Who we are
Trust Ledge prepares draft Declarations of Trust and draft Wills from the information you provide. Trust Ledge is a professional services company and is not a firm of solicitors.
This notice explains how we handle your personal information when you use our intake form, complete a questionnaire, use the client portal, contact us, or instruct us to prepare a document.
For the purposes of UK data protection law, Trust Ledge is the controller of that information, which means we decide how and why it is used.
The information we collect
Depending on your matter, we collect:
- Your identity and contact details: your name, address, email address and telephone number, and the same details for a second person where your matter involves more than one party.
- Information about your matter: the property address, title numbers, purchase date and price, mortgage and lender details, ownership shares, contributions and the arrangements you want recorded. For a Will: date of birth, executors, beneficiaries, guardians, gifts and any trust instructions.
- Questionnaire answers, documents and correspondence: everything you submit through the questionnaire, together with the emails and messages exchanged with us about your matter and any documents you upload.
- Payment and billing information: the amount, date and reference of payments, invoices issued, and any payment query or refund. We do not receive or store your full card details, which are handled by our payment provider.
- Portal account information: your email address, your sign-in activity and which matters you have accessed, if you use the client portal.
- Technical information: your IP address, browser and device type, and basic logs created when you use the site, which we use to keep it secure and working.
Sensitive information
We do not ask for information about your health, ethnicity, beliefs or other special category information. If you choose to send it to us, for example when explaining family circumstances that affect your instructions, we will use it only to prepare your document and will not use it for any other purpose.
Where the information comes from
Most of it comes directly from you, through the intake form, the questionnaire and your correspondence with us. Where your matter involves more than one person, it may also come from the other party.
Our payment provider tells us whether a payment has been made, and we may use an address lookup service to check that a property address recorded in your document is correct.
How and why we use it
- To prepare your draft document and administer your matter. Our basis for this is the performance of our contract with you.
- To take payment, issue invoices and keep accounting records. Our basis is the performance of our contract with you and our legal obligation to keep proper business records.
- To keep a record of your instructions, your acceptance of our terms and your request that we begin work, including the date and time you gave it. Our basis is the performance of our contract with you, our legal obligation to keep records, and our legitimate interest in being able to show what was agreed.
- To answer your questions and keep you updated about your matter. Our basis is the performance of our contract with you.
- To keep the site secure, prevent misuse and maintain our systems. Our basis is our legitimate interest in protecting our practice and your information.
- To deal with complaints, insurance and any legal claim. Our basis is our legitimate interest in protecting our position.
- To comply with the law, including responding to lawful requests from regulators, courts or HM Revenue & Customs. Our basis is our legal obligation.
We do not use your information for marketing, we do not sell it, and we do not use it to make automated decisions about you.
Who we share it with
We share personal information only where we need to:
- with our caseworkers and staff who work on your matter;
- with our professional advisers, accountant and insurers;
- with the providers that run our practice, including our website and case management platform, our email provider, our file storage provider and our payment provider (Stripe);
- with your own solicitor or conveyancer, where you ask us to correspond with them;
- with regulators, courts, HM Revenue & Customs or the police, where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
We require our providers to keep your information confidential and secure, and they may use it only to provide their service to us. We do not sell your information and we do not share it so that anyone else can market to you.
Transfers outside the UK
Some of our providers are based outside the UK, for example in the United States or the European Economic Area. Where your information is transferred outside the UK, we rely on safeguards such as the UK's adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the standard contractual clauses, together with the provider's own security measures.
How long we keep it
- Completed matters: six years from the date the matter is closed, so that we can answer any later question, complaint or claim.
- Accounting records and invoices: six years, as required by tax law.
- Enquiries that do not become instructions: twelve months.
- Site security logs: kept for a short period and then deleted.
When a retention period ends, we delete or securely destroy the information.
Your rights
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, to have inaccurate information corrected, to ask us to delete information we no longer need, to ask us to restrict what we do with it, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to receive information you gave us in a portable format. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
These rights are not absolute. We may need to keep some information to comply with the law, to keep proper records of your instruction, or to deal with a claim.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at info@trustledge.co.uk and mark your message "Data Protection Request".
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Cookies and similar technologies
We use only the cookies and local storage needed to run the service: to keep you signed in to the client portal, to keep the site secure, and to hold your entries while you complete a form. We do not use advertising, profiling or third-party analytics cookies.
If you pay by card, you are taken to our payment provider's own checkout page, which sets its own cookies under its own privacy notice.
Security
We protect your information with access controls, encrypted connections, restricted staff access and regular review of the systems we use. No method of sending or storing information is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Children
Our service is for adults. Where your instructions include details of a child, for example a child beneficiary or a guardian arrangement, those details form part of your matter file and are handled in the same way as the rest of your information.
Changes to this notice
We may update this notice from time to time to reflect changes in our practice or in the law. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated.
How to contact us
If you have any question about this notice or about the information we hold, email us at info@trustledge.co.uk.