An engagement that defines transfer at the end has already allowed dependency to shape the system. The receiving owner, acceptance evidence, operating measures, exception handling, and consultant withdrawal condition belong in the entry decision.
Documentation is necessary but insufficient. The client must lead the cadence, exercise the decision rights, maintain the measures, and recover from a realistic failure scenario without consultancy mediation.
Transfer also requires an honest residual-risk record. Some capability may remain immature. Some decisions may still carry uncertainty. Completion does not require pretending those conditions have disappeared; it requires naming who owns them and why the institution can command them.
The cleanest test is structural: when the consultancy withdraws, does the operating system continue to decide, execute, observe, and correct? If not, Crown Transfer has not occurred.
This note is an operating framework, not a client account, legal advice, or a universal prescription.