What membership gives, and what it does not.

What a membership provides

The Household opens the six strands, the Generational Handbook, the Practice Room, the Protocol Library and the Letter Room for one household, for one year. The Family Seat adds Family Chapters, the Household Brief, the Family Year, the Handover Letter and the archive of earlier handbook versions, and is held for life. The Institut Circle covers up to twelve households or a family office under one membership.

The curriculum grows while a membership runs. New lessons, articles and studios are added for every member without a further charge, and nothing already open is taken away.

What the institute never claims

No certificate, diploma, qualification, grade, title, rank or accreditation of any kind is awarded, and none may be claimed on the strength of a membership. The institute is not a school, a college, or an awarding body, and it certifies nobody’s standing in society.

No member is ranked against another member, and no household is described to another household. The institute publishes no member lists, no testimonials, no partnerships and no claim of descent from an academy, an order or a historical household.

What we ask of a household

One membership covers one household. Keep no account for a minor, and enter no child’s name, photograph, school or measurements anywhere in the house. Do not use a voice to pose as another person, to write something the member cannot sign honestly, or to produce a document intended to deceive.

Do not copy the handbook format, the text or the studios out for use outside the household, and do not attempt to reach another household’s record. A membership that is used in that way may be ended, and the record exported to its steward before it is closed.

Nothing renews by itself

There is no monthly billing and no automatic renewal anywhere in the institute. The Household tier runs for a year from payment; thirty days before it ends, one reminder is sent. At the end of the year the rooms close unless the household chooses to renew, and no card is charged without that choice being made.

The Family Seat and the Institut Circle are one-time purchases and do not lapse. A lifetime membership never quietly expires, and a household that stops using the house still holds its seat.

Refunds

The Household tier may be refunded in full within fourteen days of payment, for any reason or none. After fourteen days the elapsed year is not refunded, access continues to the end of it, and nothing renews. This is the ordinary withdrawal right that applies to a purchase made at a distance.

The Family Seat may be refunded in full within fourteen days of payment. After fourteen days it is not refunded, because the seat is held for life; instead it may be transferred once, in writing, to another named household. The Institut Circle follows the same rule, and may be transferred once to another named household or family office.

Where a membership was paid for a period the institute then cut short, the unexpired part is refunded. Every refund is returned to the method that paid it, as the payment provider allows, and a written request is answered in writing either way.

Faults, and the way out

The institute keeps the house in good repair but does not promise that every room is available at every hour. Where something is broken, it is repaired, and a household whose access is interrupted is not charged again for the time lost.

No household is ever locked in. The ledger exports the whole record at any time, in a file the household keeps, so leaving is a decision rather than a negotiation.

The voices

The seven voices are artificial voices of the institute, and they say so. They answer from the household’s own record, refuse titles and credentials, and can still be wrong. Nothing a voice says is medical, legal, tax, dietary or psychological advice, and the disclaimer page sets out the whole of that position.

Questions, and changes

A question about these terms is answered first by writing to the institute, and most questions end there. Nothing on this page displaces the consumer protections of the country in which a member lives; where a dispute cannot be settled in writing, those protections apply.

These terms change only when the bargain changes, and a change is published here with its date.