Terms and Conditions - Do I need a lawyer?

[poppyseed]

I am starting a small internet based business selling products for babies and children, and am putting together the website. I am writing up a page of terms and conditions in regards to postage, returns policy etc, and was wondering if I need to have a lawyer look over these for them to be legally binding, or if I follow the consumer right act, I can just put up the standard conditions in regards to the country I am in.

TIA Mamas, this will probably be the first of many questions!

[Jacksmum8]

OK, all I'm going to say about this is...CONSULT A LAWYER! It's always better to put out a bit of money in the beginning to protect yourself. I have been bitten many times and my business hasn't even launched yet! I say get some professional advice. Better safe than sorry.

[nursingmom]

My brother-in-law is a lawyer in my family and you really don't need to hire anyone to write your store policy as long as you are willing to spend some time researching. What I did was looked at many other website's store policy and modified mine according to how I wanted.

You should have Disclaimer in case there is typo mistakes (like you are selling $100 item for $0). That way, even if the customer orders for $0, you have the right to change to correct amount (notify the customer of the mistake, of course) and refuse order for such mistake. Again, you can look at many different website Disclaimers and modify to how you want it.

After you have store policy and disclaimer written down, you can consult a lawyer for approval, if you want. Don't go to them when you don't have anything written down. It's going to cost a lot more money for you to have them write things down.

All my brother-in-law did was change grammer here and there so that it sounds more clear. That's about it.

[CawMama]

I agree with pp. I did the same thing by looking at other store's policies. Key is, look at stores that have great reputations.

[inchwormz]

You likely won't need a lawyer to write your terms and conditions, but you should absolutely have one look over your insurance policies for you, and they probably wouldn't charge much more to check over the other things. Your terms and conditions really don't have any "legal" backbone, anyway, but you do want to ensure the insuarnce coverage you have will cover liability appropriately if you are selling baby and children's items. This is the one place a laywer will be most helpful (and a necessity, IMO).