DATA PROTECTION POLICY

1. What personal information will we collect?

Your name, address and title.
Contact information, including telephone number, postal address and email address.
Financial information such as your bank details, payment details and information obtained as a result of our credit checks such as bankruptcy orders, individual voluntary arrangements or county court judgments where you are a landlord or tenant.
Documents provided to evidence proof of name (such as your passport, birth certificate and driving licence) and proof of address (such as utility bill, bank statement, local authority bill, NHS medical letter or GP letter of confirmation).
Where you are a tenant and we have introduced you to a referencing company, any information collected as part of a reference request.
Where you are a tenant, information about your job such as your job title, employment history and employment records (including information on your salary, benefits and earnings).
Additional information which is relevant to the property you are buying, selling, letting or renting for example:
- your current home status and living circumstances; and
- your family circumstances.
Information which we have gathered from publicly available sources such as the HM Land Registry.
Information obtained through our use of cookies.

2. What special categories of personal information will we collect?

We do not collect any special categories of personal information about you.

3. How will we collect your personal information?

We will collect information directly from you when:

you visit our offices or we visit you at your property;
you complete documentation including terms and conditions of business, landlord management information, application for tenancy and reference requests;
you use our website;
you contact us to make a complaint;
you contact us by email, telephone, WhatsApp and through other written and verbal communications; and
you request information about our services or subscribe to a newsletter or property alerts.

As well as obtaining information directly from you, we will also collect information from:

third parties involved in the sale/letting process such as solicitors, estate agents, third party referencing companies (where you are a tenant) and other property management companies;
publicly available sources such as Companies House and the HM Land Registry;
credit reference agencies where you are a tenant.

4. What will we use your personal information for?

We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds” when we process your "personal information":

We need to use your personal information to enter into or perform the contract that we hold with you. For example, we need to use your personal information to arrange and administer the letting or sale of your property and to keep you updated on progress.
We have a legal or regulatory obligation to use your personal information. For example, our regulators and governing bodies require us to hold certain records of our dealings with you and the HMRC require us to keep certain records.
We need to use your personal information for a legitimate business purpose (e.g. to keep a record of all properties that we have been involved with, to assist with the buying or letting process, to keep business and accounting records, manage our business operations and to develop and to improve our products and services). When using your personal information for these purposes, we will always assess our need to use your personal information for these purposes against your rights to privacy to ensure we are protecting your rights.

5. Who do we share personal information with?

We will keep your personal information confidential and will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:

Other third parties involved in the sale or letting process such as solicitors, estate agents, property developers, mortgage and financial advisers and other property management companies.
A referencing company and landlords where you are a tenant and we have introduced you to a particular referencing company.
Regulatory bodies including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Association of Residential Managing Agents, Association of Residential Letting Agents, Financial Conduct Authority, Tenancy Deposit Scheme and the Ombudsman Services.
The police and other third parties or law enforcement agencies where reasonably necessary for the prevention or detection of crime.
Debt collection agencies.
Credit reference agencies.

6. How long do we keep personal information for?

We will keep your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

The exact time period will depend on your relationship with us and the type of personal information we hold and the length of time between transactions in the industry has been taken into account when determining how long data is retained for, for example:

Where you are a non-financial services individual, for example a buyer or seller, landlord or tenant of a residential property with whom we assisted with the buying, selling or letting process, we will keep your personal information for a maximum of 7 years from the date of completion or the end date of the tenancy. The documents are kept in paper format in our office accessible only to our employees. At the end of this period the documents are shredded.

7. How do we protect your information?

You can be assured that any personal information we gather about you through our sites, email, social media, telephone or other means will not be passed on to any third party or organisation except in the instances outlined above

You will not be subject to direct marketing as a result of your details being shared with us.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s office (Reference number: ZA581312)
Please bear in mind that because of the latest changes in law, estate agents have an obligation to gather and keep all the necessary information for money laundering purpose as well as for making sure the individuals are financially viable for the purpose of the transaction involved.