The contract between you and us when you book a ride.

In these Terms:

• "we", "us", "our", "the Operator" means National Taxi Ltd (trading as National Taxi).
• "you", "your", "Passenger" means the person making or travelling under a booking.
• "Booking" means a pre-arranged request for a private hire vehicle accepted by us.
• "Driver" means the licensed Private Hire Driver dispatched to fulfil a Booking.
• "Fare" means the price payable for a Booking, including any surcharges, waiting time, or supplements.
• "Vehicle" means the licensed Private Hire Vehicle dispatched to fulfil a Booking.
• "PHV" means Private Hire Vehicle, as defined by the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976.
• "Website" means nationaltaxi.co.uk and any related booking platform we operate.

These Terms form a contract between you and National Taxi Ltd (trading as National Taxi), a Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) operator licensed by Brighton & Hove City Council under operator licence 872.

Registered office: 7 Maldon Road, Brighton, England, BN1 5BD.

Registered in England & Wales under company number 14491447.

You can contact us by phone on 01273 757474, by email at hello@nationaltaxi.co.uk, or via the contact form on our Website.

We arrange pre-booked private hire journeys, including airport transfers, corporate trips, event travel, and local journeys in and around Brighton & Hove and the surrounding area. We do not operate as a hackney-carriage (black cab) service — every journey must be pre-booked; Drivers cannot accept hails from the street.

Every Driver and Vehicle we dispatch is licensed by the relevant local authority and carries the appropriate hire-and-reward insurance, valid MOT, and safety certification.

You can make a Booking via our Website, by phone, by WhatsApp, or by email. A Booking is a request until we confirm it — confirmation happens when you receive a reference number by email, SMS, or in the Website confirmation screen. We may refuse a Booking at our discretion, for example where we cannot safely fulfil it or where a previous account has unpaid balances.

Same-day Bookings — requests within 60 minutes of pickup are accepted subject to Driver availability. We will call or message you if we cannot fulfil the journey.

Journey requests — bespoke routes or vehicle requirements without a fixed fare are treated as enquiries. These become a confirmed Booking only once we have agreed a Fare with you in writing (SMS / email).

Accurate information — you are responsible for providing accurate pickup, destination, flight number (where relevant), passenger count, luggage, and contact details. We are not liable for missed pickups caused by incorrect information.

Minimum age — passengers under 16 must travel with a responsible adult unless we have made separate prior arrangements.

Fares are quoted when you make a Booking and cover the journey as booked. We offer two types of Fare:

• Fixed Fare — displayed and agreed at the time of booking for standard airport, station, and intra-Brighton journeys. The Fare will not change unless the booking details change (e.g. extra stops, different destination, additional waiting time).
• Estimated Fare — quoted where the route or timing is variable (open return, hourly hire, bespoke journey). The final Fare is calculated at the end of the journey based on actual time and distance, within the range quoted.

Supplements may apply for airport drop-off / pickup charges (set by the airport), toll roads, Dartford Crossing, Congestion Charge, ULEZ, overnight or public-holiday surcharges, additional luggage requiring a larger vehicle, and meet-and-greet at airports (see §7). Any supplement will be clearly indicated before the journey begins wherever practical.

Fares are inclusive of any applicable VAT.

We build a reasonable grace period into every Booking:

• Standard pickups: 10 minutes free from the booked pickup time.
• Airport arrivals: 45 minutes free from the flight's actual landing time (we monitor flight tracking where you've given us a valid flight number).
• Other stations / venues: 15 minutes free from the booked pickup time.

After the free period, waiting time is charged at £0.50 per minute, rounded to the nearest minute. The Driver will try to call you before waiting charges start. If you have not arrived within 60 minutes of the booked pickup time (or 90 minutes after an airport landing) and we cannot reach you, the Booking will be treated as a no-show and the full Fare is chargeable.

For airport arrivals, please provide the inbound flight number at the time of booking so we can monitor delays and adjust the pickup time automatically where possible. By default the Driver waits in the short-stay car park and calls you once you are in Arrivals.

Meet-and-greet (Driver meets you inside the terminal with a nameboard) is available at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, and London City on request — it attracts a meet-and-greet fee and the airport's car-park charges, shown before you confirm.

Airport drop-off charges imposed by the airport (e.g. Gatwick, Heathrow "kiss and fly") are added to the Fare.

We accept the following payment methods:

• Online card payment — processed securely by Stripe Payments UK Ltd. We do not see or store your card details.
• Cash to the Driver — accepted on most Bookings at our discretion.
• Card to the Driver — most Drivers accept contactless card / Apple Pay / Google Pay at the end of the journey.
• Account invoice — for approved business accounts only (see §16).

Airport pickups must be paid online at the time of booking. For all other journeys, you may choose any payment method offered at checkout. Where payment is due to the Driver, it is payable at the end of the journey.

If a payment fails, bounces, or is charged back without lawful reason, we reserve the right to recover the balance plus any associated processing fees.

You may amend or cancel a Booking at any time by contacting us. The following cancellation charges apply:

• More than 24 hours before pickup: no charge; any online payment is refunded in full.
• Between 2 and 24 hours before pickup: up to 50% of the Fare may be charged.
• Less than 2 hours before pickup, or no-show: the full Fare is payable.

Where you have paid online, we will assess any refund due under the above scale and process it manually to the original card within 2 business days of cancellation.

Flight delays and cancellations outside your control are handled case-by-case — please contact us as soon as you know. Where we dispatch the Driver successfully but you are unable to travel due to a documented flight cancellation, we aim to be reasonable.

Changes from our side — we may very rarely need to reassign a Driver or, in exceptional circumstances, cancel a Booking (e.g. vehicle breakdown, road closure). In that case we will notify you as soon as practical and refund any payment taken in full.

From time to time we offer promotional codes or new-customer discounts. Unless stated otherwise, codes are valid for one Booking per person, are not transferable, cannot be combined with any other offer, have no cash value, and expire at the date shown on the promotion.

We may withdraw or substitute a promotion at any time, and decline a discount where we reasonably suspect abuse (e.g. repeated use of "first-booking" codes by the same household or card).

The standard luggage allowance is one large suitcase (up to 23kg) and one piece of hand luggage per passenger, subject to the dispatched Vehicle's capacity. Larger items (golf clubs, surfboards, skis, bicycles, prams, wheelchairs, mobility scooters) must be declared when booking so we can dispatch an appropriate Vehicle. A larger Vehicle may attract a supplement.

The Driver has final discretion over what can be safely carried, considering insurance, passenger numbers, and the Vehicle type booked.

UK law requires children under 135cm or 12 years of age (whichever comes first) to use an appropriate child restraint. Private hire vehicles fall under a partial exemption, but for safety we strongly recommend you provide a child seat where possible.

Where available, we can provide a rear-facing infant seat, forward-facing child seat, or booster seat on request — please ask when booking and we will let you know availability and any supplement.

Guide dogs and other registered assistance animals travel free of charge on every journey, without prior notice, in line with the Equality Act 2010.

Other pets may travel subject to prior agreement at the time of booking. Pets must be safely restrained (carrier or harness). The Driver may decline a pet on grounds of safety or allergy.

For the safety of Drivers and other passengers, you agree to:

• Wear a seatbelt at all times when the Vehicle is moving.
• Not consume alcohol in the Vehicle.
• Not smoke or vape in the Vehicle (smoke-free law, 2006).
• Treat the Driver and other passengers with courtesy.
• Not obstruct the Driver or interfere with the controls.
• Not carry anything illegal, dangerous, or offensive.

The Driver may refuse to start the journey, or end it early, where your behaviour is unsafe, threatening, abusive, illegal, or in breach of these Terms. In those cases the full Fare remains payable and you may be liable for any cleaning or damage charges (see §15).

If the Vehicle is soiled (including — but not limited to — vomit, spilled food or drink, mud, bodily fluids) or damaged as a result of your behaviour, a valeting / damage charge will be applied to cover the cost of cleaning and the Driver's lost earnings while the Vehicle is out of service.

The minimum soiling charge is £100. The actual charge may be higher if the Vehicle requires professional valeting, upholstery repair, or exceeds the typical out-of-service time. We will provide evidence (photos, receipts) on request.

Where you booked online, we may take the soiling charge from the card used for the Booking under the authorisation you granted at checkout. Where you did not pay online, we will invoice the amount.

Approved business accounts may book on credit with monthly invoicing. Account terms (credit limit, payment days, spend controls, nominated bookers) are set out in a separate Account Agreement. These Terms apply to every journey booked under a business account as well.

If you are interested in opening a business account, email hello@nationaltaxi.co.uk.

Property left in a Vehicle will be returned to our office at the end of the Driver's shift. Please contact us on 01273 757474 or hello@nationaltaxi.co.uk the same day where possible — the sooner you tell us, the more likely we can recover it.

We hold unclaimed property for 30 days. After that we dispose of it or donate it to charity at our discretion. Return by post can be arranged at your cost; a small administration fee may apply to cover courier handling.

We arrange transport using reasonable care and skill. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability for:

• Death or personal injury caused by our negligence or that of a Driver acting on our behalf.
• Fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
• Any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited under UK law, including under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Subject to that, our total liability for any single Booking is limited to the greater of the Fare paid and £250. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, or missed flights / trains / appointments caused by traffic, weather, third-party events, or inaccurate information provided by you.

We recommend that time-critical journeys are booked with a sensible buffer and that appropriate travel insurance is in place.

We are not liable for delays or failure to perform where caused by events outside our reasonable control, including but not limited to: severe weather, flooding, road closures, traffic, accidents, mechanical breakdown, strike or industrial action, fuel shortage, pandemic, terrorism, civil unrest, or the acts of any public authority.

Where such an event prevents a Booking going ahead, we will contact you as soon as possible to rearrange or refund.

We want to know if something has gone wrong. Email hello@nationaltaxi.co.uk with your booking reference and a brief description — we will acknowledge within 2 working days and aim to resolve within 10 working days.

If we cannot resolve the complaint to your satisfaction, you may escalate to:

• Brighton & Hove City Council Licensing — for Driver, Vehicle, or operator conduct. www.brighton-hove.gov.uk.
• Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) — for data-protection concerns. ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
• Chargeback or online-payment dispute — contact us first. Raising a chargeback without first letting us resolve the issue may delay any refund legitimately due.

Personal information you provide when booking is handled under our Privacy Policy, which explains your rights under UK GDPR, how long we keep data, and how to exercise them.

The Website, our brand, logo, text, images, and software are our property or licensed to us. You may use the Website for personal, non-commercial booking purposes. You must not copy, redistribute, scrape, or use automated tools to access the Website without our written permission.

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes to our service, the law, or licensing requirements. The version that applies to your Booking is the one published on this page at the time you make the Booking. We will post the "last updated" date at the foot of this page.

A person who is not party to this contract has no rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any Term. If any Term is held by a court to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining Terms continue in full force. We may assign our rights and obligations under these Terms to any successor to our business.

These Terms, and any contract formed under them, are governed by the law of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, with the exception of consumers habitually resident elsewhere, who retain the protection of their local mandatory consumer laws and may bring proceedings in their local courts.