Privacy Policy

​This privacy notice explains how we use any personal information we collect about you. It relates to Equity Release Associates Limited (Equity Release Associates), which is a subsidiary of Age Partnership Group Limited and is classed as a data controller.

What information do we collect about you?

We collect information about you when you engage us for Equity Release advice. This includes the recording of telephone conversations and appointments between yourself and Equity Release Associates for training and monitoring purposes. This information will relate to your personal and financial circumstances. It may also include special categories of personal data if this is necessary for the provision of our services, such as data about your health for underwriting purposes.

We may also collect information when you voluntarily complete survey forms or use calculators on our website, when you provide feedback to us.  We may also receive personal data about you from third‑party sources where this is necessary to provide our services and meet our regulatory obligations. These sources may include authorised introducers, product providers, identity‑verification partners, credit reference agencies, and publicly available records.

We obtain this information to verify your identity, assess the suitability of products and services, prevent financial crime, and ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information we hold. We use this data alongside the information you provide to deliver our services, meet our legal and regulatory duties, and maintain the integrity and security of our operations.

Information relating to usage of our website is collected using ‘cookies’. These are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. We’ll use your information collected from the website to personalise your repeat visits to the site.

How will we use the information about you?

Equity Release Associates will process your data in order to fulfil our contract with you when you enquire about or purchase a service from us.

If you enquire about our services through our calculators or forms on our website, we will use the information you provide to contact you and provide further information about our various products and services.

We may combine data captured from across our group as well as overlay additional demographic and lifestyle data from publicly available and other authorised sources, to help us understand your circumstances and needs for marketing and insight purposes. This will help us personalise the content we share with you with the aim of making it more relevant to you.

Explaining the legal bases we rely on

The law on data protection sets out a number of different reasons for which a company may collect and process your personal data, including:

Consent

In certain specific situations we will collect and process your data with your consent. For example, before you submit your email contact details when using our online calculators.

When collecting your personal data, we’ll always make clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service.

Where special category data is required, for example details about your health, we’ll always obtain your explicit consent in order to collect and process this information.

Contractual obligations

In certain circumstances, we need your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations.

The information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to carry out the services that you require from us effectively. Without collecting your personal data we’d also be unable to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.

For example, in order to provide you with suitable equity release advice, we need to gather information about your current financial circumstances.

Legal/Regulatory compliance

If the law requires us to, we may need to collect and process your data.

For example, where we identify fraud or other criminal activity we will pass on personal data to relevant law enforcement agencies.

Legitimate interest

In specific situations, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests.

When we process your personal information for our legitimate interests, we make sure to consider the balance and any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights under the data protection regulation. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

Our legitimate business interests may include some or all of the following:

• To send you marketing communications, informing you about our products and services and keeping you updated about any relevant development (you can opt out of marketing communications at any time);

• For evidential purposes, to effectively manage and maintain records of our relationships and communications with you;

• To enhance, modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services and communications for your benefit;

• To better understand how you interact with our website and content in order to enhance your customer experience;

• To determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns to inform marketing strategy.

Marketing Communications

We use your personal data for marketing in a way that complies with data protection and electronic marketing laws. If you are an existing customer, we may send you marketing about similar products or services where we rely on our legitimate interests in promoting and developing our business. You can object to this at any time by using the unsubscribe link in our messages or by contacting us. For prospective customers—or whenever we wish to send marketing that is not related to services you already receive—we will only contact you where we have your explicit consent. We will always make it clear when we are asking for consent, and you can withdraw it at any time. We never sell your data to third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Automated Decision‑Making and Profiling

We may use limited forms of automated decision‑making and profiling to support the delivery of our services to help us assess information efficiently and ensure we provide solutions that match your needs. However, we do not make any decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you without meaningful human involvement.

We may use automated systems to carry out tasks such as verifying your identity, conducting anti‑money laundering and fraud‑prevention checks, analysing credit information, and assessing eligibility against the provider’s criteria. We may also use profiling techniques to evaluate certain aspects of your financial situation—for example, your credit profile, affordability indicators, product suitability, or the likelihood of a lender accepting an application. These processes help us match you with appropriate products, identify potential risks, and ensure that the information we use is accurate and relevant.

Where automated tools highlight a particular risk or complexity, this may result in your case being referred to a colleague for further review. You will not be subject to solely automated decisions that produce legal or significant effects, and you have the right to request human intervention and contest an automated assessment if you believe it is inaccurate or unfair.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support certain aspects of our services, including reviewing customer information for quality assurance, assisting with routine enquiries through AI‑enabled chat‑bots, and helping our colleagues process customer applications. These tools are used to improve accuracy, efficiency and service delivery.

AI does not make any automated decisions that have significant effects on you. All outcomes relating to any decisions about our services are always reviewed and finalised by appropriate members of our team and any personal data processed by AI systems is handled securely and in accordance with UK data protection law, with appropriate human oversight at all times.

Who might we share your information with?

In order to deliver our services to you effectively we may send your details to third parties such as those that we engage for printing services, professional accountancy, consultancy or legal services, as well as product providers that we use to arrange financial products for you.

Where third parties are involved in processing your data we’ll have a contract in place with them to ensure that the nature and purpose of the processing is clear, that they are subject to a duty of confidence in processing your data and that they’ll only act in accordance with our written instructions.

Where it’s necessary for your personal data to be forwarded to a third party we’ll use appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in transit. Data is processed using UK‑based systems and services wherever this is commercially and operationally possible. In limited circumstances where UK‑hosted services are not available or suitable, data may be processed within the European Economic Area (EEA) using established and trusted third‑party providers that offer appropriate contractual and technical safeguards. No business or personal data is permanently stored outside of the UK or EEA, and any data transfer outside the UK is undertaken strictly in accordance with UK GDPR requirements, ensuring an equivalent level of protection at all times.

To fulfil our obligations in respect of prevention of money⁠⁠-⁠⁠laundering and other financial crime we may send your details to third party agencies for identity verification purposes.

We do not share or sell your data to third parties to allow them to market their products/services to you. We may share anonymised data about your visit to our website with third parties such as advertising agencies and social media platforms, for marketing the services provided by Equity Release Associates only. Please see the section on targeted cookies in our cookie policy [GS1]  for more information and details on how you can opt⁠⁠-⁠out.

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Third Parties and Attorneys

When we collect information about you where you are acting as either a third party or in the capacity of an attorney assisting one of our customers enquiring about a service we provide, we will process this data by recording it within the documentation we are producing for our customer. This processing is carried out in line with our legitimate interest in providing a service to our customers. We will not use such personal data for any other purpose including marketing. We will only provide this data to other parties in line with this privacy notice.

How long do we keep hold of your information?

Where you have enquired about our products or services, we will retain data for marketing purposes for up to five years from the date you last engaged with us. Where you have enquired and subsequently completed a fact find then we will retain data for marketing purposes until we believe that our services are no longer of relevance to you or if you request that your data is deleted.

However, we are subject to regulatory requirements to retain data for specified minimum periods.

Where business has completed, all calls and records are kept for six years after the plan has been redeemed or the customer has died.  Where a recommendation is sent to the customer, or where the customer has complained, all calls and records are kept for six years from the date of the recommendation or complaint.

We also reserve the right to retain data for longer than this due to the possibility that it may be required to defend a future claim against us.

At the end of any retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non⁠⁠-⁠⁠identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.

Your rights

Right to erasure – You have the right to request deletion of your personal data. We’ll comply with this request, subject to the restrictions of our regulatory obligations and legitimate interests as noted above.

Right of access – You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you’d like a copy of some or all your personal information, please email or write to us using the contact details noted below.

Right to portability – When your personal data is processed by automated means you have the right to ask us to move your personal data to another organisation for their use.

Right to rectification – We have an obligation to ensure that your personal information is kept accurate and up to date. Please ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is incorrect.

Right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask us to restrict how we use your personal data.  When processing is restricted, we will store your data securely but will not use it unless we have your consent, need it for legal claims, need it to protect the rights of another person, or are required to do so by law

Right to object – you have the right to object at any time to the use of your personal data for direct marketing. If you no longer wish to receive marketing communications from us, please refer to the following paragraph.

Opt-out policy

If, at any time after registering, you change your mind about receiving our postal/email offers or sharing your information with third parties you can write to us at the following address: Equity Release Associates Limited, 2200 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, LS15 8ZB, alternatively you can call 0800 0155 142 or email enquiries@equityreleaseassociates.com . Alternatively, you can 

click here  to update your email marketing preferences.  Please note that it can take up to 28 days for all mailings to cease as there may be some communications which are already in the “mailing cycle”.

Correcting/update

If you would like to correct and/or update your registration information you can write to us at the following address: Equity Release Associates Limited, 2200 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, LS15 8ZB, alternatively you can email info@equityreleaseassociates.com .

Cookies

We use cookies to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity. Further details can be found in our cookie policy.

For further information about cookies visit https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/

You can set your browser not to accept cookies, and the above website tells you how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.

Third Party websites

Our website contains links to other websites. Our privacy policy only applies to Equity Release Associates, so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies. We accept no responsibility or liability for the content of any linked website.

What can you do if you are unhappy with how your personal data is processed?

Please contact Equity Release Associates Data Protection Officer (DPO) if you have concerns (see contact details below). If we are unable to resolve any concern, you also have a right to lodge a complaint with supervisory the authority for data protection. In the UK this is:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Equity Release Associates Limited is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

Protecting Your Information

We implement a variety of security measures to protect your personal information. These include physical, technical, and administrative safeguards which adhere to ISO 27001 standards and are designed to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data.

Changes to our privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review and we’ll place any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated on 01/05/2026.

How to contact us

Please contact the DPO if you have any questions about our privacy notice or information we hold about you by email at dpo@agepartnership.com

Or write to us at Equity Release Associates Limited, 2200 Century Way, Thorpe Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS15 8ZB.