Terms of service, in plain English
The deal between you and Change Your Name, without the legalese fog.
What Change Your Name is (and isn't)
Change Your Name is a self-help form-preparation service. We turn the details you give us into a personalized checklist, filled government forms, and notification letters for your name change. We are not a law firm, we are not your attorney, and using Change Your Name does not create an attorney-client relationship. Nothing on this site — checklists, guides, form selections, or copy — is legal advice; it's general information plus document preparation. If your situation is unusual (a contested name, an immigration question, a decree without a name-restoration clause), talk to a licensed attorney in your state.
You review, sign, and submit everything yourself
Government filings — Social Security, passport, DMV, voter registration — must by law be signed and submitted by you. We prepare them for your review; we never file government identity documents on your behalf, and we never sign anything for you. It's your responsibility to check each prepared form for accuracy before signing it — you know your details better than any software does. We fill the forms from what you type and never check it against any government record, so a typo in your answers becomes a typo on the form; the review step exists to catch that.
Agreeing to these terms, and who you're agreeing with
These terms are a contract between you and Change Your Name LLC, an Illinois limited liability company ("we"). You agree to them when you press Start on the first screen (the agreement line sits under that button) and again when you tick the box at checkout. We record the date and the version of these terms you saw at each of those moments. You must be 18 or older. The forms we prepare are U.S. federal and state filings for a U.S. name change; if you live outside the United States we route the federal steps through the nearest embassy or consulate, but we do not handle any other country's name-change process.
Email is how we talk to you
There are no passwords, so your email address is your key: sign-in links, receipts, and notices about your purchase all go there, and you agree to receive them electronically. Keep the address current (you can change it on the review screen). If you gave us a future wedding date we send one reminder after the day, with a one-tap unsubscribe in it. Nothing else is marketing, and we send no email on anyone else's behalf without your explicit instruction.
Government fees, forms, and rules change
Agency fees, form editions, and state rules are set by governments and change without notice. We verify our fees, forms, and state-by-state guidance against official sources on a regular schedule and show "last verified" dates where we can — but an agency can change a fee or reject a form edition the day after we checked. We can't guarantee any agency will accept a given filing, and government fees you pay (filing fees, certified copies, passport fees) are yours, separate from our price, and not refundable by us.
Your account
Sign-in is by one-time email link — no passwords. Your account is for your own name change (or one you're helping with, with that person's knowledge). Keep your email account secure; anyone who controls your inbox can access your account. You can delete your account and data yourself at any time from your account page; see the privacy policy for exactly what we keep and for how long.
Payment and our 30-day refund policy
Prices are shown at checkout and charged once: no subscriptions, no recurring fees, nothing renews. If Change Your Name isn't what you needed, Full refund within 30 days of payment, as long as you haven't downloaded a filled form or letter. Just email support@changeyourname.app and ask; no questionnaire, no hoops. "Downloaded" means you opened or saved a filled government form or a notification letter we generated for you. Reading your checklist, following a link to an agency's own site, or downloading a blank official form does not count. Once you've downloaded a filled form or letter, the paperwork has been delivered and the purchase is used, so it isn't refundable except where the law requires. We keep a record of each download (see the Privacy Policy) so there's no argument about which it was. Refunds go back to the original payment method through Stripe, usually within five to ten business days of our approval. All of that assumes we took the payment. If another company sold you the kit, or someone gave it to you, see "If your kit came from another seller" below — the rule is the same, but the money isn't ours to send back.
Gifts
A gift bought on this site buys a code that unlocks the plan for whoever redeems it. The code never expires, has no cash value, and can't be exchanged for money except as a refund to the buyer described here. An unredeemed gift code is refundable to the buyer within 30 days of purchase; once a code has been redeemed, the purchase belongs to the recipient and the standard 30-day window (counted from the original purchase) applies to them. Only the buyer can ask for a refund of an unredeemed code. A redeemed code stays tied to the recipient's case; deleting the buyer's account doesn't take it away from them. If the code came from another company's checkout rather than ours, the next section governs the money instead.
If your kit came from another seller
Not every kit is bought here. Another company may sell the Paperwork Kit alongside its own service, and the person who paid may not be the person who redeems it. However the code reached you, redeeming it makes these terms the deal between you and us — same kit, same support, same rule about downloads. The money is the part worth being plain about: when another company sold you the kit, that company charged you, not us, and we can't refund money we never received. A refund of what you paid is a request to the seller, under the seller's own refund policy. What we do control is the redemption, and our rule governs that. A code nobody has redeemed is simply cancelled when the seller reverses the sale, whenever that happens. A code that has been redeemed can be undone within 30 days of the original purchase as long as nothing filled has been downloaded, and we apply that the same way whichever company you ask. So if the seller reverses the sale — refunds you, or cancels the order — they tell us, and that same rule decides what follows. If the kit can still be undone, the kit closes and your free checklist stays. If you had already downloaded a filled form or letter, the paperwork was delivered and the kit stays yours. Either way, what you have already downloaded is yours to keep. So: questions about the charge, the order, or a refund of what you paid go to the company you bought from. Questions about the paperwork come to us at support@changeyourname.app. If you aren't sure which is which, ask us — we'd rather point you to the right place than have you bounce between two companies.
Your documents, our software
The government forms we fill are public documents, and the filled copies are yours: download them, print them, sign them, file them, keep them, as many times as you like. Everything else here (the question flow, the checklist logic, the letter templates, the guides, and the site itself) belongs to Change Your Name LLC. Use it for your own name change, or one you're helping with, and don't copy, resell, scrape, or wrap it into another service — unless you have a written reseller agreement with us, which is how another company comes to sell the kit at its own checkout. Links to government and company sites take you to pages we don't control; we check them on a schedule (see "Government fees, forms, and rules change") but they are theirs, not ours.
Ending things
You can delete your account and every case on it at any time from your account page. A paid plan you delete is gone with it; the refund policy above still applies within its window. We may suspend or close an account that breaks the acceptable-use rules below or is used to harm someone else, and we'll tell you why unless the law says we can't. If we ever shut the service down, we'll give account holders at least 30 days' notice by email so you can download your paperwork first.
Acceptable use
Use Change Your Name only for lawful name changes — your own, or with the full knowledge of the person whose name is changing. Don't use it to impersonate anyone, evade debts or law enforcement, commit fraud, or probe or disrupt the service. We may suspend accounts used this way and will cooperate with lawful requests from authorities.
Limits on our responsibility, in plain English
We stand behind the product with the refund above. Beyond that, our total liability to you for anything arising out of the service is capped at the amount you paid us. We're not responsible for what government agencies decide, how long they take, mail lost or delayed by carriers, or losses caused by information you entered incorrectly. The service is provided "as is" — we work hard to keep it accurate and available, but we can't promise it is error-free or uninterrupted. To say it in the formal way the law expects: except where the law forbids it, the service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement; and neither we nor anyone working with us is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, even if we were told such damages were possible. Some places don't allow these limits, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything else the law does not permit us to limit.
Governing law & disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. If we end up in a dispute we can't settle by talking, it goes to the state or federal courts in Cook County, Illinois, and we each agree those courts may hear it. Small claims court where you live is always available to you for a dispute within its limits, and we'd rather you use it than hire a lawyer over $49. There is no arbitration clause here and no class-action waiver: we're not asking you to give up your day in court.
The usual legal housekeeping
If a court finds one part of these terms unenforceable, the rest stands. These terms, the Privacy Policy, and the prices shown at checkout are the whole agreement between us; nothing said elsewhere changes them. We can assign this agreement if the business is sold or reorganized; you can't assign it without asking us. If we don't enforce a term today, we haven't given it up. Neither of us is responsible for delays caused by things outside our control (outages at our providers, government shutdowns, disasters). Notices to you go to your account email; notices to us go to support@changeyourname.app or the postal address below.
For California residents
Under California Civil Code section 1789.3: this service is provided by Change Your Name LLC, reachable at support@changeyourname.app and Change Your Name LLC, 2501 Chatham Rd Ste N, Springfield, IL 62704. Current prices are on the pricing page. Complaints about the service may also be directed to the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or by phone at (800) 952-5210.
Changes & contact
We may update these terms as the product evolves; material changes will be noted on this page with a new date, and account holders will be emailed. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept the updated terms. Questions? Email support@changeyourname.app, or write to Change Your Name LLC, Change Your Name LLC, 2501 Chatham Rd Ste N, Springfield, IL 62704.
Version 2026-09-21. In effect since September 19, 2026; last updated September 21, 2026.
Change Your Name is a self-help form-preparation service, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice. How we handle your information lives in the privacy policy.