Effective Date: September 28, 2026

1. Introduction and Acceptance

Welcome to Emrich-IPR.com. By accessing or using the website located at https://emrich-ipr.com, the client/heir portal, or any related online features, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy. If you do not understand or agree to these terms, you may not access or use the website or portal.

These terms include provisions governing dispute resolution, arbitration, class action waiver, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and indemnity. Please read them carefully.

2. Privacy Policy

Your use of the website and portal is also governed by Emrich’s Privacy Policy, available at https://emrich-ipr.com/privacy-policy/, which is incorporated into these terms by reference. The Privacy Policy explains how Emrich collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects personal information.

3. Eligibility

By accessing or using the website or portal, you represent that you are at least 18 years old or are otherwise legally authorized to use the website or portal. The website and portal are not directed to children under 13. If information about a minor is needed in connection with an estate, probate, heirship, or related matter, it should be provided by a parent, legal guardian, personal representative, attorney, or other authorized person unless otherwise permitted by law and approved by Emrich.

4. Services Agreement Governs Probate Research Services

These terms govern use of the website, portal, and related online features only. If you engage Emrich for probate research, heir location, genealogical research, documentation procurement, international documentation, estate-related support, or related services, those services will be governed by a separate written agreement, assignment, engagement document, or other applicable service agreement. If a separate service agreement conflicts with these website terms, the service agreement will control the service relationship.

5. Probate Research Company; No Legal Advice

Emrich is a probate research, heir location, genealogical research, and documentation support company. Emrich does not provide legal advice through the website or portal. Information on the website or portal is for general informational, service, communication, and case support purposes only and is not legal, tax, financial, or investment advice. If you have legal, tax, or financial questions, you should consult an appropriately licensed professional in the relevant jurisdiction.

6. Website and Portal Access

Subject to your compliance with these terms, Emrich grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and use the website and, if applicable, the client/heir portal solely for your personal, authorized, and lawful use in connection with Emrich services or communications. Emrich may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the website or portal at any time.

Portal access may be provided to clients who opt in after Emrich receives relevant onboarding information, including the family history questionnaire or other service information. Portal credentials may be generated using Emrich’s internal systems. Emrich may send login/access information by email or other authorized communication method.

7. Account Credentials and Security

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your username, password, and account credentials. You must not share your credentials with any unauthorized person. You are responsible for all activity under your account unless prohibited by applicable law. You must promptly notify Emrich if you suspect unauthorized access, credential compromise, or misuse of your account. Emrich may reset passwords, suspend accounts, restrict access, remove content, or take other protective measures when Emrich believes such action is appropriate.

8. Client/Heir Portal Functionality

The portal may allow authorized users to view case status updates, read messages and attachments from Emrich, respond to open requests, upload documents, review completed requests, update contact details, change passwords, download case-related documents, and use family sharing features where available. Portal features may change over time.

Some case-related documents made available through the portal may include information about co-heirs, interested parties, recipient lists, filed agreements, court records, inventories, accountings, petitions, motions, orders, or other public or case-related materials. You may use these materials only for lawful, authorized purposes related to your case or services. You must not misuse, republish, alter, sell, harass, threaten, or unlawfully disclose information obtained through the portal.

9. User-Submitted Information and Documents

You are responsible for the accuracy, completeness, legality, and appropriateness of information and documents you provide to Emrich through the website, portal, email, or other communications. You represent that you have the right and authority to provide the information and documents you submit. You must not upload or provide information that is false, misleading, unlawful, infringing, malicious, confidential to a third party without authorization, or otherwise improper.

By submitting information or documents, you grant Emrich and its authorized personnel, affiliates, service providers, contractors, attorneys, representatives, and other authorized parties the right to use, copy, store, process, transmit, review, and disclose such information and documents as reasonably necessary to provide services, operate the website and portal, comply with law, communicate with you, administer the relevant case, and protect Emrich’s rights, subject to the Privacy Policy and any applicable service agreement.

10. Family Sharing and Communications

The portal may offer features that allow approved family members in the same case to share selected contact details with one another. If you choose to use family sharing, you are responsible for deciding which contact details you want to share. Emrich may condition access to shared family contact details on your own affirmative sharing choices. You must not use shared contact information to harass, threaten, defraud, solicit, or otherwise harm another person.

11. Electronic Communications

By providing an email address, phone number, postal address, or portal account information, you consent to receive electronic and other communications from Emrich about the website, portal, services, case updates, messages, open requests, documents, policy updates, and other service-related matters. Where marketing or promotional communications are offered, you may opt out as described in the message or Privacy Policy. Even if you opt out of promotional messages, Emrich may continue to send service, transactional, legal, security, and account-related communications.

12. Prohibited Conduct

You must not:

Use the website or portal for any unlawful, fraudulent, abusive, harassing, threatening, defamatory, invasive, or harmful purpose.
Provide false, misleading, incomplete, or unauthorized information to Emrich or any other person.
Access or attempt to access accounts, documents, systems, data, cases, or information that you are not authorized to access.
Share your login credentials with unauthorized persons or use another person’s credentials without authorization.
Upload malware, malicious code, corrupted files, or content designed to disrupt, damage, intercept, or interfere with any system, data, or user.
Probe, scan, test, bypass, or breach security or authentication measures without authorization.
Scrape, crawl, harvest, copy, download, or collect website, portal, user, heir, family, contact, case, or document information except as expressly authorized.
Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify, frame, mirror, reproduce, resell, or exploit the website, portal, source code, software, design, or content except as expressly permitted.
Use information obtained through the website or portal to contact, solicit, harass, defraud, impersonate, or harm any heir, family member, Emrich staff member, legal professional, or other person.
Violate any applicable law, court order, third-party right, intellectual property right, privacy right, or contractual obligation.

13. Intellectual Property

The website, portal, and all content and materials available through them, including text, graphics, photographs, logos, designs, icons, software, selection, arrangement, organization, and other materials, are owned by Emrich or its licensors, suppliers, contractors, or other rights holders and are protected by copyright, trademark, trade dress, unfair competition, and other laws. Except as expressly permitted in these terms, you receive no right, title, or interest in any Emrich intellectual property or third-party intellectual property.

Emrich’s trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, and trade dress are owned by Emrich or its affiliates or licensors. You may not use any Emrich mark without prior written permission. All goodwill arising from use of Emrich marks inures solely to Emrich.

14. Third-Party Materials and Websites

The website or portal may include links to third-party websites, plugins, libraries, tools, records, court sites, public records, or other materials. Emrich does not control third-party websites or materials and is not responsible for their content, security, accuracy, practices, availability, or policies. Your use of third-party websites and materials is at your own risk and may be governed by separate terms and policies.

15. No Warranties

The website, portal, and online features are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Emrich disclaims all warranties, express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, availability, security, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. Emrich does not warrant that the website, portal, documents, case updates, or communications will be complete, current, uninterrupted, secure, or free of errors, viruses, or harmful components.

16. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Emrich and its owners, officers, directors, employees, agents, affiliates, contractors, licensors, service providers, representatives, successors, and assigns will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, punitive, or similar damages, including lost profits, lost data, lost inheritance opportunities, business interruption, reputational harm, or cost of substitute services, arising out of or relating to the website, portal, online communications, or these terms, regardless of theory of liability and even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Emrich’s total liability arising out of or relating to the website, portal, online features, or these terms will not exceed the greater of $100 or the amount you paid directly to Emrich, if any, for website or portal access during the six months before the event giving rise to the claim. This limitation does not limit any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law or any separate written service agreement to the extent that agreement expressly provides otherwise.

17. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Emrich and its owners, officers, directors, employees, agents, affiliates, contractors, licensors, service providers, representatives, successors, and assigns from and against claims, demands, actions, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or relating to your use or misuse of the website or portal, your breach of these terms, your violation of law or third-party rights, your submitted information or documents, your unauthorized disclosure or misuse of information obtained through the portal, or your infringement or alleged infringement of intellectual property, privacy, or other rights.

18. Suspension and Termination

Emrich may suspend, restrict, or terminate your access to the website or portal at any time for any lawful reason, including suspected misuse, security risk, inaccurate information, violation of these terms, request by an authorized representative, account inactivity, or termination of the underlying service relationship. Upon termination, your right to access the website or portal will cease immediately. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including provisions relating to intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, dispute resolution, governing law, and general terms.

19. Changes to Terms

Emrich may update these terms from time to time by posting a revised version on the website or by providing other notice as required by law. The revised version will be effective as stated in the revised terms. Your continued use of the website or portal after the effective date means you accept the revised terms. If you do not agree, you must stop using the website and portal.

20. Dispute Resolution

Before initiating a formal proceeding, you and Emrich agree to attempt to resolve disputes informally by providing written notice describing the dispute and allowing a reasonable opportunity to respond. If a dispute cannot be resolved informally, either party may elect to resolve the dispute by binding arbitration on an individual basis, except where prohibited by applicable law or where a party seeks temporary, preliminary, or injunctive relief for misuse of intellectual property, confidential information, account credentials, portal information, or other proprietary rights.

Any arbitration will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association under its applicable rules, unless the parties agree otherwise in writing. You and Emrich agree that claims may be brought only in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, private attorney general, or representative proceeding, except where such waiver is prohibited by applicable law. The arbitrator may award relief only on an individual basis. If a court determines that the class or representative action waiver is unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim may proceed in court, but the remaining claims will be arbitrated to the fullest extent permitted by law.

21. Governing Law and Venue

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict of law principles, except to the extent federal law or another mandatory law applies. Subject to the arbitration provision above, the state and federal courts located in Monterey County, California, or the nearest federal district court with jurisdiction, will have exclusive jurisdiction over judicial proceedings arising out of or relating to these terms, unless another venue is required by applicable law or a separate written service agreement provides otherwise.

22. Notices

Emrich may provide notices by email, portal message, website posting, or other reasonable method. Notices to Emrich should be sent to info@emrich-ipr.com or to Emrich International Probate Research Inc, 398 Foam St., Suite 200-A, Monterey, CA 93940-1462. You are responsible for keeping your contact information accurate and current.

23. General Terms

noindexThese terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any applicable posted terms, constitute the agreement between you and Emrich regarding use of the website and portal. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect. No waiver is effective unless in writing and signed by Emrich. You may not assign these terms without Emrich’s prior written consent. Emrich may assign these terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, or by operation of law. The headings are for convenience only.

Terms governing use of our website.