Your hire, in plain English

Booking and paying

We send you a quotation with the vehicles, the dates, the delivery and the price. It shows VAT separately and the total you pay, including VAT. It is valid for the period on it.

We ask for payment in full before we deliver, by the date on your quotation. Until then, your booking is provisional and subject to availability. Once the payment clears, your dates are locked in. Making that payment is how you accept the terms, and there is nothing else to sign. If we do not hear from you by that date, the vehicles go back into the diary for someone else.

If you would rather pay on account, ask us. We can set that up for business customers.

When we drop off

We, or our partner fleet for us, walk round each vehicle with you and fill in a short condition report, noting any marks that are already there and taking photographs. You get a copy and we ask you to sign it.

It takes five minutes and it means neither of us has to rely on memory afterwards. If you spot something we have missed, tell us before the vehicle is first used and we will add it. If a fault only shows itself later, tell us as soon as you notice it.

We will also run through the controls with whoever is going to be driving.

While the vehicles are with you

Anyone you are happy to let drive is fine by us, provided they are over 18, sober, fit to drive and have been shown the controls. Please keep the vehicles on private land unless we have agreed road use, keep them somewhere secure overnight, and keep them fuelled or charged.

Please do not move them to a different site, apply stickers or livery, or have anyone else repair them, without asking us first. They stay the property of us or our partner fleet throughout, so they cannot be lent on, sold or used as security for anything.

Delivery, and the vehicles themselves, can mark soft ground, so tell us in advance about any delicate areas and we will agree a route with you. We are not responsible for marks to grass or ground unless we, or a partner delivering for us, were careless or did not stick to what we agreed.

If something gets damaged

Things happen, and we would far rather you told us early than worried about it. If a vehicle is damaged, stops working or goes missing, call us and we will help you sort it.

Everyday wear is on us and is never charged, though punctures count as damage. For damage beyond that, the vehicles are in your care while you have them, so the cost of putting it right is yours. That is the case however it happened and whoever did it, including a guest or someone unknown, unless it was our fault.

Common repairs have set prices in our damage schedule at hawkeev.com/damage-schedule, so you know where you stand. For businesses those prices are fixed. For consumers they are the most we will charge, and you pay the actual cost up to that price. Anything not listed is charged at what it actually costs to put right, and for businesses we add 20% for arranging the repair. We always share the before and after photographs first. If a vehicle is lost or stolen we would need a police reference number, and its replacement value would be payable, so it is worth checking that your insurance covers hired-in vehicles.

If you disagree with a charge, tell us within 14 days and we will go through it with you properly. We will not chase a charge while a genuine query is open.

Cleaning and fuel

The vehicles arrive clean, checked and full. Ordinary dirt from ordinary use is expected and we never charge for it.

We only charge for cleaning when a vehicle needs a lot more than a normal turnaround valet. Think heavy mud through the cab, spilled paint or oil, chewing gum, sticker residue, or anything biological that we have to deal with under health and safety rules. If that happens we charge what the extra cleaning actually costs and we show you the photographs first.

If a vehicle comes back low on fuel or charge, we charge for filling it plus the refuelling charge in our damage schedule. Keys, chargers and covers are charged at the schedule price, or at replacement cost, if they go missing.

If you need to cancel or change

Tell us as early as you can. We will move dates or swap vehicles where we can, and a change may adjust the price.

If you cancel, we charge what your booking conditions or quotation say or, if they say nothing, only what we have genuinely lost or already committed, such as transport booked, charges from a partner fleet that we cannot cancel, and vehicles held out of the fleet for your dates. We will show you how we worked it out.

That applies whatever the reason, including bad weather or your event being called off, but we will always try to move your dates first.

If we have to cancel

Very occasionally we cannot supply the vehicles booked, usually because one has been damaged or not returned on a previous hire, has had to come off the road, or a partner fleet cannot supply it.

If that happens we will tell you as soon as we know and do everything we can to put an equivalent or better vehicle in front of you instead, from our own fleet or a partner fleet, at no extra cost. If we cannot, we refund you in full for whatever we could not deliver, straight away and in full.

That refund is where our responsibility ends. We cannot cover the cost of hiring vehicles from someone else at short notice, or losses connected with your event. If the vehicles are critical to your day, please do arrange event insurance, and tell your insurer what we are supplying so they have the detail.

Insurance

We carry public liability insurance for our own operations and will send you the certificate on request.

That does not cover the vehicles while they are with you, or the way they are used on your site, so please make sure you have cover for hired-in vehicles up to their replacement value (the agreed value in your quotation or our damage schedule), and for your liability to other people. If you are not sure what you need, ask us and we will point you in the right direction.

When we collect

We run the same check again, with you there if you would like. If anything has changed we show you both sets of photographs and talk it through with you before anything is charged. No surprise invoices.

If the light or the weather makes a proper look impossible on the day, we will finish the check back at ours and send you the report and the photographs.

The formal bit

Everything above is a summary written to be readable. The full wording is Part C, Vehicle hire terms, in our Terms and Conditions at hawkeev.com/terms, and that is the version that binds us both.

Your agreement with us is made up of any booking conditions we send you before your booking is confirmed, your quotation or booking confirmation, those hire terms together with our damage schedule, and the condition report for each vehicle. If they ever differ, any booking conditions we send you come first, then the details in your quotation.

Some vehicles come from our partner fleets, who may deliver and collect them for us. Any paperwork they ask you to sign is just a record of delivery and condition. Your agreement stays with us and the same terms apply. Nothing here affects your statutory rights. Ask us any time and we will email or post you a copy of anything.