Terms and conditions for a counsellor or coach in private practice

A private counselling or coaching practice lives on a booked hour, a relationship that may run for months, and a set of boundaries that are usually explained once and never written down. Your terms need to deal with the missed session, the prepaid block, the employer who pays but is not the client, and the limits of confidentiality. I draft them for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Counsellors, psychotherapists, coaches and supervisors in private practice in England and Wales, working in person, online or both, whether you trade as a sole trader or through a limited company. Most clients are individuals paying for themselves, so they are consumers. Some work is funded by an employer, an insurer or an employee assistance provider, and that payer is a business customer on different terms.

What matters in a private practice client agreement

What you are offering, and what you are not

Your working agreement should say plainly what the sessions are: talking therapy or coaching, not medical treatment, diagnosis or prescribing, and not a crisis or out of hours service. It should also say what happens if a client's needs fall outside your competence and how a referral will be handled. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a service must be performed with reasonable care and skill, and information the client relies on is binding, so the claims on your website and in your directory profile become part of the contract. Promising an outcome is the fastest way to be measured against one.

The booked hour, late cancellation and non-attendance

You sell time, and a client who cancels on the morning leaves an hour you cannot resell. A stated notice period, with a charge for late cancellation and non-attendance, is normal in private practice and holds up if it is proportionate and the client saw it before booking. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 treats disproportionate default charges as suspect, so charging the session fee for an hour missed without notice is defensible, while a punitive uplift on top of the fee is not. Say how notice is counted and whether you will offer to move the session instead.

Prepaid blocks, packages and ongoing coaching arrangements

Blocks of sessions and monthly coaching arrangements raise the question of money already paid. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, keeping a prepayment when the client stops, with no matching obligation on you, sits on the list of terms treated as unfair, and so do expiry dates and one-sided rights to change the price or the format part-way through. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 also bans drip pricing, so a headline figure shown to clients must include everything they are obliged to pay. Further subscription rules are being introduced under that Act.

Booking online or by telephone and the fourteen-day right

Where the agreement is made online, by email or by telephone, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give the client fourteen days to cancel. That matters because the first session usually falls inside the period. Sessions may be delivered in that window only at the client's express request. A client who made that request and then cancels pays a proportionate amount for what was delivered; a client who made no express request pays nothing. Where the cancellation information is not given, the period extends by up to twelve months, so the terms and the booking process have to work together.

Confidentiality, notes and the limits you rely on

Confidentiality is the term clients care about most and the one most often left verbal. The agreement should record what notes you keep, how long you keep them, who sees material in clinical supervision, and the limited circumstances in which you would break confidence, including serious risk of harm and where the law requires disclosure. It should also cover recordings of online sessions, contact between sessions, and what you will and will not confirm to a spouse, a parent or a GP. Whether a letter or report is within the session fee or a separate piece of work agreed in advance should be stated, not assumed.

Employers, insurers and assistance providers who pay

When an employer, an insurer or an employee assistance provider funds the work, the person in the room and the person paying the invoice are different. Your terms should separate them: what is reported back and what is not, how sessions are authorised, who carries the cost of a session the client does not attend, and what happens if funding stops mid-way. That payer is a business customer, and on a commercial debt between businesses the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives statutory interest and fixed compensation. Their own paperwork may impose reporting or insurance obligations your terms should not contradict.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

What do my terms need to say about complaints and my professional body?

The Provision of Services Regulations 2009 require you to make available your name and legal status, an address, contact details, your terms, and details of any professional body and insurance, and to deal with complaints promptly. The Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015 add that where a client complaint is unresolved you must point the client to a certified provider and say whether you will use it.

I see clients online who live outside the UK. Does that change things?

It can. I draft your terms under the law of England and Wales, with English jurisdiction, which is the right starting point for a practice based here. Where a client is habitually resident elsewhere, local consumer protection may still apply to them, and terms governed by another country's law are outside what I draft. Most practices accept that risk knowingly rather than discover it later.

I already use a working agreement from my training or my membership body. Is that enough?

Those documents are usually written for ethical practice rather than for contract, and they tend to be silent on payment, missed sessions, prepaid blocks and third-party payers. If you want to know how much of a gap there is before committing to a full set, I will review what you have for £495 and return it marked up with my amendments and an explanation.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Data protection agreements and privacy terms, £795
• Ask Caesar, £495 a month
• Terms and conditions for a hypnotherapist

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.