Privacy Notice

About this notice

This privacy notice sets out how Lawes Financial Limited handles your personal data. Lawes Financial Limited (FRN 1046161) is an appointed representative of Andrew Charles Consulting Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 304904). Lawes Financial Limited is the controller of the information you provide to us and is responsible for protecting your data.

Please contact us if you have any concerns about the personal information you have provided, or if you need further assistance.

How we use your personal information

The personal information you provide may be used for a number of different purposes, set out below.

We process your personal information to assess your eligibility for mortgages and other products from lenders and providers, and to make applications on your behalf. This processing is necessary for:

• Entering into a contract — you have asked us to take specific steps to arrange financial products before entering into a contract with a lender or provider.
• Our legitimate interests — to provide you with appropriate financial advice and to maintain our business operations.

When we submit applications to lenders or product providers on your behalf, some lenders may use automated decision-making processes — such as credit scoring — to assess your application. We will inform you when this applies to your specific case.

We process your information because we have a legal obligation to do so, including for:

• Fraud prevention and anti-money laundering checks
• Audit, compliance and regulatory purposes
• Maintaining records as required by the Financial Conduct Authority

We process your information based on our legitimate interests to:

• Deal with any queries or concerns you may have after we have provided our service, and until any product has ended
• Maintain a business register of our clients for professional standards and business continuity

With your explicit consent, we may contact you:

• At the end of any preferential rate period on your mortgage, to discuss remortgage options
• To discuss insurance or protection products in relation to your mortgage
• To provide information about other relevant financial services we offer

Who we may share your information with

We will keep your information confidential at all times and will only share it in the following circumstances:

• With third-party providers of product data (sourcing systems or portals) to research and identify products that meet your stated requirements and eligibility.
• With credit reference agencies or fraud prevention agencies. If you apply for a loan, we will pass your details to the lender and may also pass your information to a third-party packager who will gather information on the lender's behalf.
• With the insurer directly, or via a third-party portal or insurance intermediary, if you apply for insurance. We may also share your information with solicitors as part of the mortgage process.
• With third-party processors to verify the integrity of documentation provided, and to comply with anti-money laundering and anti-fraud requirements.
• With the Financial Conduct Authority, which authorises and regulates our principal, Andrew Charles Consulting Ltd, and with third-party compliance service providers, as part of our regulatory obligations.
• With Andrew Charles Consulting Ltd, our principal firm, where required. Lawes Financial Limited is an appointed representative of Andrew Charles Consulting Ltd, and they are responsible for overseeing the advice we give — which means they may need access to your file.
• With a partner firm where we refer you to a specialist rather than advise you ourselves. Equity release is the clearest example: we do not advise on it, and we introduce clients to a vetted later-life lending firm, who then becomes responsible for the advice. We tell you before we make an introduction, and we disclose any referral fee we receive.

We never sell your personal data, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.

We primarily work with service providers based in the United Kingdom. Where we need to transfer your personal data outside the UK, we will only do so where appropriate safeguards are in place, such as:

• The recipient country has been deemed to provide adequate protection for personal data
• We have entered into standard contractual clauses approved by the UK authorities
• Other legally approved transfer mechanisms are in place

We will inform you if your data is to be transferred internationally and provide details of the safeguards in place.

How long we keep your data

Website analytics

We use three analytics tools to understand which pages people read and which tools they find useful: Umami, PostHog and Cloudflare Web Analytics. All three are configured to be cookieless, and none receives the personal information described elsewhere in this policy.

• Nothing stored on your device. None of them sets a cookie or saves anything in your browser. They read basic details your browser shares, such as screen size, to count visits. The one exception: if you turn analytics off below, we save that single choice so we can respect it.
• Aggregated. What we see is counts and patterns — for example that a calculator was used 240 times this month — not a record of what any one person did.
• No personal data in events. Where we record that a tool was used, the event carries a page name and a band or a step number. It never carries a name, an email address, a phone number, or any figure you typed into a calculator or a form.
• IP addresses. Umami hashes IP addresses and discards them the same day. We do not send your IP address to PostHog. Cloudflare, which already delivers every page of this site, does not use your IP address to follow you from visit to visit.
• Where people click. On some pages we record where people click, including clicks that don’t seem to work or are repeated in frustration, so we can fix confusing pages. Anything you type into a form is hidden before it is recorded. We only look at these clicks combined into maps across many visits, never one person’s visit, and we do not record videos of visits.
• Turning it off. You can switch off our analytics on this device at any time with the button below. It’s free and changes nothing else on the site.Turn off analytics

There is more detail, including a link to Umami’s own privacy documentation, in our cookie policy.

The First-Time Buyer Passport

The First-Time Buyer Passport is a six-stage guide you can work through and save. By default it stores nothing at all — no cookies, and nothing in your browser.

• On your device, only if you ask. Ticking “keep my progress on this device” saves your completed stages, checklist ticks, the price you entered and the property-type choice in your browser’s local storage. Nothing is sent to us by ticking it, and unticking it deletes what was saved.
• On our servers, only if you email yourself a link. We then store that same progress together with your email address, so the link restores your passport on any device. Your email address is used to send you that link.
• Hearing from us is a separate choice. Beside the email field there is a second, optional box asking whether we may contact you about your mortgage. It starts unticked, and the resume link is sent either way. Only if you tick it do we add your address to our contact records, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
• The link is the key. Anyone who has the link can open your passport, so treat it as you would any private link. It is not a login and it does not give access to anything else. When the link opens your passport, we take it out of your browser’s address bar, and our analytics tools don’t record it. If you then reload the page, you’ll see the progress kept on this device if you ticked that box, or an empty passport if you didn’t. Open the link from your email again to bring your saved progress back.
• How long we keep it. Twelve months after your last visit, your saved passport is deleted automatically. You can ask us to delete it sooner at any time by emailing info@lawesfinancial.com, and we will also tell you what we hold if you ask.

Calculators and enquiry forms

You can use every calculator on this site without giving us anything. These are the two points where you might choose to.

• Emailing yourself a calculator result. We store your email address with the result and the figures you entered, so that we can send it to you. Beside that there is a second, optional box asking whether we may contact you about your mortgage. It starts unticked, and the result is emailed either way — only if you tick it do we add your address to our contact records.
• Enquiry forms. The Start Here questionnaire, the Protection Review and Book a call collect your name, email address and phone number, along with the answers you gave or the slot you chose. We use these to reply to you and to prepare for the conversation. There is no marketing opt-in on these forms: you have asked us to get in touch, and that is what we use them for.
• Deal-end reminders. On the remortgage calculator you can ask us to email you before your mortgage deal ends. We keep your email address, the month your deal ends, the dates we will email you, a record of what you agreed to and when, and whether you ticked the separate box about being contacted. We use them only to send those reminders: one six months before your deal ends and one two months before, or just the second if your deal ends sooner. We delete all of it once the last reminder is sent, or straight away if you use the unsubscribe link in either email. Only if you also ticked the separate box does Nathan get a note to contact you about your mortgage after a reminder is sent; that note, with your email address, is part of our contact records, which that box covers.
• How long we keep them. An enquiry is deleted 24 months after you send it. A saved calculator result is deleted 24 months after you last used that calculator — unless you are subscribed to base-rate alerts, in which case we keep it while that subscription is live, because deleting it would unsubscribe you without asking. Where an enquiry becomes advice, the regulatory record-keeping periods set out below apply to the advice file. You can ask us to delete an enquiry or a saved result sooner at any time by emailing info@lawesfinancial.com.

Your rights regarding your personal data

Under UK data protection law, you have the following rights:

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details at the top of this notice. We will respond to your request within one month.

Your right to object & withdraw consent

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data at any time where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis for processing.

Where you have given consent for us to process your information for marketing purposes, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us. Withdrawing marketing consent will not affect our ability to provide you with advice and services.

Your right to complain

If you are dissatisfied with the way we have handled your personal information, please contact us in the first instance using the details at the top of this notice.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office:

Acknowledgement & marketing preferences

By proceeding with our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this privacy notice.

You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us: