means the business customer, or an individual acting wholly or mainly for purposes related to their trade, business, craft or profession, that subscribes to the Service. By subscribing, paying for the Service or using it, you agree to these terms. If you are entering into these terms on behalf of a company, you warrant that you have authority to do so.

The Service is intended for businesses operating in England — primarily estate agents, letting agents, and other property professionals in England. It is not designed or marketed for consumers, nor for businesses whose compliance obligations arise under Scottish or Welsh devolved law. The consumer protections referred to in §09 (carve-outs) apply only where a court determines a subscriber qualifies as a "consumer" under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 notwithstanding this definition.

Coverage scope. Watchdog HQ monitors regulatory change affecting estate and letting agents in England — primary legislation, statutory instruments, commencement orders, public consultations, the progress of Bills through the UK Parliament, and guidance from national regulators and scrutiny bodies (HMRC, the ICO, the CMA, Companies House, the FCA, the Property Ombudsman, Propertymark, the Home Office, NTSELAT, the Planning Inspectorate, the Building Safety Regulator, OFSI, the UK Parliament, the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and similar bodies) and named industry/legal commentators. Some of the regimes we monitor (for example anti-money-laundering supervision by HMRC, sanctions, and Companies House duties) apply across the United Kingdom; others (for example the Renters' Rights Act 2025) apply only in England. We do not monitor Scottish or Welsh devolved housing and letting law — for example the Private Residential Tenancy regime and Letting Agent registration in Scotland, or the Renting Homes (Wales) Act and Rent Smart Wales. If your business operates in Scotland or Wales you must not rely on the Service for devolved-law compliance. Pipeline and early-warning items — consultations, Bills in progress, and pre-commencement scrutiny — describe the current stage of a proposed change as published by the relevant authority; they are informational and do not predict whether, when, or in what form a change will become law, and must not be relied on as a forecast or as legal advice. Local-authority schemes — selective licensing, additional licensing, council-specific charges, and other regulations imposed by individual councils or boroughs — are surfaced where they reach our monitored sources but are not comprehensively monitored. Whether a local scheme applies to your portfolio depends on the specific authority area in which you operate; you must verify applicability with the relevant council before relying on any such item.

Plans, trial and billing.

Plans. Two tiers are offered:

All prices are in pounds sterling (GBP) and exclusive of VAT. UK VAT is added at the rate prevailing at the time of billing. Foreign taxes (where applicable) are your responsibility.

Free trial. New customers receive a 30-day free trial. Your card is collected at sign-up but no charge is taken until the trial period ends. You can cancel at any time during the trial from the Stripe portal link in any email and you will not be charged.

Billing. After the trial, the Service is billed monthly in advance via Stripe. Your subscription renews automatically each month at the rate of your chosen plan until cancelled. We do not store your card details — Stripe holds them on PCI-DSS compliant infrastructure.

Failed payment. If a payment fails, Stripe will retry per its standard schedule. We may suspend the Service if a payment remains unresolved after 14 days and may terminate the subscription if it remains unresolved after 30 days, in each case with prior email notice.

Cancellation. You may cancel at any time from the "Manage subscription" link in any brief email or by emailing us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; we do not refund partial months. Your account is retained for 30 days after cancellation in case you wish to resubscribe; you may request earlier deletion under our Privacy Policy.

Price changes. We may change pricing on at least 30 days' written notice by email. Existing subscribers will be grandfathered at their current rate for at least 12 months from the effective date of any price change. If you do not accept a price change, cancel before it takes effect and no further charges will apply.

What you may and may not do.

You may:

• Use the Service for the legitimate compliance and operational purposes of your business.
• Forward individual brief items to your colleagues, accountant, solicitor, compliance lead or other internal advisers acting on your behalf.
• (Team plan only) Distribute the full brief freely inside your company to staff at any office.

You may not, without our prior written permission:

• Republish, redistribute, syndicate or resell brief content outside your organisation.
• Provide compliance, legal or other professional advice to third parties on a paid basis using brief content as the basis of that advice.
• Scrape, crawl or extract Service content other than via the email delivery channel we provide.
• Reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source code, models or pipelines of the Service.
• Use Service content as input data to train, fine-tune, evaluate or benchmark any artificial-intelligence model that competes or could compete with the Service.
• Share your subscription with persons or businesses outside the Solo/Team scope you have paid for, including by sharing login credentials.
• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose, including to circulate content that infringes third-party rights, or in breach of any law applicable to you.

Breach of this section is a material breach of these terms and may lead to suspension or termination under § 05.

When we can end the agreement.

We may suspend or terminate your subscription with immediate effect on written notice if:

• You materially breach these terms and (where remediable) do not remedy the breach within 14 days of being asked to.
• You fail to pay any sum due and the failure is not remedied within 30 days of the due date.
• You use the Service unlawfully, fraudulently or in a way that risks reputational or operational harm to us or to other subscribers.
• You become insolvent, enter administration or any analogous process, or cease to trade.

On termination, your access ends at the end of the current billing period (or immediately if termination is for cause). We will retain your account data for 30 days after termination in case of dispute or reinstatement, after which it is deleted in accordance with the Privacy Policy. You may request a copy of your data before deletion under § 07 of the Privacy Policy.

Termination does not affect any rights or remedies that have accrued before termination, including any sums payable to us up to the date of termination.

Who owns what.

Service content. All editorial content of the brief — summaries, classifications, recommended actions, severity ratings, layout, design, source code, models, and the Watchdog HQ name and marks — is and remains the property of CSC Ltd or its licensors. Subject to your continued payment, we grant you a non-exclusive, revocable licence to use brief content for your internal business purposes, with the limited right to forward individual brief items to your professional advisers (including your accountant, solicitor or compliance lead) acting on your behalf as set out in §04. The licence is otherwise non-transferable and non-sub-licensable; redistribution outside your organisation requires our prior written permission.

Source content. Underlying public regulatory and industry publications remain the property of their authors and publishers. Where we quote source material, we aim to rely on applicable UK copyright exceptions or permission from the rights-holder where required. We link to sources rather than reproducing them in full.

Customer data. You retain ownership of all data you provide to us (your email, business name, sector). You grant us a non-exclusive licence to use that data solely to operate the Service, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Feedback. If you give us feedback on the Service, we may use it without restriction or compensation; we will not attribute the feedback to you publicly without your permission.

How we handle data.

Our processing of personal data is governed by our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms. By subscribing you confirm that you have read it.

We comply with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Sub-processors, international-transfer mechanisms, retention periods and your rights as a data subject are set out in the Privacy Policy.

Stopping email and ending the service. The brief is the service itself, so we cannot keep an active subscription while indefinitely suppressing brief delivery. Three actions are available — see Privacy Policy §07 for the full description: (a) marketing opt-out (stops marketing-only emails, the brief continues); (b) cancellation (ends billing and the brief — clicking the unsubscribe link in any brief performs a full cancellation); (c) erasure under UK GDPR Art. 17.

Your indemnity to us.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless CSC Ltd, its directors, employees and agents from and against third-party claims, damages, losses, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with:

• Your breach of these terms, including §04 (acceptable use).
• Any claim by a third party that your use of the Service infringes their rights.
• Any unlawful act or omission by you in connection with the Service.

This indemnity does not apply to claims caused by our gross negligence, wilful misconduct, fraud, or breach of the terms by us. First-party risk allocation between you and us — including the consequences of your reliance on Service content — is governed by §09 (limitation of liability), not by this indemnity.

Cadence and uptime.

We aim to deliver a weekly brief. We do not commit to a specific time of day or to delivery on any specific weekday, and we may vary the schedule (for example to accommodate UK bank holidays). We do not offer a service-level guarantee or uptime SLA.

Maintenance, technical issues, third-party outages, force-majeure events (§ 11) or material changes to public source feeds may temporarily affect delivery. Where delivery is materially delayed we will endeavour to notify subscribers by email.

Events outside our reasonable control.

Neither party is liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events outside its reasonable control, including (without limitation) acts of God, fire, flood, storm, epidemic, pandemic, public-health emergency, war, terrorism, civil disturbance, government or regulatory action, widespread failure of public telecommunications networks or internet infrastructure, cyber-attack on the affected party, or labour disputes affecting the affected party. We remain responsible for our sub-processors as required by UK GDPR Art. 28; a single sub-processor outage does not on its own constitute a force-majeure event.

The affected party will notify the other promptly. Performance is suspended while the event continues. If a force-majeure event prevents the Service from being delivered for more than 60 consecutive days, either party may terminate the subscription on written notice and we will refund any pre-paid sums for the unperformed period.

How updates work.

We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes (price, scope, liability, governing law) will be notified by email at least 14 days before they take effect. Non-material clarifications take effect when posted. Continued use of the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept a material change, cancel before it takes effect and no further charges will apply.

The boilerplate that still matters.

Severability. If any provision of these terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force.

Entire agreement. These terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between us and supersede all prior representations and understandings on the same subject.

No reliance on representations. You confirm you have not relied on any statement, representation or warranty not set out in these terms or the Privacy Policy. Nothing in this clause limits liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Third-party rights. The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 is excluded. Only you and we have rights under these terms.

Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your subscription without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights and obligations under these terms to any successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, restructuring or sale of all or substantially all of our business, on written notice to you.

Notices. Legal notices to us must be sent to hello@watchdog-hq.co.uk and copied to the registered office address on Companies House for Clear Skies Consulting Ltd. Notices to you will be sent to the email address on your account; you are responsible for keeping that address current.

No partnership. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency or employment relationship between us.

Waiver. A failure or delay by either party to exercise a right under these terms does not waive that right.

Survival. Sections § 02 (information service), § 06 (intellectual property), § 07 (data protection), § 08 (indemnity), § 09 (liability), § 13 (general), § 14 (governing law) and any accrued payment obligations survive termination.

Where disputes are heard.

These terms and any dispute or claim (including non-contractual disputes or claims) arising out of or in connection with them or the Service are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

Version history.

How to reach us.

Clear Skies Consulting Ltd t/a Watchdog HQ
Company № 09316512 · VAT № GB 211 3250 72 · Registered in England & Wales
Registered office: 5 Lodge Park Drive, Evesham, Worcestershire, WR11 3JY, United Kingdom
Email: hello@watchdog-hq.co.uk