Terms and Conditions — Advisory and Consultancy Services

1. Who we are

Nozick Consulting Limited, a company incorporated under the laws of Malta, registration number C115987, with its registered office in Birkirkara, Malta.

• Address: Level 2B, Centris Business Gateway II, Triq is-Salib tal-Imriehel, Zone 3, Central Business District, Birkirkara CBD3020, Malta
• Email: contact@nozickconsulting.com
• Telephone: +31 800 0234 306
• WhatsApp: +31 6 5120 9088

In these terms, "we", "us" and "our" mean Nozick Consulting Limited, and "you" means the client.

Meetings are conducted by Toine Manders. Other members of our firm may work on the preparation and on written advice. If someone works on your file at a different rate, or if we want to involve an external specialist, we will tell you in advance.

2. What these terms cover

These terms apply to our advisory and consultancy services: the appointments you book through our website (video call or in-person meeting), the preparation for them, and any written advice or follow-up work arising from them.

They do not apply to our online products. Those have their own separate terms:

An overview of all our terms is at nozickconsulting.com/conditions.

Where we enter into a separate engagement letter or agreement for a larger or longer-running matter, that agreement prevails over these terms to the extent they differ.

3. How an engagement starts

You book online. You choose the type of meeting (a Zoom video call, or an in-person meeting during one of Toine's visits to the Netherlands), the length, and a time from our availability. You then provide your details.

What we ask for when you book:

• your name, email address and telephone number;
• whether you want to be invoiced as a private individual or in a company's name, with the corresponding address, and for a company also the VAT number and the Chamber of Commerce number (or its foreign equivalent);
• what the meeting is about, and a short description of your situation;
• a copy of your passport or identity card (mandatory, see below);
• optionally, documents you want to share in advance (see sections 5 and 7).

The appointment is confirmed once you receive the confirmation email. It sets out the date and time, the hourly rate, the joining link or the location, and a personal link that lets you reschedule, cancel, add or remove guests, and manage shared documents yourself.

Identity verification. When booking, you upload a copy of your passport or ID card. An automated check assesses whether it is genuinely a legible, real identity document (not a specimen or sample) and whether the name on it matches the name you entered. If there is a clear discrepancy you will not be able to complete the booking and we will ask you to try again. This check serves our own interest: we want to know who we are advising. It is not the same as the statutory KYC/AML identification — see section 4.

When we decline an engagement. We may refuse or cancel an appointment if the subject falls outside our field, if there is a conflict of interest, if the identity check is inconclusive, or if the required KYC/AML documentation for a longer engagement cannot be completed. If we cancel before the meeting, we charge nothing.

Guests. You may invite up to 3 guests to your appointment — for example your partner, your accountant or a business partner. There is no extra charge for this. Guests receive their own invitation and can confirm or decline; only you can reschedule or cancel the appointment itself.

4. KYC/AML for longer engagements

For an introductory or orientation meeting, the identity check in section 3 is sufficient.

If you proceed to written advice or a longer-running engagement, we are required under Maltese anti-money-laundering legislation to carry out full customer due diligence (KYC/AML). We will then ask you for additional documents and information. We can only start that work once the due diligence is complete. For such an engagement we record the assignment separately in writing and we may ask for an advance payment or payment up front. If we do, we agree the amount with you beforehand.

How long we keep your identity document. Two rules pull against each other here. Data protection law says: keep it no longer than necessary. Anti-money-laundering law says, for clients we have a business relationship with, the opposite: keep it until five years after that relationship ends. We resolve it as follows:

• If it stays at a single introductory meeting, the copy is deleted automatically 180 days after the appointment.
• If there is more to it (several appointments, shared documents, or a KYC/AML trajectory), we keep the copy for as long as anti-money-laundering legislation prescribes.

In both cases we do keep the outcome of the identity check — that a check took place, when, which document type and which name was on it — even after the image itself has been deleted. See also our privacy statement.

5. Rates and billing

You pay an hourly rate, not a fixed price per appointment. The rate that applies to your appointment is shown while you book and stated in your confirmation email. The rate for an in-person meeting is higher than for a video call. All rates are excluding VAT. We may change our rates; for an appointment already booked, the rate in your confirmation email always applies.

We bill on the actual duration, not the reserved time. The length you choose when booking is a schedule, not a price. If the meeting is shorter, you pay less. If it runs over, you pay more. For video calls we derive the actual duration from Zoom's own call data; for in-person meetings we record it ourselves.

We may deduct time not spent on your matter from the invoice — we do that in your favour and you do not have to ask for it. Conversely, we never charge more than the time actually spent.

Preparation time is charged. If you share documents in advance, we reserve reading time based on the number of pages: approximately 3 minutes per page, rounded up to the nearest 5 minutes. For one page or less we reserve no time. How much preparation time we reserve, and roughly what it costs, is shown in the booking form before you confirm, and is repeated in your confirmation email. That time is billed at the same hourly rate.

If you do not want us to read a particular document in advance, you can exclude it from the preparation using your personal link. The reserved time and the cost then go down.

Invoicing and payment. We invoice in euros from Malta. We do not necessarily invoice every meeting separately: several meetings and other work within the same engagement may appear on one invoice. Six meetings about the same emigration might therefore produce six invoices, but equally one or two — whichever is most practical at the time. The invoice always specifies which meetings and which work it covers, with the date and duration, so you can check it. The payment term is 14 days from the invoice date. In the event of late payment we are entitled to charge statutory (commercial) interest and reasonable collection costs, and we may suspend further work.

If an invoice remains unpaid. In practice we follow a set schedule, so that you are never caught out and always know what the next step is:

Cannot pay right now? Just get in touch. This schedule is meant for the situation where someone neither pays nor responds. If you cannot pay at the moment, or something about the invoice is not right, simply let us know — at any point in this process, including after a reminder has already been sent. We will then look for a solution together, for example paying in instalments. We would much rather have a conversation about it than involve a debt collection agency.

VAT. The VAT we charge depends on where you live or are established and on whether you purchase as a private individual or as a business. The applicable regime and rate are stated on your invoice. If you hold a valid EU VAT number, provide it when booking; we verify it automatically, and if it is valid the VAT may be reverse-charged.

6. Cancelling and rescheduling

Free of charge up to 24 hours in advance. You can reschedule or cancel your appointment yourself using the personal link in your confirmation email. Up to 24 hours before the start time this is free of charge.

Within 24 hours. If you cancel within 24 hours of the start time, we may charge 50% of the reserved time at the agreed hourly rate. When you cancel we ask you for the reason.

Not attending. If you let the appointment pass without cancelling at all, we may charge 100% of the reserved time. The difference from a late cancellation is deliberate: someone who cancels still gives us a chance to use the time differently or help someone else, whereas someone who says nothing does not. So telling us you can't make it — even shortly beforehand — is always better than simply not turning up.

This is never automatic. A late cancellation or a no-show is only flagged internally; a colleague then assesses case by case whether we actually charge anything. In practice we look at the reason and at whether it happens repeatedly. On a second late cancellation or no-show within twelve months we will contact you to discuss it.

If we reschedule. If we have to reschedule or cancel an appointment (for instance due to illness or force majeure), we charge nothing and arrange a new time with you.

Documents can be submitted up to 24 hours in advance, so that there is time to read them. If you want to share something after that, please contact us.

7. What we need from you

Accurate and complete information. Our advice is based on what you tell us and provide to us. You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of that information. If information is missing or incorrect, the advice may be wrong or unusable — and that is not for our account (see section 11).

Please also tell us if something in your situation changes during the engagement.

Documents. You can share up to 10 documents per appointment, until 24 hours before the start. Please make sure you are entitled to share those documents with us.

A document you upload is retained. If you take a document out of the preparation, that only means we will not read it in advance — the file remains in our records and is not deleted. If you want a document genuinely deleted, please contact us (see section 10 on your rights).

Identity document. The document you upload must be your own, valid identity document.

8. What we deliver — and what we do not

What we deliver: advice on your tax and asset position, based on the information you have provided and on the law and regulations as they stand at the time the advice is given.

What we expressly do NOT deliver, unless separately agreed in writing:

• implementation. We do not carry anything out for you. You remain responsible for taking decisions and implementing them.
• filings and registrations. We do not, as a matter of course, prepare tax returns or make registrations, deregistrations or notifications to any authority, and we do not monitor your deadlines. Exception: we can prepare an emigration tax return for you on request. We agree that separately and invoice it separately; it is not automatically included in an advisory meeting.
• legal representation. We do not act for you in objections, appeals or litigation.
• accountancy and audit. We do not prepare financial statements and do not perform audit or compilation work.
• advice on any law other than what we agreed. Advice on the tax consequences in one country is not advice on another country. See section 11.

A meeting is not written advice. What is discussed orally in a meeting is an exploration of your situation. If you need something you can rely on — towards an adviser, a bank or a tax authority — ask for written advice. We will then agree separately on scope, time and cost.

No guaranteed outcome. We will use our best efforts to advise you well, but we do not guarantee any particular tax outcome, or any particular position taken by a tax authority or a court.

9. Confidentiality — and what we cannot promise

We treat everything you share with us as confidential. We do not share it with third parties, other than with the people within our firm and the specialists we engage who work on your file, and other than where the law requires us to.

Please be aware of the following — we would rather say it up front than afterwards. In the Netherlands, tax advisers have no statutory legal professional privilege (verschoningsrecht), unlike lawyers and civil-law notaries. We therefore cannot successfully invoke professional privilege if a tax authority or a court requests information. What we record about you can in principle be demanded. In addition, reporting obligations may apply to us (among others under anti-money-laundering legislation).

We make no recordings and no transcripts of your meeting.

10. Personal data and documents

What we process. Your contact and billing details, your identity document, your description of your situation, the documents you share, and the data relating to your appointments and invoices.

Where it is held. We use, among others, Zoho (CRM, WorkDrive and Books), Google (Calendar and Drive), Zoom, and service providers for our website and email. Your documents are stored in our own digital file environment (Zoho WorkDrive) and, for the purpose of preparing the meeting, in a restricted folder in Google Drive. Your identity document is stored separately and does not appear in the calendar appointment.

Automated checking of your identity document. When you book, your uploaded identity document is automatically assessed for legibility, authenticity and name match, using a third-party AI service. No decision is taken about you beyond whether the booking can be completed; if in doubt you can always contact us and a person will assess it.

Automated preparation — only if you consent to it. From your description of your situation and the documents you share, we can produce an internal summary with the help of AI, to prepare for the meeting. This happens only if you explicitly consent to it when booking. If you do not, it does not happen — you can still book exactly as normal and nothing else about the appointment changes. You can withdraw your consent later.

The summary is for internal use only, is advisory in nature, and is always reviewed by the adviser. It is never shared with third parties and never forms the basis of advice on its own.

This is separate from the identity check above, which is mandatory and serves a different purpose (knowing who we are advising).

Retention period. We keep files and identity documents no longer than necessary, and no shorter than the statutory retention obligation that applies to us — for identification data that obligation arises from anti-money-laundering legislation.

Your rights. You can request access to your data, have it corrected, and in certain cases have it erased or have the processing restricted. To do so, submit your request via our contact form. If you disagree with how we handle your data, you can lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

11. Liability

This is the most important section for both parties. Please read it carefully.

What our advice is based on. Our advice rests on the information you provide. We do not independently verify that information and assume it is accurate and complete. If the information is incorrect or incomplete, we are not liable for the consequences.

Law and regulations change. Our advice reflects the law, the regulations and the published positions as they stood at the time the advice was given. We are not obliged to inform you of subsequent changes, and we are not liable for the consequences of such changes — including where they apply retroactively. If you want advice updated periodically, we will agree that separately.

One country is not every country. Advice on the tax consequences in a particular country is advice on that country only. It is not advice on the tax, legal or social-security consequences in any other country, even where those situations are connected. For advice on another jurisdiction we will refer you to an adviser qualified there; if we engage such an adviser ourselves, we do so for your account and risk and we are not liable for their work.

Advice is not implementation. As set out in section 8, you remain responsible for taking decisions, making filings and notifications, and monitoring deadlines.

Limitation of our liability. We do not carry professional indemnity insurance. We say so explicitly here, because it affects what you can expect from us if something goes wrong: our liability is capped at an amount proportionate to what you pay us for the work.

If you are acting in the course of a profession or business, our liability for all loss arising from or in connection with an engagement is limited to the fees we charged you in the twelve months before the event that caused the loss — or, where we entered into a separate written engagement letter for the work, the fees charged under that engagement.

If you are a consumer — that is, you are not acting in the course of a profession or business — we do not limit our liability any further than mandatory consumer law permits.

Connected events count as one. Loss arising from the same cause, or from a series of connected causes, counts as a single event to which the cap applies once.

Mandatory consumer law prevails. If you are a consumer, nothing in this section affects the rights given to you by the mandatory law of the country where you have your habitual residence. Where that law imposes wider liability than set out above, that law applies. See also section 12.

Excluded loss. We are not liable for indirect loss, consequential loss, lost profits, missed savings, or loss caused by business interruption. Penalties, interest and additional assessments that you would have owed in any event do not constitute loss.

What we never exclude. Nothing in these terms limits our liability for intent, wilful recklessness or gross negligence, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded under mandatory law.

Time limit for bringing a claim. Please notify us of any loss in writing as soon as possible after you discovered it or ought reasonably to have discovered it. Beyond that, the statutory limitation periods apply.

12. Governing law and disputes

Talk to us first. If you are dissatisfied, let us know via our contact form. We will respond as soon as we can, normally within five working days, and try to resolve it together. That is almost always faster than proceedings.

Governing law. Our agreement is governed by Maltese law.

Competent court. Disputes will be submitted to the competent court in Malta.

Exception for consumers. If you are a consumer, the following applies and prevails over the two preceding paragraphs:

• the choice of Maltese law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of the country where you have your habitual residence;
• we may only bring proceedings against you in the courts of the country where you live, and you may choose whether to bring proceedings against us in Malta or in your own country of residence.

Invalidity of a provision. If a provision is void or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply and we will replace that provision with a valid one that comes as close as possible to the original intention.

Language. These terms exist in Dutch and in English. Where the two versions differ, the version in the language in which you entered into the agreement with us prevails.

Changes. We may amend these terms. For an appointment already booked or an engagement already under way, the terms as they stood at the time of booking apply.