Sunset Policy

Most companies that sell a product like ours never tell you what happens if they go away. You buy a "lifetime" plan and one day the website is gone, with your data, and there is nothing you can do. That is unacceptable for a service that promises to deliver words you cannot replace.

This page describes what we will do in three scenarios: if we wind the company down by choice, if we are acquired, and if we are forced offline. We commit to following this policy, and we commit to keeping it published.

If we decide to stop operating If You Die:

• We will tell you at least 90 days before the shutdown date, by email to the address on your account and a banner on the website.
• During those 90 days the service continues to run normally. Check-ins, witness attestations, and deliveries continue.
• We will publish an export tool that lets you download every letter you wrote and the list of recipients and witnesses you nominated, as plain-text files.
• On the shutdown date we will wipe all customer data within 30 days, and back-up copies within a further 60 days.
• Stripe will issue a refund of any unspent portion of paid time. For Founder accounts (one-time payment), we will refund a pro-rated portion calculated by reference to a 25-year notional service life. For example, a Founder who paid £490 and is one year in receives £470. We will explain the calculation in the shutdown email.
• The website will then go offline. We will keep this policy, the Privacy Policy, and the Terms accessible at a static URL for at least 12 months for record-keeping.

If Thrive Haven Ltd is acquired or the If You Die service is transferred to another operator:

• We will notify you by email at least 30 days before the transfer.
• The buyer must agree, in writing, to honour these Terms and the existing Sunset Policy, including every active Founder licence.
• If the buyer materially changes the service in a way that you do not accept, you may close your account, export your data, and receive a pro-rated refund on the same calculation described in Scenario 1.
• We will publish the name of the buyer and its successor obligations on this page within 14 days of the transfer.

Some outcomes are out of our hands: bankruptcy, court order, sustained denial-of-service attack, or the failure of a critical supplier. In any of those:

• We will use reasonable best efforts to give you the same notice and the same export tool described in Scenario 1.
• Where notice is genuinely impossible, we will publish an explanation as soon as we are able.
• An insolvency practitioner appointed over Thrive Haven Ltd is required by law to handle customer data in line with UK data protection rules and our retention schedule. The insolvency practitioner cannot sell your data to anyone other than a buyer of the going concern who agrees to honour these Terms.
• Refunds in this scenario depend on the funds available to the insolvency estate. We acknowledge that this is the least satisfactory outcome and we are pursuing customer-escrow arrangements that would survive an insolvency. We will update this page when those arrangements are in place.

The Founder plan is a single payment for the lifetime of the service. We understand that you read "forever" as a promise that touches on something genuinely important: the words you wrote, and the assurance they will be delivered.

We honour that promise by:

• Never selling a Founder licence to a buyer who refuses to inherit it.
• Pro-rating any refund on a 25-year service life, not on the time you have already used.
• Publishing an export tool the moment any shutdown sequence begins.
• Keeping this Sunset Policy honest, current, and binding.

We do not promise that the company itself is immortal. No company is. We promise that if the company ever ends, your data is given back to you on the way out, and your money is partially returned in proportion to the time we did not deliver.

A long-running goal is to escrow customer data and a continuity fund with a third party (a UK probate firm or comparable institution). This arrangement is not yet in place. When it is, we will revise this policy and notify you by email. Until then, our promise is operational and contractual, not custodial.

Thrive Haven Ltd, 22 Waltham Road, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 1LH, United Kingdom.
Companies House number 16319387.
Email hello@ifyoudie.org.