Refunds & cancellations

1. Your money is held, not paid out

When you order, your payment is taken and held. It is normally released after handover is confirmed with the handover code. A verified customer non-collection may also be resolved under section 6, automatically for eligible undisputed cases or after review. A timer alone never releases payment or establishes fault.

2. If you cancel

The order deadline is set by each cook and shown on the order. It exists because shopping and prep start after it.

3. If the cook does not confirm

Every order must be confirmed by the cook within their confirmation window, shown on the order page. If they do not, the order is cancelled automatically and refunded in full. You get a notification, you do not have to ask, and no fee is charged.

4. If the cook cancels

A cook can cancel a confirmed order — illness, an ingredient that turned out bad, a kitchen emergency. You are refunded in full, immediately and automatically, and no service fee is taken. Cancellations count against a kitchen's record; repeated ones lead to warnings and, if they continue, suspension.

5. If a kitchen closes or a dish is withdrawn

Orders can be placed days ahead, so plans sometimes change at the kitchen's end. If a cook closes a day at short notice, or takes a dish off the menu for a day you had already paid for, that order is cancelled and refunded in full automatically and you get a message apologising. The same happens if the cook lets the confirmation window run out. In none of these cases do you need to ask, and no fee is charged.

6. Missed collections and failed deliveries

• Your checkout shows the collection grace, courier waiting time, returned-meal collection period and time to respond to a no-show report. These settings and your acceptance are saved with the booking. Later changes do not change existing bookings. Earlier orders follow their original terms and review process.
• A courier records arrival time and location accuracy at the agreed address. This supports an arrival attempt, not proof that you received the meal. Early arrival does not start waiting before your booked window. The courier follows access instructions and records a contact attempt; an unanswered call is not treated as a conversation.
• If you cannot be reached after the waiting period, a return for collection is available only if you accepted it at checkout and the kitchen can safely receive the meal. You are told when it is returning, then separately when the kitchen has physically received it and confirmed safe storage, the collection address and deadline. Do not travel until that confirmation. No return, redelivery or other additional charge is imposed automatically.
• For original or returned collections, contact the kitchen if you are late. You can request one bounded extension; it applies only when the kitchen confirms continued safe availability and opening time. A trusted collector may use your handover code on your behalf. Never share the code before physical receipt.
• Reminders follow your notification preferences. After a missed collection the kitchen records contact and availability evidence, and you have the stated response period to report a problem. Ordinary cases can resolve without Admin. Automatic adverse settlement requires timely reliable evidence, a successfully processed notice, no challenge, and the kitchen's confirmation that reasonable unrecoverable costs equal or exceed the payment retained, with no resale or known exceptional circumstances. Time or GPS alone is insufficient.
• Unclear evidence, partial losses, late kitchen or courier service, failed notification processing and challenged outcomes require clarification. Unresolved exceptions go to support. Unsettled money is held during that process; money already paid cannot always be frozen or recovered immediately. You may still challenge a decision after the response period.
• A supported no-show allocation uses the existing payment, service-fee and banking-cost rules. No new penalty is added and a no-show is never recorded as a completed meal. Unpaid cash creates no payment receipt, cook payout or completed-order fee debt, and no-show orders earn no completion rewards or meal-review eligibility.
• Kitchen or courier failures follow the applicable refund rules. Statutory rights and exceptional circumstances remain protected. Any cancellation charge must be reasonable under the law that applies to your order. Dispute privately with support rather than posting medical details to kitchen chat. These terms do not exclude applicable delivery rights.

7. Something wrong with the food

Report a problem from the order page, ideally within 24 hours and always within 48 hours. Tell us what was wrong and add a photo if you can. We read the order, the chat and both accounts, and decide within a few working days.

8. How refunds are paid

Refunds go back to the original payment method. We start them within one working day of the decision; your bank usually shows the money in 3–10 working days. HomeChefs does not retain its —% service fee on a fully refunded order; where an order is partly refunded, the fee is recalculated on what remains. The payment provider's banking, card-processing and payout charges are separate and are not included in that percentage split. The administrator may change the service-fee percentage at any time. The figure shown here is the current figure for new orders; an order already placed keeps the fee recorded when it was created.

If you used a kitchen's reward points on the order, they come back to your balance with the refund, and any points the order would have earned are removed. On a partial refund both are adjusted proportionately.

9. Cash orders

Where a kitchen accepts cash at handover, no money passes through HomeChefs, so we cannot refund it. Cancelled or unconfirmed cash orders simply cost you nothing. If a cash order goes wrong after handover, we will help mediate with the cook and act on the kitchen's record, but the repayment itself is between you and the cook.

10. The 14-day withdrawal right

EU consumer law gives a 14-day right to withdraw from most distance purchases. It does not apply to food prepared to a consumer's order or to goods that spoil quickly, and it does not apply to a service delivered at a specific time. Meals on HomeChefs fall into those exceptions, so the cancellation rules above apply instead. Nothing on this page limits your rights where an order was faulty or not as described.

11. Disputes and chargebacks

If you disagree with a decision, reply to it and we will look again, with a different person where possible. Please come to us before asking your bank for a chargeback — a chargeback freezes the cook's payout, takes weeks, and we can usually resolve it in days. Contact: support@home-chefs.app with your order number.