Holiday Self-Catering Accommodation

Booking Terms and Conditions

Your contract is with the Proprietors (‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’ in these Booking Conditions) for the rental of the holiday property known as       Villa Babel     (‘the Property’).  References to “you” and “your” in these booking conditions means the Lead Contact (as defined below) and all persons named on your booking confirmation.  “We”, “us” and “our” means Villa Babel.

These rental Booking Conditions form the basis of your contract with us so please read carefully.  Nothing in these rental Booking Conditions affects your normal statutory rights.

1.Your contract

The person making the booking (the “Lead Contact”) must be at least 23 years of age. By making your initial payment, you warrant that you have the authority to accept, and are accepting on behalf of all your party, these booking conditions. A contract will exist as soon as we issue our confirmation invoice which will specify the name of the villa owner or their local agent.

  1. Bookings

The holiday villa owners or their local agent and accept no liability (including liability for death, personal injury) whatsoever for any loss or damage of any kind, unless caused by our own negligence. Since your booking will be a contract between you and the relevant villa owner or their local agent on their behalf, you will be bound by the rental booking conditions of the villa owner. It is therefore important that you read them carefully. They are published on our website at www.villa-babel.com/T&Cs and are also available from us upon request.

  1. Paying for your Booking

3.1 A non-refundable deposit of approx. 30% of the total cost of the booking is required to secure the booking.

3.2 The remaining balance, must be fully paid during the check-in on arrival and in the manner described on the booking form. If you fail to make a payment due to us in full and on time, we may treat your booking as cancelled by you.

3.3 If required to make the payment of the balance of the rental before arrival, it must reach our account no later than eight weeks prior to the arrival date.

3.4 If the rental balance is not paid in time, we may treat your booking as cancelled by you.

  1. The price of your booking

4.1  Rental Includes: VAT and Local Authority Environment Tax ( known as Ecotaxa) but excludes your transportation costs, landing taxes, or any other Government imposed duties.

4.1 Rental Includes: bed linen and bath towels (one change per week), electricity, gas, hot-water, parking, and internet access via Wi-Fi ( subject to a fair use policy). 

  1. If you change your booking

5.1 Amendments to bookings are subject to the availability of the property and are only considered, provided that written notification from the Lead Contact is received at least 10 weeks before your arrival date. No guarantees are given in this respect and in some circumstances the whole or part of the deposit paid may not be refunded depending on the position of the villa owner. Any changes are subject to a charge of £30 per person named on the booking to cover our administration costs.

5.2 If you wish to change your arrangements within eight weeks of arrival, this will be treated as a cancellation of the original booking and you will have to pay the applicable cancellation charges set out in the section below. Changes to contractual arrangements, such as upgrades and extras, made within 72 hours of your arrival date will be subject to a £30 administration charge.

5.3 Within 24 hours of arrival no extra contractual arrangements can be added or deleted to the booking unless in extreme circumstances when Villa Babel reserves the right to apply additional administration charges of up to £75 per change.

  1. If you cancel your booking

6.1 If you need to cancel or amend your booking, you must do so by email to info@villa-babel.com immediately.  Amendments to bookings are subject to the availability of the property. With regards to a cancellation, the deposit paid is only refundable under our Covid  justification scheme if ( i.e. flight cancellation for sanitary reasons, border closures, sanitary restrictions imposed by the Government ) and  the relevant proof must be produced by the client when requesting cancellation.

6.2 Subject to availability, it may be possible to use the value of the deposit to make a reservation at the same property for a future date.  If you cancel your booking after the full payment has been made (8 weeks prior to your arrival date), then the following cancelation charges will apply:

Between 10-12 weeks before date of arrival –

75% of the full rental value/or deposit (whichever greater)

Less than 10 weeks before date of arrival –

100% of the full rental value value/or deposit (whichever greater)

  1. If we cancel or amend your booking

7.1 We do not expect to make any changes to your booking, but if unforeseen problems occur and if we have to make a significant change or cancel your booking, we will tell you as soon as possible.

7.2 We will endeavour to offer you an alternative should a significant change or cancellation occur.  If the alternative property is more expensive, you would be responsible for paying the extra cost.

7.3 If the alternative property was cheaper, we would refund you the difference.

7.4 Should a suitable alternative not be available, a full refund of any monies received for the arrangements cancelled will be made.  We regret we cannot pay any expenses, costs or losses incurred by you as a result of any change or cancellation.

7.5 Villa Babel will not accept any liability, pay any compensation, reimburse expenses, or cover losses, if for any reason we are forced to cancel your booking due to circumstances beyond our control or as a result of a ‘force majeure’. When we refer to circumstances beyond our control and ‘force majeure’, we mean any event that we, or the supplier in question, could not foresee or avoid, even after taking all reasonable care. Such events may include, but are not limited to, war, terrorist activity, civil unrest, public health restrictions, industrial dispute, bad weather (actual or threatened), fire and all similar events outside our control.

  1. Your Accommodation

8.1 You can arrive at your accommodation after 14:00 hours on the Arrival Date of your holiday and you must vacate the property by 10:00 hours on the Departure Date. It may be possible to have an earlier access or later departure time from the accommodation, but only by prior agreement with us.

  1. Arrival/Departure Times & Delays

9.1 As soon as you have made your travel arrangements you must advise us of these.  We require the flight number, arrival time at Funchal airport and origin of your flight.  These details must reach us no later than 2 weeks prior to your arrival.  These details will be passed on to the supplier of other services that may have been reserved.  We in turn will also supply you with the contact name and number of where you are staying.

9.2 If you are unfortunate to have a flight delay, or delay from the airport to your accommodation, it is your responsibility to advise the supplier of the estimated time of your arrival at the property or at the agreed place where the service is provided.

9.3 If you do not supply this information, we cannot guarantee that you will be met on arrival at the property. If you fail to arrive by midday on the day after the Arrival Date and you do not inform us of your anticipated late arrival, we may treat the booking as having been cancelled by you.

  1. Damage to accommodation

10.1 You hereby accept responsibility for the proper conduct of yourself and any members of your party whilst on holiday. This includes threatening behaviour, physical and serious verbal assault behaviour to our resort staff.

10.2 If there is such behaviour, we shall have no further responsibility or liability to you. If you or any member of your party wilfully, recklessly or negligently causes any damage to any accommodation, property or person, you agree to indemnify us against any loss suffered by us (including legal costs), arising from such damage.

10.3 Failure to pay for any damage that you or your party has inflicted on a property will result in the immediate forfeiture of the security deposit and can result in the local authorities being called to intervene.

  1. Breakages

11.1 All our bookings now carry a breakage waiver charge of £35 per week. This is to cover minor items such as glasses and crockery etc up to a maximum value of £150.

11.2 All other breakages must be reported to our local representatives immediately and these must be paid for locally before vacating.

11.3 We reserve the right to charge for any serious damage or breakages not reported and found after your departure. 

  1. (Refundable) Security Deposit

12.1 A security deposit to cover any damages/breakages to the property and/or contents  of €500. This amount is not added to the cost of booking and is payable, in cash, on arrival.

12.2 In the event of the security deposit being called upon during the rental period to cover damages reported and/or identified, you will be asked to restore the original deposit by topping it back to the full amount originally as requested on clause (12.1).

12.3  The security deposit refund is subject to a satisfactory breakage/cleanliness inspection by the villa owner or their representative.

12.4  The villa owner and/or their representative will deal with any refund after a breakage/cleanliness inspection during check out being the same reimbursed, less any deductions deemed necessary and then without any interest.

  1. If you have a complaint

13.1 If you have a complaint whilst you are in the accommodation, you expected to report it to a member of staff as soon as possible. They are there to help and will take all necessary steps to solve the issue reported.

13.2 Should the representative be unable to resolve the complaint and you wish to take the matter further upon your return, detail your complaint in writing to us with a copy of your complaint within fourteen days of the completion of your holiday to our registered address.

13.3 We will not accept any complaints or any responsibility after this date is passed, nor will we consider any complaint that has not been reported to our representative at the villa and not been resolved satisfactorily.

  1. Insurance

14.1 We consider travel insurance to be essential, and strongly advise you to arrange for appropriate travel insurance (including supplier failure insurance) which covers you for a comprehensive range of events including cancellation, baggage loss, accidents or health issues whilst you are away.

14.2 We strongly advise you to read the policy details carefully and to take them with you on your holiday. It is your responsibility to ensure that you purchase comprehensive travel insurance and we shall not be liable for any loss that you incur due to your either failing to purchase travel insurance or purchasing insufficient, inadequate or unsuitable insurance cover.  

  1. Natural environment/pests and building works

15.1 We cannot be held responsible for any discomfort or inconvenience caused by the climate, the particular flora and fauna and wildlife including, but not limited to insects (flies and ants), barking dogs, goats, donkeys, rodents, chickens or sheep bells or anything else reasonably expected to exist in the natural environment.

15.2 We recommend, particularly in the summer months, when weather conditions can cause an influx in ants etc. for you to buy mosquito/ant spray and keep any food and drink items in the fridges and to clean any food leftovers away immediately.

15.3 Building works, serious construction works and the resulting noise from the site can take place at any time during the year on an adjoining or nearby property and land. Obviously, this is beyond the control of the villa owners. Unfortunately, we do not receive advance notice of when building works will begin as they are carried out by third parties over which we have no control.

15.4 Whilst we can assure you, we will do our best to minimise any inconvenience or interruption to your stay in the accommodation, and neither the villa owner or ourselves accept any liability or responsibility to pay any compensation. We closely monitor and will inform you immediately of any building work which could materially affect your stay in the villa.

  1. Breakdowns and Faults

16.1 The villa owners will not pay compensation due to the failure of any appliance within this timeframe but will of course assist you to the best of their ability.

16.2 In the rare event of a total break-down with the basic supplies of water, electricity and use of swimming pool, our maintenance team will endeavour to rectify the problem within 24 hours to the nearest working day. 

  1. Severability

17.1 If any provision or part of a provision, of these booking conditions is found by any court or authority of competent jurisdiction to be unlawful, otherwise invalid or unenforceable, such provision or part-provision will be struck out of these booking conditions and the remainder of these booking conditions will apply as if the offending provision or part-provision had never been agreed.

  1. Assignment

18.1 You may not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these booking conditions without our prior written consent.

18.2 We may transfer any of our rights or obligations under these terms and conditions without your prior written consent.

  1. Privacy

19.1 We are committed to protecting your privacy and security. All personal data that we collect from you will be processed in accordance with our Data Protection Policy. Please refer to our website for further details. 

  1. Limitation of our liability

20.1 Nothing in these booking conditions excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence or any of your statutory rights as a consumer that cannot be excluded or limited.

20.2 With the exception of liability referred to in clause (20.1), we, and each of our group companies, officers and employees exclude all liability and responsibility for any amount or kind of loss or damage that may result to you or a third party (including any direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damages, or any loss of income, profits, goodwill, data, contracts, or loss or damages arising from or connected in any way to business interruption, loss of opportunity, loss of anticipated savings, wasted management or office time and whether in tort (including negligence), contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable) in connection with your booking, your use of the website and/or our services.

20.3 We exclude all representations and warranties relating to the holiday accommodation that you have booked from us to the fullest extent permitted by law.

20.4 With the exception of liability referred to in clause (20.1), our total aggregate liability to you under or in relation to these booking conditions, your booking, your use of our Website and/or our services shall be limited to a maximum of twice the cost of your booking as shown on your booking invoice.

  1. Governing law and jurisdiction

21.1 These booking conditions and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them (including all non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with Portuguese law.

21.2 Subject to clause (13) (What happens to complaints), disputes or claims arising out of or in connection with these booking conditions (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Portuguese tribunals.