Legal
Fixed scope, fixed price, and a clause that lets you stop after week one. Everything a finance department needs is on this page.
You get a written proposal with a fixed price before anything starts. Half on start, half on delivery. Week one of a sprint is invoiced separately, so if it does not convince you, that is where it ends and that is all you pay.
When the invoice is paid, everything I made is yours, to use, change and keep. What you tell me stays confidential whether or not we sign anything.
Being a client does not buy coverage in the research, and it never will.
All work is carried out by Hugo van de Haar, a sole trader registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Registered details are in section 12. These terms apply to every quotation, engagement and delivery unless we have signed something that says otherwise in writing, in which case that wins.
Your own purchase conditions do not apply unless I have accepted them in writing. If your organisation requires its own contract, send it and I will read it rather than refuse it.
Prices are published on the work page and confirmed in the proposal. The proposal is what governs: it names the deliverables, the dates and the price. If it is not in the proposal, it is not in scope, and anything that arrives later becomes a new proposal rather than a quiet extension.
All prices are excluding VAT. Dutch VAT at the prevailing rate is added for clients in the Netherlands. For business clients elsewhere in the European Union with a valid VAT identification number, VAT is reverse-charged. For clients outside the EU, VAT is not charged.
Unless the proposal says otherwise: 50 per cent on acceptance and 50 per cent on delivery, and retainers monthly in advance. Invoices are payable within 14 days. Sprints are booked two per quarter, so a date is held only once the first invoice is settled.
On late payment the statutory commercial interest applies and work may pause until the account is clear. I would rather send a reminder than an interest calculation, and usually do.
For a sprint, week one is invoiced separately at €1,500. If the positioning that comes out of week one does not convince you, say so at the end of it and the engagement stops there. You keep what week one produced, no further invoice follows, and no reason is required.
This is a real term and not a marketing line. It is here so that it is enforceable.
The work depends on access: two interviews with whoever actually decides the positioning, a handover call, and answers to questions in between. About four hours across three weeks. If that access does not materialise, dates move, and I will say so early rather than deliver something thin on time.
You confirm that material you give me is yours to give, and that publishing it will not infringe anyone else's rights.
On full payment, all intellectual property in the deliverables made for you transfers to you: copy, messaging, documents, templates, the lot. Use it, change it, hand it to an agency, publish it under your own name. No licence fee, no attribution, no expiry.
Two things stay with me, and neither touches your material. The methods and frameworks I brought with me remain mine, including the Demand Transition Framework and the research instruments; you get the output of them, not ownership of them. And I keep the right to state that we worked together and to describe the engagement in general terms. Naming you in a case study, or quoting you, needs your written consent, and you can withdraw it.
Anything you tell me that is not already public is confidential and stays that way, indefinitely, whether or not we sign a separate agreement. That includes your figures, your pipeline, your product plans and the fact of specific conversations.
I will sign your NDA if you want one. Send it before the first call rather than after.
The research and the client work are kept apart on purpose, because the research is only worth anything if it is not for sale.
Either of us can end an engagement in writing. If you stop partway, work delivered and work in progress up to that point is invoiced; nothing beyond it is. Rescheduling a sprint is fine with reasonable notice, though the quarter's second slot may already be taken.
If illness or something equally unavoidable delays me, you hear about it the same day and we agree a new date, or you take a refund of anything paid for work not delivered.
I deliver the work with the care you would expect of a professional, and I will fix genuine faults in a deliverable at my own cost if you raise them within 30 days.
What I cannot promise is a commercial result. Positioning changes how legible you are to a buyer. It does not control whether they buy, what a procurement committee decides, or what a market does next. Anyone promising otherwise is selling something else.
Liability is limited to the amount invoiced for the engagement in question, and excludes indirect or consequential loss, lost profits and lost opportunity. Nothing here limits liability for intent or deliberate recklessness, which cannot be limited under Dutch law.
If something is wrong, write to hugo@vandehaar.com within 30 days of delivery, describing what and why. I will answer within ten working days and would much rather solve it than argue about it.
Dutch law applies. Disputes we cannot settle between us go to the competent court in , the Netherlands.
These are the details a finance or procurement department will ask for. They belong on the invoice too.
Written in English because the work is. A Dutch version is available on request. Where a translation and this text differ, the Dutch text of Dutch law governs.
If something here would stop your procurement department signing, tell me and I will look at it rather than send you a longer document.