Five steps, and you can stop at any of them. You get in touch and tell us what you need. If we think we can help, we ask you to complete our Retainer Agreement — there is an example here. Once we accept you, you get a confirmation email, then a deposit invoice, and then your lawyer contacts you to arrange a consultation by email or video. The full description is on our fees page.

Short is fine. Tell us where you were born, where you live now, which nationalities you hold or held, what happened and roughly when, and what you are trying to achieve. If you have had a decision or a refusal, say so. If there is a deadline or travel booked, say that first — it changes how quickly we need to look. You do not need to write an essay or send documents yet.

Yes, and we would rather do that than take a case we cannot do well. If we are not the right people we will say so, and where we can we will say who might be.

We work Monday to Saturday, and on Sundays when it is necessary. We cannot always answer at once and we come back to you as soon as we can. If your question is urgent, mark it urgent and say what the deadline is — see urgency or emergency.

No. Our clients are in Argentina, Japan and most places in between, so almost everything is done by email and video. We can meet in person, and sometimes do, but it is rarely necessary.

English and Dutch for general and first enquiries. Other languages are welcome — tell us which and we will say whether we can work in it.

It depends on the country and the subject. Every service on our fees page names the colleague who handles it, and you can read about each of them on our team page.

Pick your country and your service on the fees page and it shows you the hourly rate and how long work like yours usually takes. There is a minimum charge of one hour; after that we count to the minute.

Yes, a deposit, usually one to two hours. It is payment on account: we draw it down as we work and account for it in the invoices.

Yes. Set a budget in hours and we will not charge more than that. If you later want or need more time, you can change the budget. You can also tell us to stop at any point, and you are only charged for our time up to then.

No admin fees and no membership fees. The only additions are expenses we pay on your behalf with your approval, such as government fees, and a £/€5 charge if you ask us to change your payment method or currency after we have started.

Because the same question can take one hour for one person and twenty for another, and a fixed price has to be set high enough to cover the twenty. We think that is worse for you. The reasoning is set out in full on the fees page. Where a fixed price makes sense we list one, and you can always ask.

Bank transfer is our preference, in EUR or GBP. Card and iDEAL payments are possible. We never change our bank details by email — genuine emails from us only come from @habsburg-legal-services.com and @habsburglegalservices.com.

Tell us early. We cannot offer free or legal-aid work, but we can sometimes agree payment terms, point you towards financial support, or refer you to a colleague who can offer legal aid. At a minimum we will try to give you some self-help direction.

They are not the same thing, and the difference matters in several of the procedures we handle. We explain it here: nationality, citizenship — what is the difference?

People use these words loosely and they are not interchangeable in law. See expat, migrant, emigrant, immigrant or refugee?

Start by finding out whether a loss happened, when, and under which rule — that is what a nationality investigation is for. Useful background: Are you Dutch? Prove it!, the 5-, 10- and 13-year clocks, and the proportionality test (Tjebbes). If you want us to look, write to us with your dates.

Tjebbes is the judgment behind the proportionality test, which is one of the routes by which a lost Dutch nationality can sometimes be recovered with retrospective effect. We set it out here: the proportionality test — Tjebbes, 35859 (R2157).

The Dutch-American Friendship Treaty, a route into the Netherlands for American entrepreneurs. Our page on it: DAFT.

No, although Dutch nationality and immigration is the largest part of what we do. Where we work shows the countries we act in and who does the work in each.

In our Law Library. It holds statutes, judgments and explanations collected, translated or written over the years, a good deal of which is hard to find in English anywhere else.

Yes, and we would rather you did where you can. See free self-help resources and how to get another nationality.