This notice explains what personal information we collect when we help you with a will, a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) or a related service, why we need it, who sees it, how long we keep it, and your rights. We have tried to write it in plain English. If anything is unclear, ask us.
1. Who we are
Will Writing Network Limited ("WWN", "we", "us") is the controller of your personal information. That means we decide how it is used and we are responsible for it.
- Company number 09189360, registered in England and Wales
- Registered office: 3 Chester Bridge, Crewe, CW2 7EF
- Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): ZA106205
- Questions about your information: compliance@wwnwills.co.uk, or write to us at the address above
Your WWN adviser is a self-employed adviser certified by us. They work for you on our behalf, inside our systems and under our rules. They do not keep your information anywhere else.
2. What we collect
- About you: your name, date of birth, address and address history, email, mobile number, preferred language, marital status, and your identity documents (photo ID and proof of address).
- About your family and the people in your documents: your partner, children and other relatives, and the people you choose as executors, guardians, trustees, beneficiaries, attorneys, replacement attorneys, certificate provider and people to notify (see section 5).
- About what you own: property, savings, pensions, insurance and other assets and debts, as far as we need them to write your documents. We record only the last four digits of any account number, and never passwords, PINs or security answers.
- Your wishes: the answers you give for your will, letter of wishes, Executor Pack and LPA, including funeral wishes, organ donation, pets and online accounts.
- Health and beliefs, only where you choose to tell us: for example instructions about medical treatment in a health and welfare LPA or an advance decision, or religious wishes for your funeral. This is "special category" information and we treat it with extra care (see section 3).
- Money: what you bought, the invoices we sent you and whether they have been paid. Card payments are taken by our payment provider; we never see or keep your card number.
- Contact with us: emails, messages, meeting notes, appointments and anything you upload in your client portal.
- When you use our client portal: your login, when you signed in, and the security records needed to keep your account safe.
3. Why we use it, and the law that allows it
- To provide the service you asked for — taking your instructions, checking them, drafting your documents, sending them to you, helping with signing, invoicing and taking payment. Lawful basis: contract (we need it to do what you asked us to do, or to take steps you asked for before we agree a contract).
- To check who you are and to keep records that show what you asked for and why your documents say what they say. A will may be questioned many years later, often after your death; good records protect your wishes. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (protecting your wishes and our ability to show the work was done properly) and, for accounts, legal obligation.
- Health and beliefs you choose to include in your documents. Lawful basis: your explicit consent, which you give when you include them, and which you can withdraw (we would then take that part out of your documents).
- To contact the people named in your documents where it is needed, for example the certificate provider or people to notify for an LPA. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.
- To send you news and offers about our services, only if you have agreed. You can stop these at any time with the link in every message or by telling us. Lawful basis: consent.
- To keep our systems safe, deal with complaints, check our advisers' work and improve our service. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.
We do not make decisions about you by automated means. Our systems check your answers for gaps and mistakes, but a person reviews every document before it is sent to you.
4. Where we get it from
- Mostly from you, at your meeting or in your client portal.
- From your partner, if you are making documents together.
- From your adviser, who records what you tell them.
- From your financial adviser's firm, if you asked them to pass your details to us. If you chose a WWN package in your financial adviser's client portal (a firm in the Financial Expert group), that firm sends us, encrypted and only with your agreement: your name, date of birth, contact details and address, the package you chose and any discount code, your preferred language, your partner's name and date of birth (for a couple package), your children's names and dates of birth (for a will package), the name of the firm and your adviser there, and the wording you agreed to. They do not send us anything about your policies, health, income or their advice to you. From then on we look after that information under this notice.
- From public sources where needed, such as the address finder we use to complete your address.
5. If someone else gave us your details
When someone makes a will or an LPA, they tell us about other people: their partner, children, executors, guardians, trustees, beneficiaries, attorneys, certificate provider and people to notify. If that is you, we hold your name and the details needed for the documents (often your address, sometimes your date of birth and contact details), and your role in them. We use them only to prepare and carry out those documents (lawful basis: legitimate interests of the person making them, and ours). We do not use them to market to you. Where we need to contact you, for example as a certificate provider or because you were named as a partner in a couple package, we will point you to this notice at that first contact. You have the same rights as anyone else (section 9), but please remember that a will is private to the person who makes it: we cannot show you another person's will or wishes.
6. Who we share it with
We share only what each one needs, and never sell your information.
- Your WWN adviser and our central team, who check documents before they are sent.
- Our solicitor partner, if your case needs specialist or reserved work (for example trusts, property abroad or probate) and you agree to the referral.
- Government bodies, when you ask us to: the Office of the Public Guardian (to register an LPA), HM Courts & Tribunals Service (to deposit a will), and the National Will Register (if you choose to register where your will is kept).
- Service providers who work for us under contract and our instructions: our UK web and email hosting, our accounting system (Xero) and card payment provider (Stripe), the address finder (Ideal Postcodes), our appointment booking tool (zcal), WhatsApp when you choose to message your adviser there, and the printing and posting service we use if you buy print and post (Postworks).
- Your financial adviser's firm, only if they introduced you: we tell them that your account has been opened. We do not share your will, your LPA or your wishes with them unless you ask us to.
- Advisers in the Financial Expert group, only if you ask us to introduce you for mortgage, protection or other financial advice.
- Anyone we must share with by law, for example the police or a court order, and professional advisers such as our accountant or insurer.
7. Outside the UK
We keep your case on our own server in the UK. Some of our providers (for example the accounting, payment and booking services) may process information outside the UK. Some of our support staff also work from outside the UK. Wherever information is reached from outside the UK, it is protected as UK law requires, for example by the UK's adequacy regulations or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement.
8. How long we keep it
- Your will file — your instructions, the drafts and documents we prepared and sent to you, and the notes that go with them: your lifetime plus 15 years. A will can be questioned after death, so the file must outlast you.
- Your LPA file: while the LPA can be used, and 6 years after it ends or after your death.
- Copies of your identity documents: as long as the file they belong to.
- Invoices and payment records: 6 years after the end of the financial year they belong to, as the law requires.
- An enquiry that did not go ahead: 2 years after our last contact.
- Your marketing choices: until you tell us to stop, and then a note that you said no, so we do not contact you again.
We do not keep your signed original will or LPA. You keep the original and are responsible for keeping it safe. We keep the documents we prepared and sent to you, not the signed original.
9. Your rights
You can ask us, free of charge:
- for a copy of the information we hold about you;
- to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete;
- to delete it, or to stop or limit how we use it (we may have to keep some records, for example while a will is in force or for accounts, and we will tell you if so);
- to object to how we use it on the basis of legitimate interests, and to stop marketing at any time;
- to have the information you gave us in a format you can take elsewhere;
- to withdraw your consent where we rely on it. This does not affect what we did before.
Write to compliance@wwnwills.co.uk. We will reply within one month and may ask you to prove who you are first.
If you are unhappy with how we have used your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, telephone 0303 123 1113.
10. Keeping it safe
Your case lives only in our own systems. Everyone who works in them signs in with two-factor authentication, sees only the cases they work on, and signs our data protection and information security policies. Information passed to us by your financial adviser's firm travels encrypted. If something goes wrong, we will tell you and the ICO when the law requires it.
11. Cookies on this website
This website uses cookies that it needs to work, and others only if you agree to them in the cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time with the cookie settings link at the bottom of every page.
12. Changes to this notice
We will update this notice when how we use information changes, and show the date at the top. If a change affects you significantly, we will tell you directly.