Cancellation Policy
Genealogical research is custom work. We start spending professional time and paying third parties — archives, records offices, translators — from the moment a project opens, and that money doesn’t come back. So what you’re refunded depends on how far along your project is when we receive your cancellation.
Refunds apply to the research fee only. A feasibility analysis fee isn’t refundable once we’ve delivered the analysis, and it isn’t counted in any refund.
How to cancel
Email us at contact@airloom.space. Cancellation takes effect the day we receive your notice, and your refund tier is set by where the project stood on that date.
Refund tiers
Before preflight — 75% refunded
You cancel before we’ve started confirming which documents your case needs. We keep 25% as an engagement fee: intake, conflict screening, preliminary lineage assessment, and holding research capacity for you.
Before record requests — 50% refunded
Preflight confirmation has started, but we haven’t yet asked any archive, repository, or records office for a document.
After record requests — no refund
We’ve submitted the first record request. This covers everything that follows: brick-wall research, report preparation, and client or attorney review.
We absorb the third-party costs
Archive and repository charges, certificate and vital-record fees, translation, courier and shipping, notarization — we pay these, and they’re already in your research fee. You’re never invoiced for them, and they’re never deducted from a refund. Refunds are calculated on the research fee alone.
One exception: where a government agency or archive requires you to pay a fee directly from your own location, that fee is yours, isn’t part of the research fee, and isn’t refundable by us.
No refunds based on outcome
We can’t refund a project because a record couldn’t be found, a lineage couldn’t be documented to the required evidentiary standard, or the lineage didn’t qualify for citizenship. You’re engaging us to do the research, not to guarantee a result.
Inactive projects
If a project needs your input, a document, or a decision to move forward and we don’t hear from you for 90 days, we may treat it as cancelled. We’ll send at least two written reminders first. Your refund is calculated at the tier the project had reached when it went quiet.
This doesn’t apply if we know a client has died or become incapacitated — see below.
When we cancel
We may end a project if you materially breach these terms, harass or disrespect our staff, or repeatedly ask for services outside our scope of practice after we’ve explained the limits, or supply documents that breach the authenticity warranty — or if continuing would require us to work outside our scope or against our professional and ethical obligations.
If the cancellation follows your breach, the standard tiers apply. If we cancel for our own convenience or for reasons that aren’t your fault, you get a full refund of the research fee, less third-party costs already incurred.
If the primary client dies or becomes incapacitated
We stop work as soon as we learn of it, and we won’t let the project lapse as inactive while things are being sorted out. The estate, or someone authorized to act, can:
- Substitute a new primary client — another applicant on the project or another family member. The project continues on the same terms, and the new primary client takes on any outstanding fees.
- Pause the project for up to 12 months, then resume it on notice or cancel.
- Cancel the project.
If the project is cancelled after the primary client’s death, we refund one tier more generously than would normally apply — and where the no-refund tier would apply, we refund 50%. Completed work is delivered to the estate or the new primary client in the ordinary course.
Access to the file after a death
Research files hold personal information about living relatives as well as the deceased. We’ll release the completed research to a substituted client who is an applicant on the project, or to an executor or estate trustee who provides satisfactory proof of appointment. We may redact or withhold information about living people who aren’t applicants, where releasing it would disclose their personal information without their consent.
If family members disagree about who should receive the file, we may hold it until they agree in writing or a court decides. We aren’t liable for delays caused by that disagreement.
Hardship
Clients sometimes hit genuinely hard times. If you lose your job, lose a family member or someone you love, or you or an immediate family member receives a serious or life-threatening diagnosis, we may — at our discretion — waive or reduce what we’d otherwise keep, refund beyond your tier, or hold your project open at no charge until you’re ready to continue.
Write to us at contact@airloom.space. We will not ask for medical records or other sensitive documentation to consider a request.
Every accommodation is case-by-case, must be confirmed in writing to take effect, and doesn’t change this policy or set a precedent for any other project or client.