Terms and Conditions
Welcome to the Spanish School Hablamos. Below, we inform you of the terms and conditions that apply both to the website and to the services we offer in our Spanish courses, both face-to-face and online. By visiting us, enrolling in one of our courses or taking the free trial, you agree, unconditionally, to comply with the terms and conditions of use:
OBJECT OF THIS CONTRACT
The Spanish School Hablamos is a training section of Cambridge House S.L., a company dedicated to the teaching of languages, both online and face-to-face, with its registered office in Madrid, Spain. Cambridge House with CIF B-78589009 and registered office at Paseo de las Delicias 30, primera planta, Madrid 28045, SPAIN, was founded in 1987 in Madrid, Spain. It is registered in the Mercantile Register of Madrid, volume 36607, 1st entry on page number 12.103-2, folio 145, volume 7.989 general 679 of section 4 of the Companies Book. 2nd December 1987. Cambridge House S.L. is the owner of the domain www.cambridge-house.com and the domain www.escuela-hablamos.com.
Hablamos Escuela de Español establishes, by means of this document, a commercial agreement between Cambridge House S.L. and the user/owner who receives/contracts its services (the signatory and the beneficiary are not always the same in the case of minors). The courses and services offered on our website coincide with those set out in these terms and conditions.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COURSES OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE SCHOOL HABLAMOS
HABLAMOS offers various Spanish courses for foreigners in the following modalities: On-site courses: these courses can be Intensive: Intensive courses of 20 hours per week. Extensive Courses: 3 hours per week in the morning and afternoon. 3-hour evening Spanish course. Preparation classes for the DELE exam. Online Courses: these courses can be Extensive: 3 hours per week course. Online Spanish Express Conversation Course. Preparation classes for the SIELE exam.
PRICE POLICY: on our website you can find detailed prices for each course and frequency for each modality.
AGE RANGE FOR FORMALISING ENROLMENT
When enrolling, students must truthfully declare their date of birth. Our courses are for people aged 18 and over. 16 and 17 year olds can enrol with the consent of the responsible tutor and by contacting Hablamos to study this possibility.
The guardian will be the person responsible for the contract of services, as well as the person with whom the payment of the courses will be managed, never the minor. In the case of a contract with minors and guardians, there will be a specific acceptance box, in addition to the normal acceptance of the enrolment contract. This box will read as follows: As the owner and legal representative of the minor whose details appear in this contract, I declare that the details provided here are true.
Failure to accept the guardian’s authorisation to be responsible for the minor will be cause for cancellation of the service contract. Hablamos is not responsible for the fraudulent use of the date of birth of the contract holder.
ENROLMENT, AND ACCESS TO CLASSES IN OUR COURSES
To become a user of HABLAMOS Spanish courses, students must first take a written and oral level test. The written level test can be taken directly on our website: https://www.escuela-hablamos.com/en/test-your-level/. The result of this test will be sent to the secretary of the Hablamos school, and from there the student will be contacted to take a written test (writing a couple of paragraphs in Spanish), and the recording of an audio that the Hablamos school will automatically receive. With the analysis of these two tests, plus the written test previously carried out, the student’s level of Spanish will be determined. Once the level test has been taken, the student can enrol in one of the Spanish courses offered by Hablamos, and then pay for the course. This level test can also be taken in person at our centre. From that moment on, the student will have access to the digital campus and to the services contracted (both on-site and online students, once enrolled, will be able to access the Hablamos campus where they will be able to see their details, invoices, academic grades, certificates or diplomas, and other notifications). Once enrolled, and having paid for their courses in advance, students will be able to receive their classes online or in person, depending on the courses chosen. For certain courses, enrolment requires the payment of a deposit and/or registration fee, and this is sufficient to be enrolled, the rest of the course being paid the day before or the same day as the start of the Spanish course.
In order to access the Hablamos digital campus, the student will choose a username and password, complying with the complexity requirements indicated. It is the responsibility of the user to monitor and safeguard these passwords, preventing their misuse or access to the online courses by third parties. It is also the user’s responsibility to keep their personal information updated in their customer profile.
Course enrolment is not done by the student, the student does not self-enrol. This is done by telephone or in person by the secretary of the Hablamos school, or by email when the student receives an email with payment instructions and access to the Hablamos campus. The secretary of our online school will take the student’s personal details and fill in an enrolment contract with the student’s details and the details of the course in which he/she is going to enrol. The secretary of Hablamos and the student will do all the registration and payment of their courses.
USES OF OUR FACE-TO-FACE AND ONLINE SERVICES
Students enrolling in Hablamos courses have the right to use the services they have contracted. This use is for a private and non-commercial purpose, and must be for a lawful purpose, never for fraudulent purposes such as the use of robots, mobile phones or similar for the illegal extraction of content, data, programmes, etc. Hablamos will immediately terminate any student who has attempted or has made fraudulent use of our online and face-to-face courses and classes, and will activate the legal processes for the denunciation of these to the competent authorities.
In our online courses, as a requirement prior to enrolment, the student must check that they have the minimum connection requirements for this to work from the location or country in which the student is located.
In the event that the student has registered for our online Spanish courses without having checked the minimum connection requirements demanded by Hablamos, and is unable to access their classes, Hablamos will refund the course fee paid by the student, provided that it is within the first seven days of registration and no connection has been made.
If Hablamos is unable to provide its online or face-to-face classes on a permanent basis, and is unable to provide its service, it will refund the fees paid and not used until then.
Cambridge House S.L. and its Spanish language school Hablamos, reserves the right to suspend its Spanish courses at any time, always refunding the amounts that have been paid in advance and not used.
The contents of the courses and virtual campus may be modified, extended or improved without prior notice. Hablamos may also activate or deactivate certain services offered if it considers it convenient for a better quality and efficiency of the courses.
PAYMENT RULES FOR COURSES
All course fees of Hablamos are exempt from VAT, as Hablamos is a teaching company and has its registered office in Spain. According to Spanish law, teaching fees are exempt from VAT, based on art.20, par.1, nº9, of the law 37/92 of 28/12 of the VAT law art.7 R. Decr.1624/92. 7 R. Decr.1624/92.
All our courses are paid in advance by credit card. We do not refund any fees paid, unless the student suffers a justified illness that prevents him/her from studying and accessing our courses. This illness must be justified to the Hablamos customer service department.
The letter of invitation, which is necessary to obtain the student visa, can only be issued by Hablamos once payment of at least 60% of the chosen Spanish course has been received. (In some cases we will ask for 100% of the amount in advance depending on the duration and characteristics of the contracted course). Once payment has been received, Hablamos will send the certificate of enrolment to the student by email and by post if required, at the student’s own expense. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that he/she completes the paid course on the dates that the visa allows. Hablamos is not responsible for making up or offering these missed classes at a later date.
At Hablamos we strive to help all our students to make their stay with us as positive as possible. We also do our best to help them in all matters relating to obtaining a visa, but the decision to grant a visa depends exclusively on the Embassy and Consulate and it is they who make the final decision. The student is responsible at all times for the visa application process, and therefore Hablamos is not responsible in cases of visa refusal, as the granting of a visa does not depend on the school.
In the event that the visa is denied, and the student has paid 60% of the course fee in advance (or the percentage that has been stipulated for your course), Hablamos will refund the total amount paid by transfer to the student’s account, minus 150 euros for administrative costs incurred in processing the application. If the student later obtains the visa by enrolling in a course at Hablamos, this amount will be deducted from the course fee.
If the student cannot attend the course due to a visa refusal, he/she will have to send to Hablamos the official document of refusal (with date, signature and stamp) issued by the Spanish embassy or consulate, clearly stating the name of the student, his/her passport number and the visa requested.
For the refund of the advance payment, the cancellation must be communicated to Hablamos in writing (together with the refusal document) at least 20 days before the start date of the course. If the cancellation is received less than 20 days before the course start date, no refund will be made. If the cancellation is due to a delay in the delivery of the visa to the student by the Spanish embassy of the country where it was requested, Hablamos will refund the amount of 60% of the course paid in advance, minus 150 euros for processing fees, as long as this delay does not exceed 30 days from the start of the course in which the student was enrolled. After this period, Hablamos will not refund the amounts given, as the places offered are no longer available.
For individual lessons, the student may cancel 24 hours in advance. After this period, the class will be charged. To notify the cancellation of a class, the student must always notify by email to clientes@escuela-habalmos.com, or once the email has been sent, by calling the Hablamos secretary’s office. Packs of hours for individual classes purchased by the student (pack of 10 classes, pack of 20 hours) must be used within one trimester (90 days) from the date of purchase in the case of the pack of 10 classes, and within 5 months (150 days) from the date of purchase in the case of the pack of 20 hours. Not all Hablamos teachers have full availability to give individual classes at all times. For this reason, it will be up to the student to adapt to the available timetables of our teachers.
Failure to pay the fees for the courses in which the student is enrolled in Hablamos will result in the termination of this contract due to non-fulfilment by the holder and the waiver of any reimbursement.
Cambridge House S.L. as the owner of the business and its Spanish language school Hablamos is responsible for the transactions on our website, but all payments are made through a secure payment gateway, independent of Cambridge House S.L., and managed by an external banking system. Cambridge House does not have access to store the credit card details of our students. These are always kept in the bank’s payment gateway.
The student, or parent or guardian for minors, when enrolling and making the first payment, does so by providing their bank card details on the payment gateway the first time. For courses that require a recurring payment, the following and successive payments will be recurring every 1st of the month. In other words, you will not have to pay them again. Example: if a student enrols on 12 January, his card will be charged at that time and on that day. In addition to the enrolment fee, they will pay the proportional part of the course for that month or the term in which they are enrolled. For subsequent payments, on the 1st of each month, your card with which you made the first payment will be charged the price of the course. These payments will stop automatically when the student cancels or finishes the course.
If, for whatever reason, the student’s next recurring payments are returned (expired, lost, stolen or cancelled card), the student’s access to the courses will be suspended until the outstanding payment is resolved. If it is not resolved, Hablamos reserves the right to automatically terminate the student’s access to the course.
This form of payment is the same for all Hablamos courses, whether they are intensive, summer intensive or extensive courses. When the student withdraws from the course, payments are always automatically cancelled.
The fees paid are for calendar months or quarters. They are independent of the number of class days, holidays, holidays, etc., that exist in that month or term. Nor can the fee be paid according to the days that the student can connect or attend classes. There is, therefore, no proportional payment of the fee. The only exception is proportional payment when the student registers, as the fee for that month will depend on the week of the month in which the student registers.
All Hablamos Spanish courses have an initial INSCRIPTION fee. This fee includes the reservation of the place, access to the Hablamos campus and the textbook. Each course may have a different registration fee. Textbooks are delivered to our school in person for face-to-face courses. For online courses, if it is not feasible to send a physical copy of the textbook, a digital copy of the textbook will be sent, a legal and licensed copy from the publisher. Some of the Hablamos courses, such as the conversation courses, do not include the textbook in the enrolment fee, and this is replaced by digital materials provided by Hablamos in the classes.
For long-term students, they will pay for the first time the enrolment fee which includes, as mentioned above, a course book. Once this course and book are finished, if the student wishes to take another course at Hablamos, he/she will no longer pay a new enrolment fee, but the price of the book itself, which will be published at the reception desk of Hablamos.
Hablamos permanently publishes its course prices on its public website and any other advertising medium. These prices also appear on the enrolment contract that the student obtains when registering with Hablamos. From time to time, Hablamos may offer commercial discounts to encourage potential customers to enrol in the school. These prices may not coincide with the prices that other students may have, and they cannot demand any compensation, as they are promotional and commercial prices.
Cambridge House S.L. and its Spanish language school Hablamos may modify the prices of its courses at any time, always respecting the prices agreed with the students already enrolled until the course in which they are enrolled ends. The possible modification of the prices in the following courses in which the student is enrolled will always be carried out in accordance with the prices announced on the public website.
HEALTH AND TRAVEL INSURANCE
Students who are citizens of the European Union must apply for a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) before travelling in order to have their health insurance organised.
Students who are not EU citizens will need to obtain a medical and liability insurance policy that is valid in Spain.
Obtaining these insurances is the sole responsibility of the students, and Hablamos cannot be held responsible for this situation in the event of a mishap. Hablamos has accident and liability insurance to cover possible incidents and minor accidents at the school.
CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
In the intensive courses of 20 hours per week, students have organised activities on Friday afternoons.
These activities in the city and at the school are always free of charge, paying only for drinks or entrance fees to museums when required.
Apart from these activities, excursions to different cities in Spain are organised at weekends. These excursions are not included in the courses, and students are free to join them, paying the fixed price stipulated for them.
IMAGE RIGHTS
Hablamos reserves the right to use audiovisual material taken during the time the student attends our courses, as well as in free activities organised by the school. These photos or videos may be used on Hablamos’ social networks, unless the student declares otherwise in an email to clientes@escuela-hablamos.com before the start of their classes.
CERTIFICATES AND DIPLOMAS
At Hablamos, at the end of the chosen course, once passed, students receive a diploma certifying their level of Spanish, as well as their level of attendance.
(Private language centres in Spain cannot issue official diplomas. Only diplomas certifying that the level has been passed and certifying the degree of attendance at the course). This diploma will be available digitally on the student’s campus.
UNSUBSCRIBE FROM OUR COURSES
The courses are automatically renewed according to the type of frequency of the chosen course: monthly, quarterly. If you do not wish to continue with us and want to unsubscribe, you have to write us an email to clientes@escuela-hablamos.com requesting your unsubscription. You will receive a call or email from our secretary to confirm that your cancellation has been processed.
You have a maximum of 48 hours before your course is due to be renewed to unsubscribe. Even if you have requested to unsubscribe a few days before, you will still be able to access your course until the last day of your subscription.
HOLIDAYS, OPENING TIMES AND GROUP OPENINGS
We will be closed on national and local holidays. The classes that coincide with these holidays and school holidays are not recoverable or deductible from the fee, as these holidays are obligatory rest days for our staff according to Spanish labour legislation. During Holy Week the school will be closed on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. On the Hablamos campus, students will have a document with the updated dates of national and local holidays for the current year.
The minimum number of students to open a group is 3. The maximum is 8 students for face-to-face courses and 8 for online courses. Hablamos reserves the right to close or merge groups if the number of students enrolled is less than 3. In the event of closing a class, the fees paid for the classes not taken will be refunded.
COEXISTENCE RULES
If the contract holder does not respect the most elementary rules of coexistence: proper hygiene, smoking and drinking inside the facilities, as well as not respecting teachers, students and other staff of the academy, thereby interfering in the normal development of classes, will be grounds for termination of this contract. It will also be grounds for termination of the contract if the student makes racist, homophobic or anti-LGTBI comments in Cambridge House/Hablamos, or comments against women and gender equality. Nor will sexist behaviour or behaviour involving sexual harassment towards our teachers, staff or other students be permitted. Cambridge House/Hablamos will denounce these acts if they occur in our facilities and will automatically terminate the enrolment contract.
Cambridge House and its school Hablamos have signed an Equality Plan and a plan against sexual harassment in the workplace, and is a strong advocate of the values of gender equality and respectful treatment among all students.