Leaving a Firm or Retiring
Your professional work and your personal estate plan are kept separate. Here’s what happens to each when you move on from a firm or retire from practice.
What Happens to Your Personal Estate Plan?
Your personal estate plan stays with you. Your will, Document Vault, digital assets and personal subscription live on your own account, entirely separate from any professional work you do on the platform. Leaving a firm or retiring does not move, alter or delete any of it.
What stays on your personal account
- Your completed will remains accessible and unchanged
- All uploaded documents stay in your Document Vault
- Digital asset records are preserved
- Video wishes remain available
- Guardian, beneficiary and executor information is unchanged
- Your personal subscription and billing continue as before
Your two roles are independent
What Happens to Your Professional Account?
If you are leaving a firm to practise independently or move elsewhere, you can separate your professional account so your professional identity continues under new, independent credentials.
What separation does
- Your professional identity continues under a new, independent account that you own and control
- Your payment connection moves with your professional account
- What happens to your client records, engagement letters and professional invoices depends on how you leave. See below
- Your personal will, Document Vault and subscription remain on your original account
- The two accounts are separated permanently, each owned and controlled independently
What happens to your client records depends on how you leave
Your client list, engagement letters and professional invoices are business records, and where they end up reflects the circumstances of your departure rather than a single fixed rule:
- Leaving a firm to practise elsewhere: these business records stay with the firm unless the firm’s owner agrees to transfer them to you
- Retiring from a firm you do not own: these records stay with the firm
- Retiring from, or having been the sole owner of, your own practice: these records move with you to your new professional account
- Moving on from a corporate-wellness arrangement: your professional records move with you, as the arrangement’s sponsor never held your client book
Whichever applies, the outcome is worked out for you and shown before you confirm, so nothing moves that should not.
Separately from all of this, you can take your own copy at any time. Export practice data builds a single archive of your clients, wills, engagement letters and audit history, and tells you exactly what it leaves out and why.
You start the process from your professional settings. Once you confirm, you’ll receive a secure link to set up the credentials for your separated professional account. The link can only be used once and expires after seven days.
Your obligations to clients
Retiring from Practice
Retiring from professional practice does not mean leaving Orchard72. You can wind down your professional account while keeping your own personal estate plan exactly as it is.
- Your personal will and documents remain on your account and continue to be yours
- Your personal subscription is unaffected by closing or pausing professional features
- Professional records can be separated into an independent account if you are handing your practice over
Important: Your personal will and documents are never deleted when you step back from professional work. You keep full access to your own estate plan for as long as you hold an account.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my personal will be deleted when I leave a firm?
Never. Your personal will, documents and data are yours and stay on your own account. Leaving a firm or retiring has no effect on your personal estate plan.
Does my firm keep access to my account when I leave?
No. Your personal account is yours alone. When you separate your professional account, your professional records move to a new account under credentials that only you control.
Can I keep my clients when I move on?
It depends on how you leave. If you are leaving a firm to practise elsewhere, your client records, engagement letters and professional invoices stay with the firm unless the firm’s owner agrees to transfer them to you. If you are retiring from a firm you do not own, they stay with the firm. If you are retiring from or were the sole owner of your own practice, or moving on from a corporate-wellness arrangement, those records move with your separated professional account. The outcome is shown to you before you confirm, and whether and how you continue to act for each client is for you and your firm to agree.
Is the separation permanent?
Yes. Once your professional account is separated, the personal and professional accounts are independent permanently, each owned and controlled separately. This keeps your personal estate plan cleanly apart from your professional work.
How do I start separating my professional account?
You can begin from your professional settings. After you confirm, you’ll be sent a secure link to set up the credentials for your new, independent professional account. It is single-use and valid for seven days.
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