Cask Sale Agreement.

This is an agreement for the sale of one specifically identified whole Scotch whisky cask between THE WHISKY INDEX LTD (company number 17216416, registered office 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ), trading as The Whisky Index ("we", "us"), and the buyer named at checkout ("you"). We sell as principal: each cask is sourced from our supplier at the point of sale, and this agreement is with us directly, not an introduction to a third party, and not a brokered or intermediated sale.

In this agreement, "Castlelaw" means Castlelaw Bonded Warehouses (Glenrothes) Ltd (company SC725388), the bonded warehouse where your cask is registered in your name; "registration" means Castlelaw transferring your cask into your account there, so that its own records show you as the owner (Sections 8 and 9), and "registered" has the same meaning; and "our supplier" is the business we buy your cask from.

You are buying one whole, uniquely identified cask of Scotch whisky. If your cask has a cask number when you buy, its distillery, cask type, strength and volume are confirmed to you at checkout, and its cask number in your cask schedule and order confirmation once you have paid; otherwise:

You are buying a cask that matches its listed description: its distillery, cask type, fill year and size. Its cask number comes from the supplier's delivery order and is confirmed to you before the cask is registered in your name. If the cask on the delivery order does not match that description, you can cancel for a full refund.

The cask is at the bonded warehouse named on your order confirmation at the time of sale. There is no pooling, fractional ownership, or shared interest of any kind: you own the entire, specific cask, and no other buyer has any interest in it.

Once you have paid, we issue you a cask schedule naming the specific cask this agreement is for: its distillery, cask number, cask type, strength, volume and warehouse. For a cask bought on its description, the schedule gives its listing reference and listed description in place of the cask number, which is to follow from the supplier's delivery order, before registration. From that moment that cask is set aside for you and is the goods under this agreement; ownership then passes to you as set out in Section 8. If you agreed to allow a sister cask under Section 6 and one is needed, we issue a replacement schedule naming it before anything is transferred.

This sale does not include physical delivery, import, or bottling of the cask to you, in any country. The cask remains under bond throughout, at whichever bonded warehouse holds it at the time (see Section 9 on moving it to Castlelaw). If you ever want it bottled, exported, or physically moved again later, that is a separate, future arrangement you make directly with the warehouse holding it, not something this agreement provides or promises.

The price shown at checkout is the full price of your cask. There are no fees or commissions on top, and no registration charge. Storage and insurance at Castlelaw for your first year are included (Section 13).

Prices may be shown to you in your own local currency, converted from our real GBP price using a daily exchange rate. Whichever currency is shown to you at checkout is the currency you are charged in, for the exact amount shown, locked at the moment of purchase, so it never changes between then and payment. Stripe does not support every currency; where it doesn't, the price reverts to GBP. A refund, if one is due, is made in the same currency and for the same amount you actually paid.

Payment is taken in full at the moment you buy, not authorised and captured later. Our contract for the sale of your cask is formed at that same moment: you pay, and we commit to obtaining your specific cask (or, in the rare case that isn't possible, an agreed sister cask: Section 6) and registering you as its owner at Castlelaw. A bank transfer instead settles once it reaches us, and is only available for purchases charged in GBP. We accept full, cleared payment only: no deposits, instalments, financing, buy now pay later, deferred settlement, or margin/leverage arrangement of any kind.

Your payment is taken by Stripe, our payment provider, and paid into our business bank account. Your payment clears: for a bank transfer, when Stripe, our payment processor, confirms it has received your transfer; for a card payment, when Stripe pays it out to our business bank account. We pay our supplier for your cask only once your payment has reached our business bank account. For a bank transfer, that is when Stripe pays it out to us, which can be a few working days after it clears. If you cancel, or a refund is otherwise due, we refund you in full from our own account, whether or not our supplier has already been paid.

You can pay by card or by bank transfer. The ways you can pay for your cask are shown before you pay. We ask for 3D Secure on every card payment. If you pay by bank transfer, use the unique reference we give you, so we can match your payment to your order automatically. There is no surcharge for any payment method.

You pay nothing for registering your cask in your name or for your account at Castlelaw. The price is for the whisky in the cask, supplied while it is held duty suspended in the warehouse, on which no VAT is charged, with storage and insurance at Castlelaw for your first year (Section 13).

We never change our bank details by email. Our bank details appear only on your signed order and in the checkout itself. If you receive a message asking you to pay a different account, do not pay it: call us on the number on our website.

As soon as you pay, we reserve your cask with our supplier and tell them which cask has sold, so they can issue the delivery order for it. We pay our supplier for your cask once your payment has reached our business bank account (Section 4). We set up your account at Castlelaw in your own name, free of charge (Section 10), so it is ready when your cask is transferred. You'll see this as "Paid. We're arranging your cask's transfer now" in your account, with the cask's details, your signed agreement, a live tracker, and a named contact if you need one.

Your cask is reserved at once. We aim to register your cask within 5 working days of your payment clearing. A bank transfer usually clears the same day. A card payment can take a few working days longer. Working days are Monday to Friday, other than bank holidays in England and Wales. Where the warehouse holding your cask needs notice before a cask can be moved, we show you that longer timeline on the cask page and at checkout, before you pay, and it is the timeline that applies to your order.

We check the cask is genuinely still available from our supplier at the point you buy, so this stage is expected to complete smoothly. On the rare occasion it turns out the cask has sold elsewhere since it was last confirmed (our supplier's stock list is updated weekly), we move to a sister cask if you chose to allow one, or refund you in full (Section 6), never leaving you paying for a cask that no longer exists.

At checkout you can choose to allow a like-for-like sister cask if your original cask turns out not to be available. It is your choice, and the box starts unticked. A sister cask is from the same distillery, is the same cask type, was filled within 12 months of your original, and holds no less pure alcohol. Your signature at checkout (Section 12) then covers the transfer of your original cask or its sister, whichever one you end up owning.

A sister cask will never cost you more than you already paid. If its price is the same as or lower than what you paid, we refund you the difference within 14 days. If it is higher, we absorb the difference ourselves; nothing further is ever charged to you.

If you did not choose to allow a sister cask, or no suitable sister is available, you get a full refund, to the same payment method, within 14 days of our telling you that your cask is not available, with no deductions. If we ask you whether you would like a sister cask and you do not reply, we refund you in full: silence always means a refund, never a substitution.

Our timeline counts from the moment your payment clears (Section 4). We reserve your cask (or its agreed sister) at once. We aim to register your cask within 5 working days of your payment clearing. A bank transfer usually clears the same day. A card payment can take a few working days longer. Where the warehouse holding your cask needs notice before a removal, the longer timeline shown to you before you paid applies instead. Your order page shows the expected date as soon as your payment clears.

If your cask is not registered in your name within 5 working days of your payment clearing (plus any removal notice shown to you before you bought), you can cancel with one click, at any time until your cask is registered in your name. If you cancel, we refund you within 14 days, in full, to the same payment method. You are never asked to contact us or wait for a manual decision.

Ownership of your cask, and the risk in it, pass to you when the warehouse that registers your cask (Castlelaw, or the bonded warehouse holding it, as your cask's listing shows: Section 9) confirms that the cask is registered in your name in its own records (registration). That confirmation is the step that makes your ownership real and legally complete, not this agreement itself, not payment, and not any earlier confirmation from us. Until then, the cask is at our risk, not yours.

We warrant that we have the right to sell you the cask you end up owning (your original choice, or an agreed sister cask), and that when it is registered in your name it is free of any charge, lien, or other claim by a third party. After that, Castlelaw's Standard Conditions give it a lien over the goods it stores for any money owed to it for storing them (Section 13).

If we cannot obtain your cask or a suitable sister, or cannot register you as owner at all, you get a full refund: see Sections 6 and 7 for exactly when and how.

Each cask's listing states, before you buy, how your cask will be registered in your name: (a) if your cask is already at Castlelaw, Castlelaw registers it in your name there; (b) if your cask is at another bonded warehouse, either that warehouse registers it in your name first and we then move it, in bond and at our own cost, to Castlelaw, or we move it, in bond and at our own cost, to Castlelaw first and Castlelaw then registers it in your name, as the listing shows.

How registration works: our supplier issues a delivery order for your cask. We countersign that delivery order only once your payment has cleared and we have paid our supplier, and send it to the warehouse that registers your cask. Only that warehouse can transfer the cask into your account; Castlelaw does so for a cask held there, and you are notified when your cask arrives in your account. That transfer is the registration described in Section 8.

Any removal notice the warehouse holding your cask needs is shown to you before you buy (Section 5). The cask is at our risk until registration, and while we move it after registration: if it is lost or damaged before then, or during that move, that is our loss, not yours, and you get a sister cask (if you chose to allow one) or a full refund (Sections 6 and 7).

We set up your Castlelaw account in your own name, free of charge; we can't access it, and you're notified when your cask arrives. To set it up we give Castlelaw your name, address and email, and proof of identity only if Castlelaw requires it. We invite you to the account, where you can see your cask's warehouse records.

Your account with us is separate. We do not hold, see or use your Castlelaw account, and we never ask for its login details.

Section 9 describes the delivery order our supplier issues and we countersign, an internal instruction to the warehouse that you never hold or present. This section is about something different: anything issued or made available to you, this agreement itself, any confirmation, notification, or dashboard record.

None of those is, or functions as, a warehouse receipt, document of title, delivery order, or negotiable instrument. None can be transferred, endorsed, or presented by you or anyone else to claim, move, or release your cask, and none confers any right beyond what is stated in this agreement. The warehouse acts on your verified identity and its own current records, not on presentation of any document you hold.

As part of accepting this agreement at checkout, you sign, by typing your name, your consent to the transfer of your cask (or, if you chose to allow one under Section 6, its sister) into your name at the warehouse. Your signature also records your agreement that, if you cancel after your cask is registered to you, you will authorise its transfer back (Section 14). We record your typed name together with the date, time, and the IP address you signed from.

Storage and insurance at Castlelaw are included for your first year. From your second year they cost £100 a year per cask.

Your first year runs from the day your cask is registered in your name. We pay Castlelaw for it.

Castlelaw stores your cask under its Standard Conditions, which we show you before you pay. They include a lien over the goods it stores for any money owed to it for storing them.

Castlelaw recommends a regauge for casks over 5 years old; it costs £50 plus VAT. Removing casks from Castlelaw costs £20 a cask plus VAT, for a removal of 5 casks or fewer. Other warehouse services, such as regauging, sampling or moving the cask again later, aren't included.

Your cask stays in bond, held duty suspended. We are not VAT registered. Casks are sold in bond, so no VAT or duty is due unless the whisky is removed from bond. Duty and VAT become payable only if the cask is removed from bond, and they are paid by whoever removes it. The Whisky Index never removes a cask from bond: a cask is only ever moved between bonded warehouses, in bond, so it passes to you without leaving bond.

You can cancel any time before the warehouse confirms registration, and for 14 days after. After that, your purchase is final and can no longer be cancelled for a change of mind, unless the law gives you longer. This doesn't affect your other legal rights.

The 14 days start on the day your cask is registered in your name (Section 8): Castlelaw notifies you when your cask arrives in your account. Registration also starts your 30 day right to reject the cask if it is not as described.

Every refund under this agreement is paid by us, from our own account: in full, with no deductions, to the same payment method you used, whether or not our supplier has already been paid.

If you cancel before your cask is registered in your name, we stop the transfer of your cask to you, or cancel it with Castlelaw, and refund you within 14 days of your cancelling. There is nothing for you to sign or pay.

If you cancel after your cask is registered to you, you agree to authorise its transfer back. We refund you within 14 days of the cask arriving back in our or our supplier's account, or within 14 days of you giving us evidence that you have instructed its transfer back, whichever is earlier. For your cask, that evidence is your signed instruction to Castlelaw to transfer it back. By buying, you agree that if you cancel after registration you will authorise that transfer back. Only you, as the owner, can instruct Castlelaw to transfer the cask, so we send you what you need to do that. Castlelaw transfers it back at no cost to you, so cancelling costs you nothing.

To cancel, use the cancel link in your account or contact us. You keep all your statutory rights, and you can use the model cancellation form if you prefer. This is in addition to the one click cancellation right in Section 7.

Because we are the seller here, we resolve a dispute about your payment ourselves. We review disputes using our own verification records and available transaction information. This is an internal review carried out by us, not a formal appeals process, and may result in refunding you or completing the sale, depending on the outcome. There is currently no separate escalation or appeal process within the platform after that decision.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is a process where an independent body looks at the facts of a dispute and tries to resolve it without you having to go to court. We are not obliged to use ADR and are not currently signed up to any ADR scheme, but we will always try to resolve a dispute directly with you first, using the process above. If we can't resolve your complaint, we will tell you so in writing, give you the name and website of an ADR body that could deal with it, and say whether we will use it.

Nothing in this agreement removes a right you have by law. Because we are the seller here, relevant statutory rights run directly against us.

This agreement is governed by the laws of England and Wales. If you live in a different country, the laws of England and Wales apply in addition to, and do not remove or reduce, any mandatory consumer protection rights you have under the law of the country where you live.

Nothing in this agreement, or anywhere on this platform, is investment advice. You are buying whisky, not an investment. Whisky casks are not regulated by the FCA. We make no claim about future value or resale price. We do not value, manage, resell or buy back your cask.