Clarify whether the professional scope includes assessing the prior working relationship, qualifying employment period and connection to the proposed transfer.
Identify the uncertainty before commissioning the full file
Separate the initial assessment, further evidence collection and official charges. Rewriting a résumé or purchasing a more elaborate support letter cannot make an unestablished employment period qualify. The preparation must follow the actual history.
Commission the chronology before the petition drafting, and pay for it as a separate piece of work with its own written conclusion. The reason is arithmetic rather than caution: a chronology reporting no qualifying year stops all downstream spending, while drafting begun first has to be paid for whatever the chronology later says. Hypothetical example: a candidate for a clinical-supplies wholesaler pays for a support letter, an organisational description and a specialized-knowledge memorandum, then discovers that the year being relied on sits outside the three-year window and none of that material can be reused.
Ask what the chronology stage covers, what it excludes, and what would trigger a second opinion. Official charges change and should be confirmed as current at each step rather than quoted once at the outset. Nothing purchased afterwards can create a period of employment that did not happen.
One further sequencing note: ask for the written conclusion before the next invoice is approved, so that the decision point between the stages stays a real one.