Service Terms

What these terms are

These terms apply when you ask us to do work for you. They form the agreement between you and HAPPY EDUCATION CONSULTANCY LTD, company number 11331426, registered office 16 Upper Woburn Place, London, England, WC1H 0AF.

We will send you a written summary of the service you have asked for, what it costs, and what is included, before you pay anything. That summary and these terms together are your contract with us. If the two disagree, the summary wins.

What we do

Depending on what you have asked for, we may:

• talk through your goals, budget and timescale, and tell you honestly whether we can help
• research and shortlist courses, universities, colleges, language schools, summer programmes or boarding schools
• explain published entry requirements and deadlines and point you to the source
• help you prepare an application, including checking that a personal statement, reference or transcript is complete and consistent
• submit an application on your behalf where the institution allows it, and track its progress
• pass questions between you and the institution, and pass on offers and requests for documents
• help you compare offers and accept the one you choose
• give practical help with accommodation, travel, insurance and arrival
• provide administrative support with a visa application, as described in section 3

What we do not do

This is the part people most often misunderstand, so we have put it early rather than at the end.

We do not give immigration advice. Happy Education is not registered with the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA) and does not hold any immigration advice qualification or exemption. In practice this means:

• we can help you collect, organise, check and submit documents, complete forms with information you give us, book appointments, and keep track of deadlines
• we cannot advise you which visa route to apply for, tell you whether you will qualify, interpret the rules as they apply to your circumstances, advise on a refusal, an appeal or an administrative review, or represent you in any dealings with an immigration authority
• if you need advice, we will tell you so and point you to an adviser regulated by the IAA, or to a solicitor, or to the official guidance at gov.uk
• the outcome is decided by the relevant government authority, not by us, and we never promise or predict an outcome
• the fee you pay us is for the work we do, not for a decision, and a refusal does not mean we failed to do our job

We also do not: give legal, tax or financial advice; guarantee admission, a scholarship, accommodation, a grade or a job; sit any test for you; write your personal statement as if it were yours; or provide, alter or endorse any document that is not genuine.

Your part of the bargain

• Give us complete and accurate information, and tell us promptly when something changes.
• Give us genuine documents. Submitting a false document to an institution or an immigration authority can end an application, lead to a ban of several years, and in serious cases is a criminal offence. If we believe a document is not genuine, we will stop work and we may have to inform the institution or the authority.
• Meet the deadlines we agree with you. Applications close, and we cannot reopen them.
• Read what the institution sends you. Their terms, their fees and their deadlines are between you and them.
• Keep your own copies of everything you send us.
• Treat our team with courtesy, as we will treat you.

How we work together

We will tell you who is handling your case and how to reach them. We aim to reply to messages within two working days. If something needs longer, we will say so rather than leaving you waiting.

We work in English and Turkish. If we send you a document in one language and you need it in the other, ask.

Where a piece of work depends on somebody else, for example an institution's admissions team or a test centre, we will chase it, but we cannot control their timescale.

Your contract with the institution

The course, the accommodation, the insurance and the flight are contracts between you and that provider, not with us. Their terms govern what you get, what it costs, and what happens if it is cancelled or changed. We will always send you their terms before you commit. Read them, particularly the parts about deposits, cancellation and refunds, because they are often stricter than ours.

We are not responsible for a provider's performance, and we cannot refund money that a provider holds. What we will do is help you make a claim to them and support you through their complaints process.

Fees, and how we are paid

Our fee for the work you have asked for is set out in your written summary, before you pay. Our payment terms explain how payment works and our refund and cancellation policy explains what happens if you change your mind.

Some institutions pay a commission to agents when a student enrols. Where we receive a commission in connection with a place you are offered, we will tell you before you accept that offer, so you can judge our recommendation with that in mind. We will not recommend an institution only because it pays us more, and if you ask us to compare options we will include ones that pay us nothing.

If something goes wrong

We must carry out our services with reasonable care and skill, within a reasonable time, and for a reasonable price where no price was agreed. Those are your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and nothing here takes them away.

If we do not, you can ask us to put it right by doing the work again. If that is impossible or takes too long, you can ask for a reduction in price. Our complaints procedure explains how, and how quickly we will respond.

We are responsible for foreseeable loss caused by us failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for the decision of an institution or an authority, for a provider's failure, for loss caused by information you gave us that was wrong or incomplete, or for events outside our reasonable control. Nothing here limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

Ending the agreement

You can cancel within 14 days of the contract starting under your statutory right to cancel a distance contract. Our refund and cancellation policy explains this in detail, including what happens if you asked us to start straight away.

After that period, you can end the agreement at any time by telling us. You pay for the work done up to that point and for any third party cost we have already paid on your behalf, and we refund the rest.

We may end the agreement if you ask us to do something dishonest or unlawful, if you give us false documents, if a fee remains unpaid after we have reminded you, or if our team is subjected to abuse. We will explain why in writing and refund anything you have paid for work we have not done.

Ending the agreement does not affect anything that has already happened, or the parts of these terms that are meant to survive it, such as confidentiality.

Confidentiality and your data

We keep what you tell us confidential, except where we need to share it to do the work, or where the law requires disclosure. Our privacy policy explains what we collect, our lawful basis for each use, who we share it with, how long we keep it and your rights.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The version that applies to your work is the version in force when you agreed it, and we will tell you if we need to change something that affects work already under way.

The law that applies

The law of England and Wales governs this agreement and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer living outside the UK, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of your own country and may be able to bring proceedings there.