This is a working draft prepared for review by a solicitor before launch. It is not yet a binding document and nothing in it is legal advice.

1. Who we are

Fern is operated by [FERN LTD], a company registered in England and Wales (company number [NUMBER]) with its registered office at [ADDRESS] (“Fern”, “we”, “us”). You can contact us at [hello@fernapp.co.uk]. These terms govern your use of fernapp.co.uk and apply from the moment you create an account.

2. What Fern is — and is not

Fern is a marketplace where people in and around Greater Manchester buy and sell second-hand furniture. When you buy or sell, the contract of sale is between buyer and seller — Fern is not a party to it, does not own the items listed, and is not the seller. We provide the platform, hold payment until handover is confirmed, and help when things go wrong, but we do not guarantee any item, its condition, or that a sale will complete.

Most sellers on Fern are private individuals. If you sell as a business, you must say so on your profile, and you — not Fern — are responsible for the additional consumer rights your buyers have in law (including under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013).

3. Your account

You must be at least 18, give accurate information, and keep your account to yourself. One account per person. Your public profile shows your display name, @handle, photo, bio, rough area, follower counts and your ratings — section 8 sets out exactly what is public. We may suspend or close accounts that break these terms, and you can delete your account at any time from Settings (section 12 explains what happens to your data).

4. Listings

You may only list furniture you own and are entitled to sell. Listings must describe the item honestly — including visible damage — with photos of the actual item and accurate measurements. Every new listing is reviewed by our team before it goes live, and material edits go back through review. We may decline or remove any listing.

Prohibited: stolen, counterfeit or recalled items; items you do not own; anything unsafe or illegal to sell. Upholstered furniture sold in the UK must carry the fire-safety label required by the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 — see our fire safety page. Listings without the label receive extra review and must not be sold by business sellers.

If you use the “fill this in for me” feature, the draft it produces is a suggestion generated by AI from your photos. You are responsible for the accuracy of your listing, including anything the draft got wrong, and you must check every field before publishing. Dimensions and the condition report are always your own declarations.

5. Offers and buying

Offers expire after 24 hours if the seller does not respond. A seller may set a floor at which offers are accepted automatically. An accepted offer fixes the price for that buyer but is not a sale — the sale happens when the buyer pays. Once payment is made the listing is reserved: first payment wins, and other buyers' open offers are closed.

6. Payment, fees and the handover

Buyers pay the item price plus a buyer protection fee of 4% + 50p, shown before you confirm. Sellers pay 6% of the item price, deducted from the payout. Delivery, where offered, is priced at checkout. Worked examples are on the fees page.

Payments are processed by Stripe. Fern is not a bank and does not itself hold your money; funds are held through our payment provider until handover. To receive payouts, sellers must complete Stripe's onboarding and accept the Stripe Connected Account Agreement. We never see or store card numbers.

The handover code releases the money. For collection, the buyer receives a code that only they can see; giving it to the seller at handover, who enters it, confirms the exchange and releases payment. Do not share your code before you have the item. For courier orders, payment is released when the buyer confirms receipt, or automatically [7] days after delivery if no problem has been reported.

7. Cancellations, problems and refunds

Either party may cancel before a collection slot is agreed; contact us and we will return the buyer's payment. If an item is not as described, report a problem from the order screen before releasing payment — money stays held while we look at it. Outcomes are a full refund, a partial refund agreed by both sides, or release to the seller. Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights or your right to pursue the other party directly.

Because most sales are between private individuals, “change of mind” returns are not a right — check dimensions and photos, ask questions, and inspect the item at collection before handing over the code.

8. Reviews, ratings and your public profile

After a completed handover, buyer and seller each rate the other. Those ratings and any written review are public — on your profile and next to your listings — and are shown separately for your buying and your selling. Because buyer-side reviews name the seller who wrote them, they reveal that you bought that item from that person. Your profile also shows your display name, @handle, picture, bio, the rough area you collect from, who follows you and who you follow. Your postcode and exact address are never public.

Reviews must be honest and about the transaction. We may remove reviews that are abusive, discriminatory, retaliatory, reveal private information, or are unrelated to the exchange — but we do not remove reviews for being negative.

9. Behaviour and safety

Treat people decently. No harassment, discrimination, spam, or attempts to move payment off the platform — off-platform payment removes every protection these terms provide, and repeated attempts will close your account. You can report a listing or a person, and block anyone; blocking stops messages both ways. Meet for handovers the way you would with any stranger from the internet: sensibly.

10. Your content

You keep ownership of your photos and words. By posting them you give Fern a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display and reasonably promote them (for example, showing your listing in search results or featuring it on our channels) until you delete them. Don't post content you don't have the right to use.

11. The platform itself

We work to keep Fern available and safe, but it is provided “as is”: we do not promise uninterrupted service and we may change or withdraw features. To the extent the law allows, Fern's liability to you is limited to the greater of the fees you have paid us in the previous 12 months or £100. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be excluded under the law of England and Wales, and nothing affects your statutory rights as a consumer.

12. Your data

How we handle personal data — including exactly what is public, what is shared with our processors, and what happens when you delete your account — is set out in the privacy notice, which forms part of these terms.

13. Changes, termination and the rest

We may update these terms; material changes will be notified in the app at least 14 days before they take effect, and continuing to use Fern after that is acceptance. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stands. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction — though if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings at home.

Complaints: email [hello@fernapp.co.uk] and we will respond within [14] days. [SOLICITOR TO ADVISE: alternative dispute resolution wording.]

Draft v2 — prepared 29 July 2026 for solicitor review (P5/P6, budget £500–£1,000). Bracketed items for the founders to complete before review: company details, contact address, auto-release window, complaint response time, ADR wording.