Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was last updated on 22/10/2021.

We look after your details carefully. We adhere strictly to data protection laws.

This policy describes how we collect, use and look after the information you provide us when you enquire about and use our services. This policy may change from time to time as our processes change over time, which will be reflected in this document.

The pages within this website are intended for use by UK residents and businesses only and refer to UK products.

Who we are

Company details and regulation

equityrelease.co.uk is owned and managed by TERE Advisers Limited, a member of the Key Group.

Telephone calls may be monitored or recorded to enable us to improve our service to you. The Equity Release Experts is a trading name of TERE Advisers Limited which is an appointed representative of Key Retirement Solutions Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Registered in England No. 12269172.
Registered Office: Baines House, 4 Midgery Court, Fulwood, Preston, Lancs PR2 9ZH. Telephone: 0345 165 5955.

Our Information Commissioner’s Office registration number is ZA565573.

Key Retirement Solutions is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The Financial Conduct Authority do not regulate estate planning services.

In this privacy policy references to "we", "us" and "our" are to The Equity Release Experts. References to "our website" or "the website" are to www.equityrelease.co.uk.

You can contact the Data Protection Officer for The Equity Release Experts at the address above.

What information we collect and how

The information we collect includes:

Any personal details you knowingly provide us with through any means including forms and email, such as name, address, telephone number etc.
Your marketing preferences.
Your email activity.
Your IP address, browser type and browsing activity whilst on our website. Your IP address is a string of numbers unique to your computer that is recorded by our web server when you request any page or component on the website.
We also store information about you using cookies (files which are sent by us to your computer or other access device) which we can access when you visit our site in future. We do this to recognise you and your preferred settings, and it saves you from re-entering information on return visits to the site. If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the instructions for your file management software to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. Our cookies will have file names such as CMSCsrfCookie and ASP.NET_SessionId. You can view our full cookie policy here. Information on deleting or controlling cookies is available at the About Cookies website.

We supplement the information we collect from you with publicly available information from 3^rd parties to assist with providing services to you – for example this may include additional contact information or geodemographic information.

What we do with your information

Any personal information we collect about you will be used in accordance with the data protection laws. The details we collect will be used:

To process your enquiry and application and to provide future services.
To keep you up to date with the latest information about planning your retirement, product updates and special offers. You can opt-out at any point.
To personalise content on our website.
To administer competitions and prize draws.
To carry out market research.
For the collection of case studies about our customers.
To tailor our services better to your needs.

If we receive your data from a third party the categories of data that we collect may include, but are not limited to:

Name
Address
Contact Details
Marital Status
Date of Birth

We will process this data in the same way as that collected by ourselves as shown below:

How we use your data	Lawful basis
To provide you with the services you have requested	This is necessary for the performance of the contract to provide the services you have requested.
To manage our relationship with you	This is in our legitimate interest of keeping you informed of our available products and services and keeping our records up to date. This is necessary to comply with the legal and regulatory requirements that apply to us.
To provide you with information about our products and services.	This is in our legitimate interest of keeping you informed of our available products and services. You may opt-out at any time.
To provide you with a recommendation for an Equity Release plan.	This is necessary for the performance of the contract to produce and provide your recommendation for an Equity Release plan. Health data will be processed only with your consent. Criminal Convictions data will be processed in our legitimate interest for the prevention of financial crime.
To provide you with a referral to obtain personalised information about an Annuity.	This is necessary for the performance of the contract to produce and provide your Annuity information.
To provide you with a referral for advice on estate planning (Wills, Trusts and Lasting Powers of Attorney and Funeral Plans) to Key Wills who are also part of the Key Group.	This is necessary for the performance of the contract to provide a referral for Advice on a Will, Trust, Lasting Power of Attorney, or Funeral Plan.
We use cookies to monitor website usage to improve our online services for you	This is in our legitimate interests to improve our services.
To run our business in an efficient and proper way. This includes managing our financial position, business capability, planning communications, corporate governance and audit.	This is in our legitimate interest to fulfil our legal and contractual duties efficiently. This is necessary to comply with the legal and regulatory requirements that apply to us.

All of our data is held securely in keeping with ISO27001 standards (see section Protecting your information).

Disclosing your information

Here’s when we disclose information about you

To search the files of external data bureaus in order to verify your identity and contact information. These searches will not affect your credit record.
To 3^rd parties for the purposes of data cleansing or for marketing communications, namely direct mailings, digital display, email, social media. They will never use your personal information for their own purposes.
When we (or any 3^rdparty acting on our behalf) are legally compelled to or have a duty to the public to disclose information.
To the financial intermediary, press partner or other introducer of your business to notify them of the outcome of your enquiry.
When disclosure is made at your request or consent.

Equity release

To the equity release provider that you make an application to.
To the property valuer appointed by the equity release provider.
To your appointed solicitor to deal with your equity release.

For referrals about estate planning, annuities, pensions or conventional mortgages we will pass your information to the appropriate Key Group company. You can see their privacy policy here www.keyadvice.co.uk/privacy-policy.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates all financial services business; if the FCA or any other regulatory body asks for access to customer records we would provide this information.

We may also share your personal data with other members of the Key Group in order to run our business in an efficient manner including for corporate governance or audit purposes.

How long we will keep your data

Any personal data you provide to us during the course of an enquiry where you have not specified that you do not wish to be contacted in future will be retained and processed in order that we can keep you up to date with our services and market developments.

If you notify us that you do not wish to be contacted (either at the point of enquiry or subsequently) we will apply this immediately and your personal details will be deleted from our systems within 2 years if you have not transacted business with us. Where you have transacted business with us your personal data will be retained indefinitely.

These retention periods also apply to the personal data of third parties acting on behalf of a customer including eligible complainants.

Your rights

You have the right to:

request a copy of any information that we currently hold about you and ask us to correct or delete this.
restrict or object to processing of your information.
the information we hold in our systems about you to be provided to you or another Data Controller in a machine readable format.

Where you have provided consent for us to process your data, you have the right to withdraw the consent for the processing of that data.

If you believe that we are not processing your information correctly you should contact our Data Protection Officer at the above address. If you are not satisfied with our response you have the right to take your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk).

Protecting your information

We are committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of your information. As such any information collected via our website is encrypted and delivered to us through a secure environment and protected using robust security methods. Key Group maintains a comprehensive information security management system which ensures industry standard technical and administrative controls are in place for the protection of customer data.

Please note that there is no guarantee that any email sent will be received, or that the contents of any such email will remain private or unaltered during Internet transmission. For this reason we will not include any of your personal information by email without your prior permission, but will usually respond to your enquiries by telephone or post. If you have any such concerns, you may prefer to telephone or write to us instead. We accept no liability for any damages you or others may suffer as a result of the alteration or loss of confidentiality of any such information.

We reserve the right to monitor the use and content of emails which are sent from and received by us for the purposes of ensuring compliance with our own email policy, and identifying and taking action against unlawful or improper use of our systems, including, but not limited to, spoofing, the transmission of computer viruses and a denial of service attack.