Terms of business

§1 Scope and parties

The contract is between Privatinstitut Falkenberg e.K., Sigismundkorso 41, 13465 Berlin (the institute) and the person commissioning the tutoring, ordinarily a parent or guardian (the client). Where the pupil is under 18 the contract is concluded exclusively with the guardian.

No contract arises from an enquiry through this website, from the first meeting, or from any statement on these pages. A contract arises only when the institute sends a written engagement letter and the client confirms it in writing or in text form.

§2 Subject of the contract

The institute owes individual teaching by a qualified tutor to the extent agreed in the engagement letter, together with a written session log and a monthly written report.

The institute owes a service, not a result. It does not owe, and does not warrant, any particular mark, grade, examination result, transfer decision or place at a school or university. Any statement to the contrary is not part of the contract.

§3 The tutor

The institute allocates one named tutor to each pupil and keeps that allocation for the term of the engagement.

The institute may replace the tutor where the tutor is unavailable for a prolonged period or where the working relationship is not productive. The client may request a change of tutor at any time, without giving reasons and without charge; the institute will carry it out within fourteen days or, if it cannot, will give the client the right to terminate under §7 with immediate effect.

§4 Sessions, place and time

Sessions take place at the client's address at an hour agreed for the term. A session lasts sixty minutes unless the engagement letter provides otherwise.

The client provides a quiet, lit working place with a table and shall ensure the pupil is present and ready at the agreed time. Where a session cannot begin on time for reasons within the client's sphere, the session ends at the agreed time nonetheless and is charged in full.

§5 Fees and payment

Fees are those in the engagement letter and correspond to the published prices: home tutoring 60 minutes €95; Abitur mentoring 20 hours €1,790; Gymnasium Probejahr coaching €1,290; exam-week intensive €640. Prices are final; teaching is exempt from VAT under §4 no. 21 lit. b UStG.

Travel within Reinickendorf and Pankow is included. Elsewhere in Berlin a travel contribution of €12 per session applies, agreed in the engagement letter.

The institute invoices monthly in arrears. Invoices are payable within fourteen days by bank transfer without deduction. The institute does not take direct debits or card details.

On default, statutory default interest applies. The institute will send one reminder without charge before taking any further step.

§6 Cancellation of a single session

The client may cancel a session free of charge up to 24 hours before its start, in text form or by telephone. Inside 24 hours, 50 per cent of the session fee is due.

Where the pupil is ill and the institute is told before the session begins, nothing is charged, and no medical certificate is required.

Where the institute cancels, nothing is charged and a replacement hour is offered in the same or the following week. If no replacement is possible, the hour is credited to the next invoice.

§7 Term and notice

Open-ended engagements may be terminated by either party at any time with two weeks notice in text form. Programmes with an agreed end under §2 end on that date without notice and do not renew.

The right of both parties to terminate for cause without notice remains unaffected. Cause for the institute includes, in particular, conduct towards a tutor that makes continued teaching unreasonable, and payment more than 30 days in arrears after a reminder.

§8 Right of withdrawal for consumers

Where the contract is concluded exclusively by distance means, the client as a consumer has a statutory right of withdrawal of fourteen days under §§312g, 355 BGB. The engagement letter contains the full withdrawal instruction and the model withdrawal form.

Where the client expressly requests that teaching begin during the withdrawal period, the institute is entitled on withdrawal to a proportionate amount for the sessions already given.

§9 Tutor profile access codes

An access code issued after a confirmed enquiry is a courtesy and grants no rights beyond the display of tutor surnames and portraits on this website for thirty days. Codes are personal to the recipient and are not to be published. The institute may deactivate a code that is published, and the display carries no warranty of availability.

§10 Confidentiality and child protection

The institute and its tutors treat everything they learn about a family as confidential without limit of time, including after the engagement ends.

Where a tutor has concrete grounds to believe that a child is at risk of significant harm, the institute will act on it, involving the guardians and, where necessary, the responsible public authority. The institute will tell the pupil that it is doing so. This duty overrides confidentiality and cannot be waived by the client.

§11 Liability

The institute is liable without limitation for injury to life, body or health, for intent and gross negligence, and under the Product Liability Act.

For slight negligence the institute is liable only for breach of an obligation whose fulfilment makes proper performance possible in the first place and on whose fulfilment the client may regularly rely, and then only for foreseeable damage typical of this kind of contract. Liability is otherwise excluded.

The institute is not liable for the academic outcome of any examination, assessment or transfer decision.

§12 Written form, severability, law and venue

Amendments to the contract require text form. There are no oral side agreements.

Should a provision be or become invalid, the validity of the remainder is unaffected; the parties will replace the invalid provision with a valid one that comes closest to its economic purpose.

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Mandatory consumer protection provisions of the state in which the consumer is resident remain unaffected. Where the client is a merchant, the place of jurisdiction is Berlin.

The institute is neither obliged nor willing to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.