Mortgage & Protection Terms of Business

At Foster Denovo, our goal is to provide you with a bespoke mortgage service; one that is tailored to your specific needs and requirements.

Our mortgage service has been designed with our clients at its centre, from the very first time you meet us, to any advice, recommendation and service you receive.  Once you engage with Foster Denovo, your Partner will:

• explain the services available to you.  They will be proactive, forward thinking, and collaborative and aim to keep things simple and easy to understand; from the brochures and documents you receive, to how they explain and discuss different aspects with you;
• explain what you can expect from each step of the advice journey;
• ask the right questions and actively listen to get to the heart of what your needs are;
• ascertain whether you need additional support during your advice journey, reflecting how you most easily understand, consider and decide;
• clearly explain how we are paid and confirm how much your fees will be, ensuring that in all aspects they offer fair value to you;
• mutually agree any timescales, and key dates with you before any work commences. If it becomes apparent these timescales are unlikely to be met, they will tell you at the earliest opportunity;
• conduct research to identify suitable products to achieve your mortgage needs;
• take you through our recommendations to ensure you understand; and with your agreement, implement our recommended solution.

Delivering service excellence is engrained in everything we do.  We have one of the highest Net Promoter Scores of +70 (a measure of client satisfaction) in the financial services sector.  To help us continue to meet and exceed your expectations, we will ask you for feedback on the service you have received.  We recognise that we are all increasingly asked for feedback, and we very much appreciate the time you take to provide us with your honest comments.  If there is anything I can help you with, please feel free to contact me at roger.brosch@fosterdenovo.com.

Terms of business for Foster Denovo Limited

This is our standard terms of business upon which we intend to rely. For your own benefit and protection you should read the information contained in this document carefully before signing it.

If you do not understand any point contained in this document please ask for further information.

Regulatory status

Foster Denovo Limited, 20 St Dunstan’s Hill, EC3R 8HL, is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in respect of home finance activity and non-investment insurance products. You can check this on the Financial Services Register by visiting the FCA’s website; https://register.fca.org.uk/ or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768. Our FCA reference number is 462728

Our permitted business includes advising, arranging and making arrangements with a view to non-investment insurance contracts and mortgages.

Conflicts of interest

We offer advice in accordance with our Information Disclosure Document (IDD). Occasions may arise where we, our Partners, or one of our other clients have some form of interest in business being transacted by you. Where we become aware of a potential conflict of interest that we cannot avoid, we will advise you in writing and obtain your consent before we carry out your instructions and detail the steps we will take to ensure your continued fair treatment. As a consequence of such potential conflict of interest arising, we have put arrangements in place to ensure our clients are treated fairly. We have also implemented a conflicts of interest policy to help us manage such risks, which you may request.

How we charge clients for our services

• Mortgages

Our income comes from fees we charge clients; from procuration commission we receive from the product providers, or a combination of procuration commission and fees.

• Protection

If you take out a life insurance policy where we receive commission and subsequently you cancel it, the product provider will normally ask us to repay some of that commission back to them. This would mean that we could charge you a top up fee to reinstate the shortfall. The potential scale of this will be explained to you and set out in a fee agreement before we carry out work on your behalf. The claw back of commission and fee top up can occur if you cancel the product within the first 4 years. You will not be asked to pay more than the maximum fee entitlement, or the original commission we received (whichever is the greater) as set out in our fee agreement with you.

Client money – Foster Denovo does not handle clients’ money

We never accept any payment made out to Foster Denovo Ltd unless it is in settlement of our fees, charges or disbursements which we have agreed with you in advance. Payments should be made payable to product providers or lenders and never payable to us or any individual representing us.  This does not apply to settlement of invoices for agreed fees.

Money Laundering

We will carry out an electronic data check to confirm your identity as part of our money laundering procedure (eIDV). The eIDV check will use credit reference agencies for the purpose of verifying your identity. To do so the credit reference agency may check the details you supply against the particulars in any database (public or otherwise), to which they have access. They may also use your details in the future to assist other companies for verification purposes.

Accounting to you

We will confirm to you in writing the basis of our reason for recommending the product/s and service performed on your behalf.

We will also make arrangements for all of the products you have applied for to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing.

We will forward to you all documents showing ownership of the products you have applied for as soon as practicable after we receive them; where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions is involved, we will normally hold each document until the series is complete and then forward these to you.

Right to withdraw

In the case of many non-investment insurance products, including mortgage life insurance, a right to withdraw or cancel the contract within the specified period is normally provided.  Details of such rights are ordinarily contained in the product literature (e.g. key features document) and/or we may provide details of such rights in a separate communication.

Mode of communication

We will communicate with you through whatever means are convenient to you, including face-to-face, virtual meetings, telephone, paper, e-mail and other acceptable electronic communication methods.

Our communications will ordinarily be in English, both in respect of oral and written communications.

You may at any time choose to request information in paper, free of charge, that has previously been provided to you by means other than paper. For example, where a communication was originally sent by email.

Client instructions

We prefer instructions to be given to us in writing (including email) to avoid any possible disputes. If any instructions are given verbally then they should be confirmed in writing. We may refuse, at our discretion, to accept certain instructions, although such discretion will not be exercised unreasonably.

Rights of third parties

The terms contained in this letter exclude any rights which may be conferred upon third parties by the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

Termination

The terms set out in this letter may be terminated at any time, by either party notifying the other in writing and will take effect from the date of receipt. This will be without penalty and without prejudice to the completion of transactions already commenced on your behalf.

You will be expected to pay for any costs incurred, or a due proportion, of any fees previously agreed.

Data privacy notice

It is important that our clients understand how the personal information they provide to Foster Denovo Limited during the course of our meetings and or communications will be used.

At the end of this document we will ask you to sign to give your consent to Foster Denovo Limited, your Foster Denovo Partner (who, if self-employed, will have made an individual notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office) and any Associated Company processing (see definitions section) the personal information you have provided to us. It is important that you read this privacy notice.

Foster Denovo Limited will treat all personal data, including any special category data (see definitions section), as confidential and will not process it other than for legitimate purposes which have been pre- agreed with you. Steps will be taken to ensure that the information we hold remains accurate, is kept up to date and not kept for longer than is necessary (see data retention section). We will take steps to safeguard against unauthorised or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage to the data we hold about you.

How the law protects you

The law says we must have one or more of these reasons to hold your data:

• to fulfil a contract we have with you;
• when it is our legal duty;
• when it is in our legitimate interest; or
• when you consent to it.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information. But even then, it must not unfairly go against what is right and best for you. If we rely on our legitimate interest, we will tell you what that is.

Information we collect about you and why we need it

As part of our advice process and to enable our Partners to establish your current financial situation, future needs and to provide you with financial advice, we will collect personal data about you to ensure that the financial advice provided meets your objectives. Personal data may include your name, residential address, contact details, employment details including salary, and financial details.

Where do we collect your personal data from?

Our Partners collect information about you from you during your meetings with them. This can be face-to-face, by telephone, virtual, or another communication medium, for example, email.  We may also contact companies with whom you have existing loans, policies, and other financial products to obtain the detail needed to provide you with mortgage and/or protection advice.  If this is the case, we will seek your written permission before approaching companies for this information.

How will we use your personal data?

We will use your personal data to recommend products to achieve your mortgage and protection objectives, manage the relationship with us and enable us to comply with any laws and regulations we must meet e.g. laws preventing financial crime. This is likely to involve the completion of application forms for protection and mortgage products provided by companies or lenders not connected to Foster Denovo Limited.  We will obtain your agreement to the processing of any such applications before we submit them to the company(ies) or lenders we recommend. We will retain records of your personal data either in electronic format or paper as part of our ongoing relationship with you and to meet the obligations of our regulator.

What are your rights?

• To be informed. This document, together with our fee agreement, contains the information you should be aware of when entering into a business relationship with Foster Denovo Limited.
• Access.  You can ask us what data of yours we are processing, the reason we are processing it, what personal data is involved and who we have sent that data to. You have the right to request access to any of your personal or special category data being processed by us. On request, we will provide you with an initial copy of the data requested, either in paper or electronic format, free of charge. If you require any subsequent copies, we may charge you a fee to cover our administration costs.
• To rectification.  If you become aware that any personal data we hold is not accurate or is incomplete, you can ask us to correct it. If we have disclosed this information to any third parties, for example lenders or product providers, we will contact them and ask them to amend this data.
• To erasure. You can ask us to delete some, or all of your personal data and/or prevent the processing of it. Where it conflicts with our legal obligations from our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), or if it affects our ability to defend possible future legal claims made against us, we may refuse to comply with your request to delete this data.
• To restrict processing. You may ask us to restrict processing of personal data where you question the accuracy of the personal data, or where we no longer need to process your data but need to keep it to defend any legal claims.
• To data portability.  You can ask us to provide a copy of, move or transfer personal data from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way. We will provide your personal data to you in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form. We will respond to your request without unnecessary delay but we may take up to one month from the receipt of your request depending on the complexity and volume of data.
• To object.  You can object to us processing your data based on legitimate interests, or the performance of a task in the public interest, and direct marketing to you.
• Not to be subjected to automated decision making including profiling.  Currently, we do not have any processing operations where automated decision making is part of a process.

Sending data outside the EEA

We will only send your data outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) to follow your instructions or to comply with a legal duty.

Withdrawal of consent

If at any time you wish us or any Associated Company to stop holding or processing your personal or special category data, or contacting you for marketing purposes, contact: The Data Protection Officer on 01932 870720 or in writing to: Foster Denovo Limited, Ruxley House, 2 Hamm Moor Lane, Addlestone, Surrey KT15 2SA

How to complain

Please let us know if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal data. You can contact us by writing to the Data Protection Officer at the address above.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner about any aspect of our handling of your personal data. Your complaint should be submitted to:  The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Or call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113 or visit the website https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

Data retention

We will retain copies of your personal data as required by the Financial Services and Markets Act as interpreted by our regulator, the FCA. The length of time we may retain your information will be determined by the type and nature of the advice we provide to you. Some examples are:

• advice on protection products – we will retain for a minimum period of three years following the termination of the relationship between you and Foster Denovo Limited; and
• advice on mortgage products including equity release – we will retain the information for a period of three years from the date the advice was given.

It is likely that we will keep your data for longer than the periods shown for legal, regulatory reasons or to protect us from future complaints.

Breach notification

We will contact you if a breach of our security occurs which results in the destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, your personal data. If such an event is likely to result in a high risk to your rights we will contact you. We will provide you with details of what data has been affected, the name and contact details of the Data Protection Officer, a description of the likely consequences of the personal data breach and a description of the measures we  have taken, or propose to take, to deal with the breach and to mitigate and possible adverse effects.

Consent for us to contact you

Legitimate Consent

If you are, or become a client of ours, we may contact you in the future to offer a review of the mortgage interest rates available with a view to minimising any increase in your monthly mortgage payments.