Privacy notice

Who we are

Probate Panel compares the probate prices that law firms in England and Wales are required to publish, and puts executors in touch with firms they choose. We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice.

We decide how and why the personal information described below is used, which makes us the data controller for it. You can reach us about anything on this page at the address in the complaints notice.

What we collect, and when

When you browse the site. Nothing that identifies you. We set a single cookie, pp_consent_v1, which records the answer you gave when you were asked about cookies, so that you are not asked twice and nothing you refused is loaded. It holds your choices and the date you made them, and no identifier. The cookies notice sets it out in full.

Where we measure how the site is used, we do it without storing anything on your device: page views and referrers counted without a cookie, without an identifier, and without following you between sites.

Our hosting provider records standard technical information about each request, such as the IP address it came from, the page requested and the time, which is what allows them to serve the site and block attacks. We do not use those records to build a picture of you.

When you send an enquiry. What you type into the form: your name, an email address, a telephone number if you give one, the postcode of the estate if you give one, what you think you need, and whatever you choose to tell us so that a firm can quote for it. Please do not send us medical details, information about anyone's finances beyond what a firm needs to quote, or copies of documents. We do not need them.

Stored alongside it are two things you do not type. Which firm you asked, because that is the whole point of the enquiry. And a one-way fingerprint of your connection: we take the address your request arrived from, combine it with a secret only we hold, and store the result of a hash. It lets us see that the same connection has sent three enquiries in an hour and stop the fourth, which is what keeps the form from being used to send other people mail they never asked for. It cannot be turned back into an address, we never use it to identify anybody, and it is deleted with the rest of the record.

Why we use it, and on what basis

To pass your enquiry to the firms you selected. This is the thing you asked us to do, so we are taking steps at your request before entering into a contract.

To reply to you about your enquiry, so you know what happened to it. Same basis.

To keep a record that the introduction was made. The firm may pay us for it, and we have to be able to show what we did and when. This rests on our legitimate interest in running the service and being paid for it.

To keep the site available and block abuse. This rests on our legitimate interest in protecting the service and the people using it.

To meet our accounting and tax obligations. We have no choice about this one: it is a legal obligation.

Where we rely on a legitimate interest, we have considered whether it is fair to you, and you can object at any time using the details below.

Who we share it with

The firms you choose, and only those. We do not send your details to firms you did not select, we do not sell your information, and we do not pass it to advertisers or data brokers. Once a firm has your enquiry it is a separate data controller and its own privacy notice governs what it does next.

Our suppliers, acting on our instructions. Cloudflare hosts the site and handles the requests to it. An email provider delivers the messages we send. They act only as we instruct them and cannot use your information for their own purposes.

Anyone we are legally required to tell, such as a court or a regulator, if we are properly obliged to.

Our suppliers operate globally, so information may be handled outside the United Kingdom. Where it is, that is covered by the safeguards UK data protection law requires, such as the International Data Transfer Agreement or the addendum to the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep it

Enquiry records are kept for 24 months from the date of the enquiry and then deleted. We keep them that long because a firm may query an introduction fee, and because a complaint about an introduction can arrive months later. Accounting records are kept for six years after the end of the financial year they relate to, because tax law requires it. Technical request logs are kept for a short period by our hosting provider and then discarded.

Your rights

You can ask us to give you a copy of the information we hold about you, correct it if it is wrong, delete it, restrict what we do with it, or send it to somebody else in a portable form. You can object to us relying on a legitimate interest. Where we ever rely on your consent, you can withdraw it, and doing so does not affect anything done beforehand.

Ask us using the details in the complaints notice and we will respond within one month. There is no charge.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, which is the UK regulator for this, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.

Automated decisions

We do not make any decision about you by automated means alone, and we do not profile you.

Changes

If this notice changes we will update the date at the top of the page. Where a change materially affects what happens to information you have already given us, we will tell you directly.