Deleting your account

What happens when you delete your PenaltyProof account, and how the 90-day retention window works.

How to delete your account

Go to /delete-account and enter your email address. We will send a signed deletion link to that address. Click the link, confirm your email, and your account is deleted. The link expires after 24 hours and can only be used once.

What happens immediately

Your account is soft-deleted: it is marked inactive and no longer appears in the active system. Monitoring stops. You stop receiving deadline alerts. Your Stripe subscription is cancelled immediately.

90-day retention window

Your data is held for 90 days after deletion under the UK GDPR retention policy. During this window, your email address is preserved so we can send two win-back emails (at 30 and 90 days) if you have not opted out of marketing email. At the end of 90 days, your account record and associated data are permanently purged from the database.

Hard purge

The hard purge runs in the daily scheduler. Once deleted_at is more than 90 days in the past, the accountant row and its associated company and alert data are permanently deleted. This is irreversible. After the hard purge, we no longer hold any data about your account.

Reactivation

If you reactivate within the 90-day window, your previous company list is still on file and you skip the CSV re-import step. After the hard purge, you start fresh.

Common questions

Will my monitored companies be deleted too?

Yes. Your monitored company list is deleted as part of the hard purge after 90 days. Immediate soft-deletion marks your account inactive but the company data remains in the database for the 90-day window.

Can I cancel without fully deleting my account?

Yes. You can cancel your Stripe subscription (which reverts you to the Free plan) without deleting your account. See /manage (Account tab → Billing). Deleting your account is a separate step that removes all data.

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