By Alexandre, European Private Office. Last verified July 15, 2026.
What this is
A planning engagement that ends in decisions, not a brochure.
European Private Office is a founder-led private office for affluent North Americans buying, relocating or establishing residence in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece or Monaco. The Blueprint is how an engagement starts: three weeks of structured work led personally by Alexandre, producing a dated decision file that settles country, residence route, property strategy, the tax and legal questions that belong to licensed specialists, budget, risks and the next ninety days.
It exists because the expensive failures in cross-border moves are rarely caused by a bad lawyer or a bad accountant. They are caused by good professionals working in the wrong order, each optimizing their own domain while nobody owns the sequence. Choosing the house before the residence route, triggering tax residency before the restructuring, moving the money before the banking is ready: every one of these is avoidable in month one and expensive in month twelve. If you want the full argument, read immigration lawyer vs relocation agency vs private office.
Who it serves
Built for four situations where the stakes justify the discipline.
01
Retirees and pre-retirees
A permanent or seasonal European life, with healthcare, residence renewals, property and US tax filing that must keep working together for decades.
Retire in Europe02
Post-exit founders
A liquidity event and a move that must be sequenced against each other, where a date chosen casually can cost more than the entire engagement by orders of magnitude.
Moving after an exit03
Owners of US businesses
Founders who keep operating from Europe, where the company's tax home, payroll and the owner's residence interact in ways brochures never mention.
Moving with a US business04
Second-home buyers
Families committing seven figures to a country they love but do not yet legally understand: wealth tax, succession, rental rules and the 90-day ceiling.
Second home in EuropeDivision of labor
What EPO owns, and what stays with your licensed professionals.
EPO owns
The sequence, the coordination and the execution map: country and city fit, residence route selection, property strategy and fair-value discipline, the specialist map, banking and FX preparation, timeline and the single accountable point of contact in Europe.
Licensed specialists own
Tax positions, legal opinions, immigration filings, notarial acts and investment advice. EPO frames the questions precisely, brings the right specialist to the file at the right moment, and never replaces them. Your existing US advisor, CPA or attorney stays exactly where they are.
Why it works
Specialists do their best work when someone hands them the right question at the right time with a complete file. That is the job: the questions on our tax pages, like the IFI arithmetic or the Italian flat tax break-even, show the level of preparation your specialists receive.
The deliverable
Inside the Blueprint: ten chapters, each one a settled decision.
This is the actual table of contents of the file a client receives at the end of week three. Not a template with your name on it: every chapter is built from your facts, and every chapter ends in a decision or a dated action.
01 Executive recommendation
The file opens with a position, not a menu: which country leads, which holds as backup, and why, in two pages you could hand to your spouse or your advisor.
02 Country and city fit
Candidates tested against the life you described: winters, flights home, language, schools, healthcare access and what an ordinary Tuesday looks like, not just a tax table.
03 Residence route
The chosen visa or residence path with conditions, income evidence, realistic consular timelines and the renewal calendar, plus the tax residency date the route implies.
04 Tax and structure
Your US and local exposure written down by licensed counsel, how the home is held, and whether a European company belongs in the picture.
05 Succession and heirs
Who inherits the home and under which law: forced heirship where it applies, whether an election of your national law is open to you, how the existing US will works alongside a local one, and the inheritance tax the heirs would actually face.
06 Property and works
A written mandate before listings distort it: use case, target markets, capital ceiling, rent-first or buy-now decision, a costed works envelope, and the fair-value discipline that protects the price.
07 Money in Europe
The banks that open for a US person and the file they expect, a staged currency plan instead of one transfer, how European assets are held alongside your US portfolio, and the FBAR and FATCA reporting each account creates.
08 Your European desk
The named bench behind the file: expat CPA and local fiscaliste, immigration counsel and notaire, buying agent, surveyor, works contractor, bank and currency desk, with one European lead accountable for the sequence.
09 Risk register
The named risks of your specific file, each with an owner and a defusing move: tax residency timing, binding offers signed under US assumptions, currency, renovation, succession.
10 Decision calendar
Ninety days of dated actions with owners and dependencies, so the file starts moving the week you receive it, whether you execute with us or without us.
The full chapter list, the dated three-week sequence and the terms are laid out on the European Home Blueprint page.
The three weeks
How the engagement actually runs.
Week 1: map
A structured intake call, then the workstream map: family, income, entities, capital, timeline, constraints and the countries genuinely in play. You receive the country and city shortlist with the reasoning by the end of the week.
Week 2: model
Residence routes are tested against your facts, the tax and legal questions are framed in writing for licensed counsel, the property mandate takes shape and the budget gets real numbers, including the costs nobody quotes.
Week 3: decide
Risk register, decision calendar and the assembled file, then a working session to walk through it page by page. You leave with decisions made, not options listed.
Terms
The price, the credit and the guarantee, in plain terms.
$7,500
The full Blueprint fee, fixed, for three weeks of founder-led work and the dated decision file. No hourly meters, no scope surprises.
Credited in full
If you proceed to execution, generally a $30,000+ mandate covering residence filings, the property transaction, banking and local partners, the entire $7,500 is credited against it. The planning costs nothing if we execute together.
The guarantee
If the Blueprint does not create clarity on country, budget, tax route and timeline, the fee is refunded and you keep all the work. That is the whole clause.
What you own
The file is yours either way: the recommendation, the route analysis, the property mandate, the specialist questions, the risk register and the calendar. It works as a standalone plan you could execute with any competent team.
Fit
An honest filter, before you spend 30 minutes with us.
- You are planning a real European project, a home, a residence or a move, on a roughly 6-to-36-month horizon, not collecting brochures.
- The project is in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece or Monaco. Elsewhere in Europe we take files case by case.
- The capital involved makes disciplined sequencing worth paying for: typically a seven-figure property budget, a liquidity event or a cross-border business situation.
- You expect to use licensed tax and legal specialists and want them coordinated, not replaced.
- If that is not you yet, start with the free work instead: the pre-move decision audit shows you the sequence for your situation, and the country fit assessment narrows the map. Accepted clients also join the Private Europe Circle.
Plain answers
What clients ask before engaging.
What does European residency planning cost with EPO?
The European Home Blueprint is $7,500 for a three-week engagement ending in a dated decision file. If you continue to an execution mandate, generally $30,000 and up depending on scope, the full Blueprint fee is credited against it.
What if we complete the Blueprint and decide not to move?
You keep the full work and owe nothing more. And if the Blueprint fails to create clarity on country, budget, tax route and timeline, the fee is refunded and you still keep the work.
Do you replace our financial advisor, CPA or attorney?
No. EPO coordinates the European side and frames the questions; tax positions, legal opinions and investment advice stay with licensed professionals, including the ones you already trust.
How is this different from an immigration lawyer or a relocation agency?
A lawyer owns one workstream and a relocation agency owns logistics. Neither owns the order in which your residence, tax, property and banking decisions must happen, which is where cross-border projects actually fail. EPO owns that sequence and is accountable for it.
Can we skip the Blueprint and go straight to execution?
Usually no, and you would not want to: execution without a settled plan reproduces the wrong-order problem you are paying to avoid. The Blueprint is three weeks and fully credited, so it costs nothing extra on the way to a mandate.