1. Parties and acceptance
1.1 This agreement is between Hamwic Engineering Limited, trading as HamwiCAD, registered in England and Wales under company number 3302513 (we, us, our), and the individual or organisation purchasing or evaluating HamwiCAD (you, your). Our contact email is hamwicad@hamwic.com
1.2 Read this agreement before purchasing or installing HamwiCAD. By selecting "I accept", you agree to its terms. If you accept on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation. The agreement must be made available before payment and supplied with your order confirmation in a form you can retain.
1.3 If you do not accept this agreement, do not install or use HamwiCAD. If you have already purchased it without previously accepting these terms, contact us within 14 days of purchase. We will refund the licence fee and cancel the Licence Key, provided you stop using and delete your copies of the Software. This refund arrangement is additional to any rights you have by law.
1.4 Software means the standard HamwiCAD application, its proprietary data files and documentation, and updates supplied under this agreement. Third-Party Components means libraries, other software and data supplied under separate licences identified in the Third-Party Notices. Licence Key means the code identifying the licensee and authorising paid use. Named User means the individual authorised to use a paid licence. Output means the models, drawings, files, cut lists, quantities and reports you create using the Software. Order means the purchase confirmation identifying the product and price.
1.5 HamwiCAD is intended for business modelling, drafting and fabrication work. The features and supported systems for the version purchased are those described in the product information provided before purchase. Consumer protections in clause 10 apply where you purchase as a consumer.
2. Your licence and ownership
2.1 On payment of the licence fee, we grant you a non-exclusive licence for one Named User to install and use the purchased version of HamwiCAD for your own work and business purposes, including work for your clients. Each additional user requires a separate licence.
2.2 The Named User may install and use the Software on any number of computers they own or are authorised to use, including office desktops, laptops, replacement computers and virtual machines. They may access their installations remotely. Leaving an installation running on another computer does not breach this agreement. Other individuals must not use that licence, whether locally or remotely, and it must not be used as a pool of interchangeable user seats.
2.3 If an organisation purchases the licence, it must identify its Named User. It may reassign the licence to another individual by contacting us, provided the former user stops using that licence. Reassignment must not be used to enable routine sharing. We will not unreasonably refuse a genuine change of user.
2.4 Your paid licence is perpetual: it has no expiry date and no compulsory subscription or renewal fee. You may continue using the purchased version after any included support or update period ends, unless the licence is terminated under clause 9. Any later paid upgrade is optional.
2.5 You may make and retain reasonable backup copies of the Software and Licence Key. Keep the key confidential and do not publish it or provide it to unauthorised users. Contact us if it is lost, compromised, or your recorded name or email address changes. We will provide reasonable assistance and, where appropriate, a replacement key after verifying your entitlement.
2.6 We and our licensors retain ownership of the Software and its intellectual property. Your purchase gives you the continuing right to use it under this agreement; it does not transfer copyright in the Software to you.
2.7 As between you and us, your Output belongs to you. You may use, modify, share and sell your Output, including supplying it to clients and fabricators, without paying us royalties. Existing rights in third-party models, data or materials you use remain with their owners. We claim no ownership of your projects or designs.
2.8 A discounted upgrade requires a qualifying existing paid licence. It extends that licence and does not create an additional user entitlement. The same Named User may retain and use earlier licensed versions for existing projects, under the terms applicable to those versions. An earlier version and its upgrade must not be allocated to different users as separate licences.
3. Trial use
3.1 Without a Licence Key, you may evaluate standard HamwiCAD for up to 90 days from first installation. The Trial is for assessing suitability and testing workflows. It does not authorise use of the Software or its Output for paid client work, production fabrication or installation.
3.2 Any feature or export restrictions applying to the Trial must be disclosed in the trial information before installation. You must not reset or bypass the Trial period or other trial restrictions.
3.3 At the end of the Trial, you must purchase a licence to continue using the Software, or stop using and uninstall it. You retain your Output and may use it with a paid licence, subject to the checking requirements in clause 6.
3.4 The Trial is supplied without charge and without the contractual warranty in clause 7.1. Nothing in this clause excludes rights or liabilities that cannot lawfully be excluded.
3.5 A beta or pre-release build is identified separately from the ordinary Trial of a released version. Any beta expiry, functional restrictions and known project-format limitations will be disclosed before installation. Participation is optional. Beta builds are for testing on copies of projects and must not be relied on for production fabrication or construction. The contractual warranty in clause 7.1 does not apply to a clearly identified beta build; rights that cannot lawfully be excluded remain unaffected.
4. Restrictions and statutory rights
4.1 Except as permitted by this agreement, the applicable Third-Party Component licence or law, you must not distribute, rent, lend, sublicense or sell the Software or Licence Key; make the Software available to other users as a hosted service; or transfer your licence to another licensee without our written agreement. We will not unreasonably withhold or delay agreement to a genuine transfer arising from a business sale or restructuring, provided the recipient accepts the applicable terms and the former licensee stops using the transferred licence. Genuine reassignment of an organisation's Named User is governed by clause 2.3.
4.2 You must not circumvent the licence check or Trial restrictions, modify or translate proprietary parts of the Software, decompile or reverse engineer those parts, or remove applicable copyright and licence notices, except where clause 5 or law permits this.
4.3 These restrictions do not prevent acts that the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 permits despite contractual restrictions, including qualifying backup, interoperability and observation, study or testing activities. They do not restrict rights granted by an open-source or other third-party licence.
4.4 The restrictions on modifying the Software do not prevent you from creating or editing your own Output, importing your own data through supported functions, or using configuration and customisation facilities supplied for that purpose.
5. Third party components and data
5.1 The Software includes Third-Party Components. The accompanying Third-Party Notices identify their names, versions, copyright notices and applicable licences. Those licences govern your rights in the relevant components and take precedence over this agreement if there is a conflict concerning those components.
5.2 Where an applicable GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) permits you to modify or replace a library, you may exercise that right. You may also reverse engineer the combined application to the extent required by that licence to debug modifications to the library. The licence restrictions in clause 4 do not prohibit those activities.
5.3 We will provide the licence texts, notices, corresponding source code or valid source offer, and any other materials required by the applicable third-party licences. The Third-Party Notices specify the source-access arrangements for each relevant component, including any offer period, eligible recipients and permitted supply charge. Contact support@hamwic.com if you need assistance obtaining those materials.
5.4 We do not undertake to support modifications you make to Third-Party Components. However, modifying or replacing a library does not automatically remove the warranty for unrelated faults. The warranty exclusion in clause 7.4 applies only to the extent the modification or replacement causes the fault.
5.5 Section and catalogue data are supplied only to the extent we are entitled to supply them. The Third-Party Notices or data documentation identify relevant sources, licences, editions and limitations. Attribution does not grant you rights to reproduce a publisher's protected tables or databases beyond any permission applicable to the supplied data.
6. Engineering responsibility and checking
6.1 HamwiCAD is a drafting and geometric modelling tool. It assists you in creating models and drafting output, including DXF and STEP files. It does not undertake structural design, approve a design, certify a structure or authorise fabrication, construction or installation. You remain responsible for the engineering design and for approval of the work.
6.2 Any suggested engineering options, sizes, arrangements, checks or warnings provided by HamwiCAD are indicative only. They do not constitute engineering advice, structural verification or confirmation of safety or compliance. You must independently verify their suitability for the intended application and check all Output before fabrication, construction or installation. The absence of a warning does not indicate that a design is safe or compliant.
6.3 Indicative features may include floor plate or grating span suggestions, stair arrangements, hole spacing and edge distances, bolt or connection information, and notch or cope suggestions. They address only the cases and assumptions described in the documentation. They do not replace calculations, independent engineering checks or assessment of the applicable standards, national annexes, loading, client specifications and site conditions. HamwiCAD does not verify member resistance, connection resistance or overall structural stability.
6.4 You must arrange checking and approval of the Output by a person competent for the intended work before it is issued or relied on for fabrication, construction, installation, ordering or pricing. Checks must be appropriate to the work and include critical dimensions, section sizes, plate thicknesses, hole sizes and positions, orientation, clearances, quantities and units. Confirm that the Output matches the intended geometry and the latest approved project revision. Keep records of the checks and approvals appropriate to the project.
6.5 Check imported and exported files after transfer, including DXF and STEP files. Support for a file format does not guarantee that every third-party file can be imported without limitations or that every receiving application will interpret an export identically. Verify units, scale, geometry, completeness and any reported conversion limitations in the application where the file will be used. This does not remove our warranty concerning the documented import and export functions.
6.6 Section dimensions, masses and catalogue information may differ between standards, editions and manufacturers. Identify the intended product and verify critical dimensions against the relevant current standard or manufacturer's data before ordering or fabrication. Any simplified geometry affecting fit or fabrication must be identified in the relevant data documentation or feature information. A simplified model must not be treated as an exact manufacturing representation.
6.7 You are responsible for selecting an appropriate workflow, controlling project revisions and retaining suitable backups of models and Output. References to standards identify the basis of documented features; they do not represent certification, approval or endorsement by a standards body.
6.8 These design, checking and approval responsibilities do not remove our obligations to supply the Software as agreed or liabilities that cannot lawfully be excluded. A failure to check is considered according to applicable law and its actual contribution to a loss; it does not automatically extinguish a claim. Liability is governed by clause 8.
7. Warranty and remedies
7.1 For 90 days from delivery of your paid Licence Key, we warrant that the Software will perform substantially in accordance with the product description and documentation supplied for the purchased version, when used on a supported system and in accordance with that documentation.
7.2 Report a material failure covered by this warranty within that period, with enough information for us to investigate. We will attempt to correct it or provide a suitable replacement or update within a reasonable time and without an additional licence fee. If we cannot do so within a reasonable time, you may request a refund of the fee paid for the affected licence, after which that licence ends.
7.3 The Software may contain errors and may not operate without interruption. We do not promise that it will meet requirements you have not communicated and we have not expressly agreed. This statement does not reduce the express warranty in clause 7.1 or applicable statutory rights.
7.4 The warranty does not cover a failure to the extent caused by unsupported equipment or operating systems, use contrary to the documentation, unauthorised modifications, incompatible replacement libraries, or third-party files or systems outside our control. The presence of any such circumstance does not exclude coverage for an unrelated fault.
7.5 For business customers, other implied terms are excluded only to the extent that exclusion is lawful and satisfies any applicable reasonableness requirement. The remedies in this section do not exclude liabilities preserved by clause 8.1 or any other remedy that cannot lawfully be restricted. Consumer rights are addressed in clause 10.
8. Liability
8.1 Nothing in this agreement excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
8.2 For business customers, and subject to clause 8.1, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or loss of profit, revenue, business opportunities or anticipated savings. Any other recoverable loss, including direct loss arising from an error in drafting Output, is subject to clause 8.3 and applicable law.
8.3 For business customers, subject to clause 8.1 and any applicable statutory reasonableness requirement, our total aggregate liability arising from or relating to the affected licence, whether in contract, tort including negligence, breach of statutory duty or otherwise, is limited to the total licence fees paid for that licence, including paid upgrades to it. This cap is not reduced merely because the purchase took place more than 12 months before the claim. For a free Trial, the equivalent aggregate cap is £100.
8.4 Nothing in this section prevents the refund remedy in clause 7.2. You must take reasonable steps to limit losses when a fault is discovered. Any failure to check Output or maintain backups is considered in accordance with applicable law and its actual contribution to the loss; it does not automatically extinguish a claim.
8.5 The business exclusions and cap do not apply to consumers. For consumers, our responsibility is governed by applicable consumer law, including responsibility for foreseeable loss caused by our breach and any statutory entitlement relating to damage to a device or other digital content.
9. Updates support and termination
9.1 Your paid licence includes updates we release for the purchased product during the first 12 months after delivery of the Licence Key. Separately priced products or major upgrades are included only if expressly stated in your Order. We do not promise a particular number of releases, new features or future compatibility.
9.2 After the included update period, we may offer further updates or upgrades for an additional fee. Buying them is optional. Declining them does not disable the purchased version or make a renewal necessary. We may also supply fixes free of charge at our discretion. Statutory rights and the warranty in clause 7 are unaffected.
9.3 We provide email support at support@hamwic.com on UK working days for the first 12 months after delivery of the Licence Key. Support covers installation, licence administration, operation of documented functions and fault reporting. It does not include project design, engineering advice, custom development or a guaranteed response time. Any extended support arrangements will be stated separately.
9.4 A later update may be offered under revised terms. We will identify those terms before installation and seek your acceptance. Declining an update or its revised terms does not alter your right to use the previously licensed version under the terms already accepted. Revised terms do not retrospectively remove accrued rights.
9.5 We may terminate your licence by written notice if you materially breach this agreement and, where the breach can be remedied, fail to remedy it within 14 days after receiving a notice describing the breach and the action required. We may terminate without that remedy period where a material breach cannot be remedied.
9.6 You may terminate the licence at any time by notifying us and uninstalling the Software. Voluntary termination does not create a refund entitlement beyond this agreement or applicable law.
9.7 When the licence ends, stop using and delete the proprietary Software and Licence Key from your computers and backups. You retain your Output. Independent rights in Third-Party Components continue under their own licences. Clauses concerning ownership, third-party rights, engineering responsibility, liability and general terms survive to the extent relevant, as do accrued rights.
9.8 Project files, drawings and commercially confidential information you supply for support remain yours and will be treated as confidential. We may use them only as reasonably necessary to investigate and resolve your support request, with access limited to people who need it for that purpose and are subject to appropriate confidentiality obligations. We will not use them for demonstrations, publicity or unrelated product development without your separate permission. This obligation does not prevent disclosure required by law or apply to information already lawfully public or independently obtained without a duty of confidentiality.
10. Consumer purchases and cancellation
10.1 A consumer is an individual acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession. Describing the Software as intended for business use does not remove consumer rights where you are legally a consumer.
10.2 Nothing in this agreement excludes or restricts rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or other applicable consumer law, including rights concerning satisfactory quality, fitness for an agreed purpose, conformity with description, repair or replacement, price reduction and damage caused to devices or other digital content, where applicable.
10.3 Where a statutory cancellation period applies to a digital-content purchase, you normally have 14 days from conclusion of the contract to cancel. We may begin supply during that period only after obtaining your express consent to immediate supply and your acknowledgement that you will lose the statutory cancellation right once supply begins. We will confirm that consent and acknowledgement in a form you can retain. Accepting this agreement alone is not that separate consent and acknowledgement.
10.4 Where the required consent and acknowledgement have not been obtained, your statutory cancellation rights remain as provided by law. Any separate refund promise in clause 1.3 remains available on its terms. To cancel or report a problem, contact support@hamwic.com with your order details.
11. Privacy and general terms
11.1 You retain control of your projects and Output. The documentation and privacy notice at https://www.hamwic.com/privacy describe any personal information processed for purchases, licence administration, support, updates or diagnostic functions. Any transmission of project information or diagnostic data must be disclosed before it occurs, together with any applicable choice or consent. Information you choose to send when requesting support will be handled under that notice.
11.2 Licence records may identify the licensee, Named User and email address. We process customer information in accordance with applicable UK data protection law. Do not send confidential project material for support unless you are authorised to do so. The current activation and connectivity requirements must be disclosed in the product information before purchase.
11.3 Formal notices under this agreement may be sent by email to support@hamwic.com or to the customer contact address recorded for the licence. Keep your contact details current. A notice takes effect when received; a failed-delivery message is not evidence of receipt.
11.4 This agreement, the Order and applicable Third-Party Notices form the agreement concerning the Software. Product descriptions and pre-contract information remain binding where required by law. Nothing excludes liability for fraud or rights arising from statements that cannot lawfully be excluded. Any additional commitment must be recorded in writing by an authorised representative.
11.5 If a provision is invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply so far as possible. A delay in enforcing a right does not waive it. No person other than you and us may enforce this agreement under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. This does not restrict rights under separate third-party licences.
11.6 You must comply with applicable export and sanctions laws in your use or distribution of the Software.
11.7 This agreement is governed by the law of England and Wales. For business customers, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. For consumers, this does not remove mandatory protections or rights to bring proceedings in the courts available under applicable law, including the courts of their home jurisdiction where entitled.
11.8 The English version of this agreement is authoritative. Any translation is provided to assist understanding, subject to mandatory local law. This does not exclude rights arising from inaccurate or misleading translated information where those rights cannot lawfully be excluded.