Returns, Cancellations & Refunds

Returns, Cancellations & Refunds

House of AshVed
Last updated: 20 August 2026

The short version

Cancel any time before dispatch and get every rupee back. If a work arrives damaged, wrong, or materially different from what we showed you, tell us within 72 hours and we will make it right at our cost. Beyond that, because every work is unique and irreplaceable, we don't operate an open returns window — instead we do the harder thing, which is to make sure you are certain before you buy, and to stand behind the work for as long as you own it.

1. Cancelling an order

Before dispatch — always, and without explanation. Write to us, message us on WhatsApp, or cancel from your account. We will refund 100% of what you paid, including any shipping charge, and we will initiate it within 24 hours.

After dispatch, before delivery. Tell us and we will try to intercept the consignment. If we succeed, you receive a full refund less the actual shipping cost incurred both ways. If we cannot intercept it, you may simply decline the delivery, and the same applies.

Commissioned works. Cancel freely and in full before the artist begins. After you have approved the preliminary sketch, the deposit is committed to the artist's time — but it stays yours in value: we will hold it as a credit against any other work in our collection for 12 months. Full details in our Terms of Service.

2. If something arrives wrong

Please tell us within 72 hours of delivery, at care@houseofashved.com or on WhatsApp, with photographs of the outer packaging, the packing material, and the work itself.

That applies if:

  • The work is damaged in transit.
  • The wrong work or wrong item was sent.
  • The work materially differs from the specific photographs and video we sent you — in size, medium, colouring or condition.
  • Something we listed as included is missing — the certificate of authenticity, the artist's note, a frame, a mount, a stand.

What happens next. A named member of our team takes ownership of it the same working day. We will offer you, and you choose:

  1. A replacement — an equivalent work, where one exists.
  2. Restoration — where the work can be properly conserved and you would like to keep it, arranged and paid for by us, with your approval of the conservator.
  3. A full refund, including all shipping charges you paid.

We arrange and pay for collection of the work. We deal with the courier and the insurer. You are not asked to file a claim, chase a carrier, or wait for anyone else's process to finish before we settle with you.

We ask only that you keep the packaging until the matter is closed — insurers do ask for it.

3. Where a return does not apply

Because each work is one of a kind and irreplaceable, we do not accept returns simply for a change of mind after delivery, or in these cases:

  • Natural variation in handmade work — weave, texture, tone, small irregularities and the marks of the hand. These are described in our Terms of Service and are not defects.
  • Screen colour differences where we have already sent you daylight photographs and video of the actual work.
  • Damage after delivery — accidents, mishandling, unsuitable hanging, cleaning products, humidity or sunlight. Tell us anyway; see Section 6.
  • Commissioned and personalised works, unless they are damaged, defective, or materially different from the approved sketch.
  • Frames or mounting you specified, where they have been made to your instruction and are as specified.
  • Works reported to us more than 72 hours after delivery, though we will still look at anything you raise — the deadline helps us with insurers, and we would rather be generous than technical.

4. How you get your money back

We initiate refunds within 3 working days of approving your claim, and always within 7 working days.

  • Money goes back to the original payment method. Bank transfers go to the account the payment came from.
  • Your bank typically takes a further 5–7 working days to reflect it. We will send you the reference number so you can chase your bank with something concrete in hand.
  • International refunds are made in the currency of the original payment. Exchange rate movement between payment and refund, and any charges levied by your own bank or card network, are outside our control — but where the fault was ours, we will make up a genuine shortfall in the principal amount.
  • Payment gateway charges are absorbed by us in every case where we are at fault, and in every cancellation before dispatch.
  • Gift recipients. If you received a work as a gift and something is wrong with it, contact us directly. We will resolve it with you and never disclose the price paid. Any refund goes to the original purchaser, which we hope you'll understand.

5. Our authenticity guarantee — no time limit

This is the commitment we would want if we were the buyer.

If a work you bought from us is ever established not to be by the artist, art form, materials or period stated on our Certificate of Authenticity, we will refund the full amount you paid, in full, at any point in the future, and bear the cost of returning the work to us.

There is no expiry on this. It passes to whoever inherits the work from you. It is not a store credit and not an exchange unless you would prefer one.

How a claim works, so you know it is real:

  • Establishing it. A written opinion from a recognised authority on the art form — a museum curator, an academic specialist, a national craft institution, or the artist or their documented heirs. If we disagree with your expert, we jointly appoint one independent expert whose finding binds us both, and we pay that expert's fee. You will not need a lawyer.
  • What we need from you. The original Certificate of Authenticity and an account of where the work has been since it left us.
  • What it covers. Maker, art form, materials and period as stated on the certificate. Not condition, not quality, not value.
  • Timeline. We acknowledge within one working day, appoint the expert within 15 working days if one is needed, and pay within 7 working days of the finding.

We can make this commitment because we buy directly from the artists and artisan families themselves, and we keep the provenance record permanently. It is the single most important promise in these four documents, and we have deliberately made it the least hedged.

6. After you own it — what we still do

A gallery's job does not end at delivery. Ours doesn't.

Condition assessment. If a work is ever damaged in your care, we will assess it and connect you with a conservator we trust. The first assessment is free. Restoration is at cost, without margin to us.

Insurance and valuation documents. We will re-issue invoices, certificates and written valuations for your insurer, your estate planning or a lender, whenever you need them, at no charge.

Resale assistance. If your collection changes and you wish to sell a work you bought from us, come to us first. We will either introduce it to our collector network or, where we can, take it back into our collection. We charge a modest facilitation fee, disclosed to you before we start, and we account to the artist for the resale share the law gives them. We make no guarantee about resale price — see the note on art and money in our Terms of Service.

Trade-up credit. Where you wish to exchange a work for something more significant from our collection, we will apply [100%] of what you originally paid us as credit against the new work. This is how collections are actually built, and we would rather be part of that than pretend a first purchase is a final one.

How it works:

  • Available on works purchased at ₹1,00,000 or more for folk and tribal art, and ₹2,00,000 or more for contemporary art. Below that, the exchange effort outweighs what either of us gains from it — but see the note below if you've collected with us in smaller steps.
  • Available within [24 months] of your purchase of the work being traded.
  • The new work must be at least [twice] the price of the original. The credit is meant to help a collection grow, not to move sideways.
  • You may do this as often as you like. There is no limit on how many times you trade up, and no cap on where the ladder ends. A collection that moves from a first ₹50,000 piece to a major work over a decade is exactly what we hope to be part of.
  • Available against works by artists currently in our collection, since the credit works by placing your original piece with another collector.
  • The credit applies against a purchase at our listed price, not as cash, and is not combined with other offers.
  • The original must return to us in the condition it left, with its certificate. We will assess condition with you before you commit, not after.
  • Available to you as the original buyer, and not transferable.

Started smaller? If you've bought several works from us that together reach the relevant threshold, tell us — we're glad to combine them toward a single trade-up. We would rather welcome a growing collection than measure it one purchase at a time.

We honour the full price you paid, whatever has happened to the work's value since. We are able to do that because the credit is funded from a larger purchase, not from a promise about prices — which is also why we ask for the 2x uplift. We set these conditions out plainly because a credit without them would amount to a guarantee against a fall in value, which is something we have said elsewhere that we do not offer, and we would rather be consistent than flattering.

This is a collector programme rather than a term of sale, and we may revise it or close it to future purchases on 90 days' notice. Any credit you have already earned is honoured in full, whatever we do with the programme afterwards. We would rather tell you that now than surprise you with it later.

7. Corporate and bulk orders

Corporate gifting and interior projects run on their own terms, agreed in writing before we begin: staged payment, approval milestones, replacement of damaged units, and a defined window for reporting shortfalls against a purchase order. Ask for our corporate desk and we'll send the schedule.

8. If you are not satisfied with our answer

Escalate. We mean it.

Client care: care@houseofashved.com
WhatsApp:  +91 9321059393
Grievance Officer: Harish Tamboli, grievance@houseofashved.com, +91 9998011315

We acknowledge every complaint within one working day and resolve within one month, in line with the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020. Our working days are [Monday to Saturday]. Nothing in this policy limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

Every timeline on this page is a commitment, not an aspiration. If we ever miss one, tell us — a published standard we don't keep is worse than one we never published.

9. Discretion, and how we use it

Some situations won't fit neatly into any of the above. Where that happens, we will decide reasonably, in good faith, and in your favour where the position is genuinely unclear. We would far rather lose the value of one work than lose a collector's trust — a folk-art tradition that has survived three hundred years deserves a custodian who thinks in those terms.