Privacy & cookies

Ask Paul is operated by Waqas Naz Ali, trading as Ask Paul (part of the PortfolioHub group), based at 60 Beaufort Road, Woking GU22 8BZ, United Kingdom. We are the data controller for personal data you submit through this site.

We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a data controller — registration ZC124830. You can verify this on the ICO public register at ico.org.uk.

You can contact us about anything in this notice at waqas.ali@portfoliohub.uk.

We only collect data you choose to give us, plus a small amount of technical data:

• Enquiry answers — the choices and figures you enter while talking to Paul (intent, property type, deposit, rental, structure, profile).
• Contact details — name, email, and phone (if provided) when you ask Paul to send your tailored pack.
• Analytics data — page views, device type, country, and how you got here. Only collected if you accept the cookie banner.
• Technical data — IP address, browser type, and timestamps logged briefly by our hosting provider for security and abuse prevention.

We do not ask for, store, or process: payment details, full address details beyond the property you're asking about, identity documents, or any "special category" data (health, ethnicity, etc.).

We use your data for three things only:

• To send you your tailored pack — the lender shortlist and advisory notes Paul puts together based on your answers.
• To introduce you to a regulated mortgage broker — if you ask Paul to. We pass your enquiry summary and contact details to a partner broker so they can pick up the conversation.
• To improve the service — to understand which guides land and where the experience could be clearer.

Our lawful basis under UK GDPR is your consent (when you fill in the form or accept analytics cookies), and our legitimate interest in running the service and keeping it secure.

Your data is shared with a small, defined set of parties:

• Our partner broker firm — when you ask Paul to put you in touch with a regulated mortgage adviser. They are also a UK data controller and will contact you about your mortgage enquiry only.
• Our hosting and infrastructure providers — Supabase (database), Vercel (hosting), Resend (transactional email). Each acts as a data processor under contract.
• Google Analytics — only if you accept analytics cookies. Data is aggregated and de-identified by Google.

We do not sell your data, share it with advertisers, or pass it to lead-aggregator firms.

Enquiry answers and contact details are kept for up to 24 months from your last interaction, then deleted or anonymised. Analytics data is held by Google for up to 14 months and aggregated indefinitely. You can ask us to delete your data sooner at any time (see section 6).

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

• See the data we hold on you (subject access).
• Correct data that's wrong or out of date.
• Delete your data.
• Restrict or object to how we use it.
• Withdraw consent at any time.
• Receive a copy of your data in a portable format.

Email waqas.ali@portfoliohub.uk with your request. We'll respond within one calendar month.

If you're unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

We use two types of cookies, both gated behind the consent banner you saw on your first visit:

• Google Analytics 4 — measures which pages people read and how they got to us. Set only if you click Accept.
• A small consent-state cookie — remembers your choice so the banner doesn't pop up every visit. Always set; contains only "granted" or "denied".

We also use Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights for site-performance monitoring. These are cookieless, IP-anonymised, and used only to detect slow pages and errors.

You can clear your choice and re-show the banner at any time:

If we change how we handle your data we'll update this page and bump the "Last updated" date at the top. If the change is significant (e.g. a new data processor or a new sharing party), we'll flag it the next time you visit.

Questions, requests, or complaints about your data: waqas.ali@portfoliohub.uk.