Returns & cancellation
You have 14 days from the day your tree arrives to change your mind, for any reason at all, and you do not have to explain yourself. Here is exactly how that works when the thing you are returning is alive.
Last updated 20 September 2026
Your right to cancel
Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 you may cancel your order within 14 days of the day you — or someone you nominated — receive the tree. You can also cancel at any point between placing the order and the tree arriving, in which case there is nothing to send back.
Something alive is in your care
A tree is a living thing. You keep your full 14-day right to cancel, but please tell us as soon as you can so the tree can be cared for.
Some sellers treat living plants as goods that spoil too quickly to be returned, and use that to refuse cancellations. We do not. A young tree in a pot is not a bunch of cut flowers: it keeps for weeks with a drink of water, so you keep your full 14-day right. Telling us early is a kindness to the tree, not a condition of your rights.
How to cancel
Email hello@deathtree.co.uk with your order number and say that you are cancelling. Any clear statement that you have decided to cancel is enough — there is no form to fill in, no reason to give and no particular wording we insist on. A letter to the address below works just as well, though email reaches us faster.
Your cancellation counts from the moment you send it, not from when we read it, so you are inside the 14 days as long as your message goes on time. We will reply to confirm and to tell you how to send the tree back safely.
Sending the tree back
Once you have cancelled you have 14 days to send the tree back to us. Please email us before you post anything: a tree needs packing upright with its compost held in place, and we would rather talk you through it than receive a broken one. We can often arrange a courier collection, which is usually safer and cheaper than posting it yourself; if we do, we will tell you the cost first and take it from your refund.
Who pays the return postage. If you are simply changing your mind, the cost of returning the tree is yours. If the tree arrived dead, damaged, unhealthy or not as described, the cost is ours — see below.
Please email us before sending anything back.The address below is our registered office, which is a chambers address rather than a plant nursery. We will confirm the right delivery address for your tree by reply, so it does not sit in the wrong place.
Acorn Reserve Ltd
Queen Street Chambers
68 Queen Street
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S1 1WR
England
When you get your money back
We refund you within 14 days of the day we receive the tree back, or of the day you give us proof that you have sent it — whichever happens first. If you cancelled before the tree was dispatched, we refund within 14 days of your cancellation.
The refund goes back to the card you paid with, through Stripe, and it includes the delivery charge you paid on the way out. We offer one delivery service, so there is no upgrade to argue about.
We may reduce a refund if the tree comes back damaged or planted-and-lifted, because we then cannot pass it on to anyone else. Ordinary care never counts against you: watering it, standing it outside, taking a photograph of it or reading the guide will not cost you a penny. If we ever propose a deduction we will explain it in writing first.
If your tree arrives dead, damaged or unhealthy
This is not a change of mind and it is not covered by the 14-day right — it is better than that. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 your tree must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If it is not, email hello@deathtree.co.uk with your order number and a photograph or two, and keep the packaging.
We will replace the tree or refund you in full, whichever you prefer, and we pay for getting the faulty tree back to us. There is no restocking charge and no deduction.
Once a healthy tree has arrived and settled in, how it fares depends on its position, the weather and its care, so we do not offer a survival guarantee. Our terms explain what happens if a tree fails later on, and how a replacement joins your record without erasing the first tree’s chapter.
Cancelling DeathTree Care
DeathTree Care is a yearly subscription at £39 a year. You can cancel it whenever you like from your account or by emailing us: it then runs to the end of the year you have paid for and does not renew.
When you first subscribe you also have 14 days to cancel under the 2013 Regulations. If you asked us to start straight away and we have already sent a care pack or done part of the work, we may charge for that part before refunding the rest.
If something is not right
Email hello@deathtree.co.uk and tell us what has happened. Nothing on this page reduces your statutory rights, and if anything here ever conflicts with them, your rights come first.
You may also want our delivery terms and our full terms and conditions.