Home Professional Terms and Conditions

Last updated: 9 October 2026

These terms set out how things work between you and House Ritual when you join as a home professional. Each section starts with what you are agreeing to.

House Ritual is a trading name of House Ritual Ltd, company number 17497952, registered office 124–128 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. These terms apply from the day your profile is approved and continue until either of us ends them. They sit alongside our Privacy Notice.

Part 1: Your status

1.1 You are self-employed. You work as a self-employed sole trader running your own business. You are not an employee or worker of House Ritual, and we do not run a payroll for you. House Ritual is one of the ways you find clients.

1.2 You control your schedule. You choose when, where and how much you work. You can open or close your availability at any time, including for holidays, without telling us why.

1.3 You can say no to any job. Every booking is an offer, not an instruction. There is no penalty for declining, no quota and no minimum number of jobs.

1.4 You can work elsewhere. You are free to work for other platforms and your own private clients. Part 6 explains the one limit, which covers clients you meet through House Ritual.

1.5 You bring your own kit. You supply your own equipment and products. We will share a recommended list, but the choice is yours, unless a customer asks you to use their products.

1.6 You decide how to clean. The House Ritual Method describes the result customers can expect, not how to get there. We don’t tell you which technique to use or what order to work in.

1.7 You do the work yourself. Every booking must be carried out by you personally. You cannot send someone else in your place, because every person entering a customer’s home must have passed our checks, including the right-to-work check the law now requires.

Part 2: Joining the platform

2.1 Who can join. You can join if you are 16 or over, have the right to work in the UK, and are willing to work to the House Ritual standard. Cleaning experience is welcome but not required. If you are under 18, a parent or legal guardian must also agree to these terms and add themselves as the owner of your Stripe account, because Stripe requires this before it can pay you. Until they do, you cannot accept bookings.

2.2 What we check before you go live.

2.3 Keeping checks up to date. Your insurance must stay valid at all times. If your permission to work in the UK is time-limited, we will check it again before it ends. We will remind you 30 days before anything is due. If something goes out of date, your profile is paused, not closed, until you upload new proof.

2.4 If we can’t approve you. If we cannot approve your application, we will tell you clearly why and, where it helps, what would need to change for a future application.

2.5 Your tax. You are responsible for your own tax and National Insurance. If your self-employed income from all sources goes over £1,000 in a tax year, you must register with HMRC and file a Self Assessment return. Everything we pay you is gross: we deduct no tax. Under HMRC’s reporting rules for digital platforms, we may share details of your earnings with HMRC.

Part 3: Bookings and pay

3.1 How jobs reach you. Customers choose their tasks in the app, and the platform works out the time and price. Jobs that match your area and level appear in your job feed, showing the full task list, address area, time and your pay before you accept.

3.2 Scope is fixed when you accept. You do the tasks that were booked. If a customer asks for more on the day, point them to the app to extend the visit or book another one. You never have to do unbooked or unpaid work.

3.3 What you earn. We keep a commission from each completed booking. The rate depends on the service tier:

Stripe’s fees come out of your pay: a card fee of 1.4% + 20p on each booking (UK cards) and a payout fee of 0.25% + 10p each time Stripe pays you. Every job offer shows your pay after these fees, before you accept. For example, on a 3-hour Mid-Level clean costing the customer £72, our commission is £23.76, Stripe’s fees are about £1.49, and you receive about £46.75. There are no other deductions, and no charge to join the platform. If Stripe changes its fees, we will tell you before the change applies.

3.4 How you’re paid. Customers pay through the app when they book; cash is never accepted. We hold the payment until you mark the job complete. If the customer raises no complaint within 24 hours, we release your pay, and Stripe sends it to your bank account within 2 working days. Each payout comes with a statement listing every job.

3.5 When a customer cancels. You are paid for your lost time as follows:

You receive these payments only when the customer is charged a cancellation fee. By law, a customer who cancels within 14 days of a professional accepting the booking gets a full refund, so no fee is charged and you receive nothing for that cancellation. This mainly affects new bookings. Later visits in a recurring plan are usually more than 14 days after acceptance.

How it works in practice. A customer pays a cancellation fee only if both of these apply: more than 14 days have passed since you accepted the booking, and they cancel less than 48 hours before the visit. The 14 days end at midnight on the 14th day after acceptance. A recurring plan counts as one agreement, so its 14 days run from when the plan is first accepted. These examples assume a 3-hour Mid-Level clean, where your pay is about £46.75 after Stripe fees:

In short: a one-off booking whose visit is 14 days or fewer after you accepted it can never carry a cancellation fee. The protection mainly applies to regular customers and bookings made well in advance.

3.8 When you need to cancel. Cancel through the app as early as you can and message the customer. Cancelling less than 24 hours before a visit, or not arriving, counts against your reliability score. A one-off is not a problem, but a pattern will be.

3.9 You never chase payment. Customers pay before you arrive, so you are protected. Payment problems are ours to deal with, not yours.

Part 4: Quality and progression

4.1 How quality is measured. Quality is measured by what customers say after each visit, through ratings and reviews. We don’t supervise visits or check your work while you do it.

4.2 The House Ritual Method. Our signature standard (Restore · Reset · Refine · Refresh) describes the results a great clean leaves behind: beds made, surfaces presented well, a home that feels restored. It is a set of outcomes, not instructions.

4.3 If ratings drop. If your average rating falls below 3.8 over 10 or more jobs, someone from our team will get in touch to share what customers are saying and offer support. It is a conversation, not a warning.

4.4 Pausing or removing a profile. We may pause or remove a profile because of:

• a serious complaint that is upheld
• a safeguarding concern
• checks that have gone out of date

Except where a safety concern needs immediate action, we will tell you what the issue is and give you at least 5 working days to respond before we decide. Where we pause a profile immediately for safety reasons, we will still give you the chance to respond before any final decision.

Part 5: Conduct and care

5.1 Respect for the home. Treat every home with care. No phone calls or music without the customer’s agreement. No photos beyond what the booking needs. Use the customer’s belongings only as far as the work requires.

5.2 Confidentiality. What you see and hear in a customer’s home stays there. Never discuss customers, their families, their security arrangements or their homes with anyone outside House Ritual. This continues after you leave the platform.

5.3 Damage. Accidents happen, and that is what your insurance is for. If something is damaged, tell the customer straight away and report it through the app, with photos. Prompt reporting is treated as professional, not as a black mark.

5.4 Things already damaged or missing. If you arrive and something is already damaged or missing, photograph it and report it through the app before you start. This protects you.

5.5 Keys and codes. Keep keys, key-safe codes and alarm codes secure. Never share or copy them, and never use them except for a booked visit. Return any keys when a customer relationship ends. If a key is lost, tell us immediately.

5.6 No discrimination or harassment. You must not discriminate against or harass any customer or colleague, including because of a protected characteristic such as age, disability, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. You can expect the same respect from customers. Tell us if you don’t get it, and we will act.

5.7 Safety first. If you ever feel unsafe in a home, leave, get to safety and contact us. You will still be paid in full for that booking, and we will follow up with the customer.

5.8 Personal care. Cleaning bookings do not include personal care, such as helping someone wash, dress or eat. If a customer asks for this, politely decline and tell us.

Part 6: Working through the platform

6.1 Why this matters. House Ritual pays for the marketing, technology, checks and support that bring you clients. In return, work with those clients stays on the platform. This also keeps your payment protection, ratings record and progression in place.

6.2 What this means. For clients you meet through House Ritual, you agree not to:

• take bookings or payments from them outside the platform
• suggest that they cancel and pay you privately
• share contact details to arrange work off the platform

This applies while you are on the platform and for 12 months after you leave. It covers only clients you met through House Ritual. Clients you already had, or find yourself, are entirely yours.

6.3 If a client asks. Politely decline and point them back to the app. If you’re unsure what to say, tell us and we’ll handle it.

6.4 If this is broken. Taking clients off the platform is the one breach we treat most seriously. The likely result is removal. We may also ask you to pay a fee equal to the commission we would have earned on that work over the 12 months.

Part 7: Data, privacy and the brand

7.1 Your data. We hold your ID, right-to-work record, insurance, references, ratings, job history and messages, in line with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Stripe holds your bank details and National Insurance number. Our Privacy Notice explains what we hold, why and for how long.

7.2 Your rights. You can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it when you leave. We may need to keep some records for set periods, such as booking and payment records for tax, and right-to-work records as the law requires.

7.3 Customer data. You will see customers’ names, addresses, access details and preferences. Use them only to do the booked work. Don’t store them anywhere outside the app, and never share them.

7.4 The brand. “House Ritual” and “The House Ritual Method” belong to us. Please don’t trade under a similar name or use our logo on your own materials without asking us first.

Part 8: If something goes wrong

8.1 Customer complaints. Customers can raise a complaint within 24 hours of a visit. They can complain later too, because they have legal rights. You will see the complaint on your dashboard and can respond before any decision. We look at what was booked, the task record, any photos and both sides’ accounts, and aim to decide within 72 hours. Your pay for that job is held while the complaint is open.

8.2 Possible outcomes. We may release your pay in full, ask you to return to put something right (paid at your normal rate if the complaint isn’t upheld), or refund the customer in part or in full. If a refund is due because of your work, it comes out of your pay for that job.

8.3 Complaints after payout. If a complaint is upheld after you have been paid, we may recover the amount from your future payouts. We will only do this after you have had the chance to respond, and we will show the deduction on your statement. We will never recover more than your pay for that job.

8.4 Disagreements with us. If you think we’ve got something wrong, such as a payment, a rating or a decision about your profile, use in-app support first. If you’re still unhappy, ask for it to go to the operations manager, who will reply within 10 working days.

8.5 Insurance claims. Damage claims go through your own public liability insurer. We will give your insurer the booking records, photos and any other evidence they need, and support you through the process.

8.6 Our responsibility. House Ritual runs the platform; the cleaning work is yours. Neither of us is responsible for events outside our reasonable control. Apart from your pay, which we must always pass on to you, our liability to you is limited to the commission we earned from your work in the previous 12 months. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited.

Part 9: Leaving

9.1 You can leave at any time. There is no notice period. Tell us through the app or by email. We pay everything you have earned in the normal way, then close your profile.

9.2 Coming back. You’re welcome back. Your profile and ratings are kept for 12 months after you leave. If you return after more than 6 months, we will repeat your right-to-work and insurance checks.

9.3 What continues after you leave. Three things continue: the client arrangement in Part 6 (for 12 months), confidentiality under 5.2 and 7.3 (with no end date), and any payments or claims still being processed.

9.4 If we end the arrangement. We follow the process in 4.4, pay everything you have earned, and the obligations in 9.3 apply.

Part 10: The legal bits

10.1 The whole agreement. These terms, the Home Professional Handbook and the Privacy Notice form the whole agreement between us. If the Handbook and these terms disagree, these terms apply.

10.2 Changes. We will give you at least 30 days’ notice of any change, through the app and by email. If you don’t agree, you can leave before the change takes effect.

10.3 Law. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts deal with any dispute.

10.4 If part of these terms is invalid. The rest still applies.

10.5 Notices. We contact you through the app or by email to the address on your profile. You contact us through in-app support or at jeremycarder@me.com.

10.6 Third parties. Nobody else has rights under these terms.