Terms of Service

These terms are an agreement between GarnerDocs and the business that creates a GarnerDocs workspace ("you" or "your firm"). They also apply to the team members you invite.

GarnerDocs is provided by Waseem S. M. Abusenjr, trading as GarnerDocs, Alte Landstr. 85, 51373 Leverkusen, Germany. Our legal notice has our full details.

GarnerDocs is offered only to businesses, professionals and organisations, for use in their trade, business or profession. It isn't offered to consumers.

The person who creates a workspace, or accepts these terms for one, confirms that they are authorised to agree to them on behalf of their firm.

Keep your sign-in details secure, and invite only people who may see your clients' documents. You're responsible for what happens in your workspace, including what the people you invite do there.

We protect your clients' information with the measures described on our Security page and in our Data Processing Agreement. Some choices are yours: who you invite, whether your team uses two-factor authentication, which documents you ask for and who you send client links to.

As between you and us, your firm keeps all rights in the client information and files that you and your clients put into GarnerDocs ("customer data"). You allow us to store, copy, transmit and otherwise process customer data only to provide, secure and support GarnerDocs for you, as described in our Privacy Policy.

You decide which documents to ask your clients for. You confirm that you have a lawful basis, and have given any notices or obtained any consents needed, to request, receive and keep each document you ask for.

Our Data Processing Agreement forms part of these terms and sets out how we process your clients' information on your behalf.

We keep customer data confidential, along with anything you tell us that is marked confidential or is obviously confidential. We use it only to provide GarnerDocs to you, and only people who need it for that, and who are bound to keep it confidential, can access it.

This doesn't cover information that is public through no fault of ours, that we already had lawfully, or that a law, court or authority requires us to disclose. If we must disclose your information, we'll tell you first where the law allows.

This duty continues after the agreement ends: for customer data, for as long as we hold any of it, and for other confidential information, for 5 years.

GarnerDocs is a tool for collecting, reviewing and handing off documents. It isn't an archive or a records system, and it isn't meant to hold your firm's permanent copy of anything.

You decide which records your firm must keep, and for how long, under the laws, regulators, professional bodies and insurance that apply to you. Keep those records in your own systems, and download or transfer anything you need before its deletion date.

Uploaded files are kept for 90 days after a request is completed, by default. An owner or admin chooses 30, 90, 180 or 365 days in Settings, and confirms it before the firm sends its first request. The period you choose is your instruction to us about how long to keep those files.

When the period ends, we delete the request's files from our storage and its client link closes. The request itself stays, with its document names, file names, review decisions and activity, as described in our Privacy Policy.

We email your firm's owner, and admins who keep file retention emails on, 14 days and 3 days before files are deleted, and again once they are. Shortening the period never deletes files with less than 14 days' notice. Not receiving or reading a notice doesn't pause a deletion you've already set up, so check your retention setting from time to time.

Before files are deleted, anyone in your firm can download a request's files as a ZIP, with a list of every file and its review. Owners and admins can also delete a request's files early. Deleted files can't be recovered.

Copies of deleted files may stay in our restricted backups for up to 30 days. We don't use them for anything else, and they are erased when the backups expire.

If we change the retention periods we offer in a way that moves the deletion date of files you already have, we'll tell you in advance.

Use GarnerDocs to collect documents from your own clients. Don't use it to send unsolicited email, to upload malware, or to try to access another firm's workspace.

Our Acceptable use policy forms part of these terms and explains in more detail what GarnerDocs may and may not be used for.

New workspaces start with a 14-day free trial with the Growth plan's limits. You don't need a card to start, and we only charge you once your firm's owner has chosen a paid plan and paid on Stripe's checkout page.

Paid plans are billed monthly or yearly in advance, in US dollars, at the price shown when you choose the plan. Payments are handled by Stripe, and card details never reach GarnerDocs. Each plan includes a limit on active collection requests (requests still collecting documents): 20 on Starter, 100 on Growth and 300 on Pro.

Prices don't include VAT or similar taxes. Stripe adds them at checkout and on each invoice where they apply, based on the billing address and any VAT ID you give. Businesses in Germany pay German VAT. A business in another EU country that gives a valid VAT ID is invoiced without VAT under the reverse charge, and accounts for the VAT itself.

The owner can change plan in Settings → Billing at any time. A change takes effect straight away: a bigger plan, or a move from monthly to yearly billing, is charged at once, less the unused part of your current plan; for a smaller plan, or a move from yearly to monthly billing, the unused part is credited to your account and used on your later invoices, not refunded. You can't move to a smaller plan while you use more than it allows, or change plan while a payment is due.

The owner can cancel from Settings → Billing, on Stripe's billing page. A cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period: you keep your plan until then, and the period you've paid for isn't refunded.

If a payment fails, you keep your plan while Stripe tries the payment again, and you can update your card on Stripe's billing page. If the payment still isn't made, the subscription may end.

When the trial ends without a paid plan, or a paid subscription ends, your workspace moves to the Starter plan's limits. Nothing is deleted: requests you've sent keep collecting, and files follow your retention period. You can't send new requests or invite new team members beyond Starter's limits, and features of a bigger plan stop. We don't charge for a workspace in this state. If we change that, we'll tell your firm's owner by email at least 30 days before the change takes effect.

We may suspend a team member's access, close client links or suspend a workspace when we reasonably believe it's needed to stop a serious breach of these terms or the Acceptable use policy, to deal with a security risk to your clients, other firms or GarnerDocs, or to comply with the law.

We'll limit a suspension to what the problem needs and lift it once the reason has gone. Unless the risk is urgent, we'll tell your firm's owner first and give them a chance to fix the problem.

While a workspace is suspended, nobody in it can use GarnerDocs or download its files, and its client links stop working. Nothing in it is deleted, and its retention period is paused until the suspension is lifted. A suspension doesn't change your subscription.

We work to keep GarnerDocs available and secure, but we don't promise uninterrupted availability or a particular uptime. Maintenance, and problems at the providers we rely on, may interrupt it.

We may improve or change features over time. If a change materially reduces what your plan includes, we'll tell your firm's owner by email at least 30 days before it takes effect.

We're liable without limit for damage we cause intentionally or through gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz), and under any guarantee we've expressly given.

For slight negligence, we're liable only if we breach an essential obligation: one that makes it possible to carry out this agreement properly in the first place, and that you may regularly rely on. Our liability is then limited to the damage that is typical for this kind of agreement and that we could foresee when it was made.

Except where we're liable without limit, our total liability for slight negligence in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event and €10,000. For breaches of our Data Processing Agreement or of confidentiality, the limit is three times that amount.

We aren't liable for losing files after the deletion date that applies under "Document storage, retention and deletion", or after you've deleted them, because keeping your own copies is your responsibility. This doesn't apply where we're liable without limit.

These limits also protect our employees, representatives and agents. Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law doesn't allow to be limited, including liability towards the people whose data is processed under Article 82 GDPR.

Your firm's owner can end the agreement at any time by deleting your workspace in Settings. Cancelling a paid plan on its own doesn't end it: the workspace stays, with the Starter plan's limits.

Deleting your workspace ends any paid subscription straight away, and the rest of the period you've paid for isn't refunded. Everyone loses access and client links stop working at once. We then delete the workspace's clients, requests and files, including any ZIP downloads. Download the files you need to keep first: deleted files can't be recovered. Copies may stay in our restricted backups for up to 30 days.

We can end the agreement with 30 days' notice by email to your firm's owner. We can end it straight away for good cause, in particular a serious breach of these terms or the Acceptable use policy that you don't fix within 14 days of our notice, or that can't be fixed. If we end the agreement without good cause, we'll refund the fees you've paid for the period after it ends.

When we end the agreement, your firm's owner can still sign in and download your files for 30 days afterwards. We then delete the workspace as described above.

Our Data Processing Agreement and Acceptable use policy form part of these terms. For personal data in customer data, the Data Processing Agreement applies if it and these terms disagree. Otherwise, these terms apply over the Acceptable use policy and our other policies.

We send notices about these terms, your plan and your workspace by email to your firm's owner, at the address they sign in with, so keep it up to date.

You can send notices to us at [email protected].

If we make a material change, we'll update this page, its version and the date above, and tell your firm's owner by email at least 30 days before the change takes effect. If you don't agree with the change, you can end the agreement before it takes effect by deleting your workspace, and we'll refund the fees you've paid for the period after that date.

Transferring the agreement. You may transfer this agreement only with our consent, which we won't unreasonably withhold. We may transfer it to a business that takes over GarnerDocs. We'll tell your firm's owner first, and you can end the agreement if you don't agree.

Events beyond our control. Neither of us is liable for a delay or failure caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

Language. These terms are written in English. A translation is for information only.

Law and courts. These terms are governed by German law, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). If you're a merchant (Kaufmann), a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, the courts of Cologne, Germany, have exclusive jurisdiction.