Terms of engagement

Before you pay

The fee is $1,200. That covers everyone in your household, all the research between our meetings, and the memo you keep.

If you decide before our first meeting that this isn't right, tell me and I'll refund you in full. After that first meeting I don't refund. A lot of the work happens between the meetings rather than in them, and by then it's underway.

This can end with "don't move," or "not yet." That's a real answer, it costs the same, and it's often the more useful one. Nothing here assumes you'll go.

What you're buying

An intake, completed online before we start. Each adult fills in their own, separately and without conferring — about half an hour. That separateness is the point, so please don't compare notes until we've met. Payment comes once your intakes are in and we've both agreed this is a fit, and before the first meeting.

Then three meetings by video, over about two to three weeks:

• The first, 75 to 90 minutes. No countries. Partly getting to know you — where you've come from, what you've already lived through, how you ended up here — because I can't hear what you say later with the right weight if I don't know what it's sitting on. Then how you actually want to live, what you're moving toward as against away from, and where your two intakes disagree.
• The second, 30 to 40 minutes, deliberately brief. The places that genuinely survive your constraints, walked through together. First reactions only. The brief goes home with you and the narrowing happens in your own time, at your own table, which is where that kind of thinking actually belongs. When you've settled on three, tell me — a text or an email is enough.
• The third, 75 to 90 minutes. The three you chose, in depth, and the decision rule: what you'll do next, by when, and what would change your mind.

And the memo, within five days of the last meeting: how you want to live in your own words, your three places with what each would cost you and what a scouting trip must test, the places I ruled out and why, my honest read on whether to go at all, and who to hire next.

The memo is yours. Nothing in it is provisional on your agreeing with it.

One part of the timeline is in your hands. The deep research starts when you send me your three, so if that takes you a fortnight, the two-to-three weeks does too. That's a feature, not a penalty — take the time you need and tell me if you need more of it.

What the intake is and isn't

I read both intakes. Nothing either of you writes is off-limits for our meetings, and I'll decide how and when it's useful to raise something. What I won't do is forward one of you the other's answers. My role there is conduit, not vault — if you write something you'd genuinely never want said aloud in the room, that's worth knowing before you write it.

What I don't do

I am not your lawyer, your accountant, or an immigration adviser, and nothing I give you is legal, tax, or immigration advice. We work at the level of discovery: for example, a residency path exists, here is roughly who it fits, here is what to verify and with whom. Before you act on any of it, hire the relevant professional in the relevant country.

I'll help you find those people. Once you've chosen somewhere, I'll point you toward lawyers and other providers there and hand you off with names where I have them. Those introductions are a starting point, not a vetting: you contract with them directly, on their terms, and I don't supervise or stand behind their work.

I take no fee, commission, or consideration of any kind from anyone I refer you to, ever. If a name reaches you from me, it is because I think it's the right name.

This is also not therapy, counselling, or any form of clinical care. It is consulting on a decision. No diagnosis is made, no treatment is offered, and no clinical record is created. If something surfaces here that belongs with a therapist, I'll say so plainly — that's where it belongs, and it isn't what you've engaged me for.

And I don't promise you'll move. I promise you'll be able to say why you chose what you chose.

Scheduling, and more time if you want it

Meetings are booked by agreement and held by video. If you need to move one, tell me as early as you can and I'll do what I can. A meeting missed without notice is a meeting used.

If you want more time — to make up a meeting, or simply because three isn't enough — you can add it at $300 an hour, subject to my availability. I'd rather you finish this properly than lose half of it to a bad week.

What stays between us

What you tell me stays with me. I don't reuse your material, quoted or paraphrased, in anything public. If I ever want to use an anonymised version of a memo as an example, I'll ask you first, and anonymised means details changed, not names removed.

Tax, and proof of where you live

The fee is stated in US dollars and is not subject to Portuguese VAT for clients domiciled outside the European Union. If you are domiciled in the EU, the engagement is priced in euros at €1,050 plus VAT at 23%, being €1,291.50, and you'll be sent that link instead.

Because that turns on where you actually live, I have to be able to show it. So before we begin I'll ask you for one document showing your name and your home address — a utility bill, a bank or card statement, a lease, something of that kind. The page with the address on it is enough, and you're welcome to black out account numbers and any financial detail before you send it.

Portuguese law requires me to keep tax records for ten years, so that document is kept for that period. It is used for nothing else and seen by no one but my accountants.

Who you're contracting with

Wesley J Gosselin LDA, a company registered in Portugal. Payment is processed by Stripe; the invoice you receive is issued by the company under Portuguese law.

Changes

If these terms change, the change applies to engagements beginning after it. Yours is fixed at what you accepted when you paid.