Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice

Last updated: 22nd May 2018.

Simon Blyth Estate Agents and Lettings takes your privacy seriously and is committed to protecting it.

Introduction

In this Privacy Notice the terms, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ are references to Simon Blyth Estate Agents and Lettings, registered at Fairfield House, Hollowgate, Holmfirth, HD9 2DG

Our Privacy Notice explains how any personal data we collect, whether through our website or in one of offices, is processed and handled.

Please read the following carefully to understand our practices and views on your personal data and how it will be handled.

Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to keeping your information secure and managing it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws. By visiting and using our website, you confirm that you have read and agree to this Privacy Notice. If you do not agree with any part of this Privacy Notice, you should not use our site or our services.

We reserve the right to change the contents of our website at any time, including this Privacy Notice. Any changes to this will always be shown on our website immediately after being changed. It is soley your responsibility to familiarise yourself with the Privacy Notice at each visit to ensure that you are fully aware of any changes.

What information is collected from our new and existing customers.

We may collect personal information from you that relates to the use of our website and/or services which include:

Your name, postal/correspondence/home address, telephone numbers and email address when you either register with us or attempt to arrange viewings of our properties, book valuations/consultations, register for property updates, request details on one of our servicesDetails gathered from the provision of your identification documents such as passports, driving licenses etc which are used for right to rent checks and money laundering checks;
Cookie data which relates to your use of our website;
Details of the website you have come from/been referred by;
Data sent from your browser to our server which may include: the date, time and duration of your visit to our website which pages you visited and your IP address;
Where applicable your date of birth, nationality, financial status, tax status and other financial details for managing any financial services you request from us including payments for services, transfer of rents, setting up of standing orders and for proof of funds to proceeds with purchasing or renting one of our properties including offers or mortgages in principle;
Detailed information on yourself and family for referencing, credit checks, right to rent and right to sell checks including mortgage arrangements, monies invested in your property, length of time living at properties, landlord details, licensing documents, service contracts
Details of your property including photographs, floor plans, energy performance certificate ratings/ home reports, property descriptions and survey results when you instruct us to market a property for you;
Details needed for passing to buyers, sellers, landlords or tenants for use in their prospective property including utility providers and meter details including readings, inventories (check in and out), deposits paid and registered with any scheme;
Details of your title, names, contact details, preferences for delivery methods, sex, civil/marital status, date of birth, nationality, personal credit history, sources of income and expenditure, family circumstances and details of dependents, confirmation of whether or not you smoke, any pre-existing mortgage and/ or insurance products, occupation, employment and remuneration information (including salary/bonus schemes/overtime/sick pay/ other benefits) and employment history, bank account details, tax information, loans and credit commitments, and the terms and conditions relating to these, credit reference checks and details of the type of mortgage, insurance and/or protection you require where you are receiving mortgage, insurance and/or protection advice from us.

Use of the information we collect

Your information will be used by us and our services/departments in connection with the following purposes:

To provide you with the service you request from our estate agency, lettings, commercial and maintenance departments which may include the selling, letting or finding of your property, valuing your property, any and all lettings services, financial services related to the appropriate property(s), introduction of conveyancing, removal and maintenance services for the appropriate property, keeping you informed of any services and developments in relation to any services or additional products provided or introduced, arranging and carrying out viewings, collection of payments, registering of deposits, processing of any payments or transfers of monies, receipt and invoicing in relation to any monies paid or transferred, arranging of any certificates required for the sale or letting of a property such as EPC or gas safety certificates, arranging of inventories and meter readings plus the assurance of utility companies being in place for prospective tenants, referencing and associated checks required for sale or letting of a property, management of client details and data, improvement of our services.

Responding to your enquiries:

We will in response to your enquiries use your data to provide details on our services and anything connected with our services including quotations. This information may also be used for the marketing of our services including any information which may be relevant to the services you have enquired about; targeted advertising which includes the use of social media where you have shown interest in our services; and general updates on the property market you have shown interest in.

Improving our Website:

We may analyse any website data including cookies to improve the performance of our website which will allow us to alter and customise the content based on the interactions and pages you have visited.

Legal and Regulatory Obligations:

We will collect and use your data for legitimate or legally required reasons. These reasons are listed below. Please note this includes meeting with the demands and compliance of our regulators, tax office and law enforcement. Where permission is required outside of the below reasons, we will always use your data to contact you and gain this permission.

to comply with applicable laws where we are obliged to retain and/or disclose certain information;
to fulfil our terms of our contract with you
to investigate or address claims or complaints relating to your use of our services;
for internal and external auditing purposes;
to carry out anti-money laundering checks;
to carry out right to rent checks;
to transfer information to any entity which may acquire rights in us;
to collect a debt which is owed to us; and
for onward referencing where you are a tenant.

Your information and your Special Data/Criminal Disclosures will be retained by Our Network either electronically or in paper format for a minimum of six years and possibly for a longer period where this is required to enable Our Network to fulfil its legal and regulatory obligations.

Please note that the above information is a summary of the Network Privacy Policy for customers. If you wish to understand in more detail what Our Network will do with your information and Special Data/Criminal Disclosures then please visit the Network Privacy Policy for customers located at http://www.primis.co.uk/privacy-policy-and-tcs.

What is the source of the information we collect?

The majority of the personal information which we collect is voluntarily provided by you. Any other information and data will only have been passed to us third parties associated with the services with which you have requested such as Rightmove, On The Market, Zoopla, maintenance contractors, referencing companies, law enforcement, regulatory bodies, HM Land Registry, social networks, employers, trustees and solicitors.

Data retention

The personal information that you provide will be retained by us in accordance with applicable laws and our internal Retention Policy. However, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify personal information we hold if it is no longer needed for the purposes set out above. We will only hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant purpose for which it was collected. A copy of our Retention Policy is available on request.

Disclosure of information

The information you provide to us will be held on our computers and servers and may be accessed by any of the staff within any department of Simon Blyth for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice or for other purposes approved by you. We may also disclose your information to third parties associated with the services with which you have requested such as Rightmove, On The Market, Zoopla, maintenance contractors, referencing companies, law enforcement, regulatory bodies, HM Land Registry, social networks, employers, deposit schemes, trustees and solicitors.

If you are using our letting services, we may share your details with landlords, tenants and maintenance contractors to comply with our legal obligations and also to provide the service needed to maintain and manage the tenancy including our obligations to the landlord(s).

We are regulated by The Property Ombudsman and information may be shared with them relating to the service we provide you if requested.

Marketing

We and any department of Simon Blyth use your information to keep updated. This will include properties which match the requirements you have given us, updates on the market which you have enquired about and services which we believe will be of genuine interest to you. In the first instance, we would only contact you using information which you have provided to us whilst enquiring about our properties and/or services. This information provided to us for these reasons is taken as consent to contact you and use your information to market our properties and services. This information passed to us directly from yourself will have come from direct contact (email, phone, mail, visiting one of our offices) or via the websites that you have used to enquire about our properties or services such as Rightmove, On The Market, our own website and other portals we may decide to advertise on including social media. This information is shared between the departments of Simon Blyth. All our marketing is done in accordance with applicable laws. Our property matches will always have an unsubscribe option for you to Opt Out and you can unsubscribe from any/all of our services using the email unsubscribe@simonblyth.co.uk.

Other than as explained above, we will not pass your information to other companies for their own marketing purposes.

Your rights

We will always allow you to view, edit, question and remove any of your personal information that we hold as long as this does not affect the service we provide including those associated with the service you employ us for such as lettings services and also does not conflict with our legal obligations or confidentiality/privacy of other customers or parties.. We will on each occasion request identification for security purposes and may, where permitted by law, charge a fee if we deem your request excessive or unfounded in its reasoning. These requests can be made using the Data Officer details at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Third party websites

Our website and social media may occasionally contain links to other websites. We accept no responsibility or liability for the content of other websites which are not under our control, in particular, we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting other websites and such sites are not governed by our Privacy Notice.

Security

We have security measures which aim to protect the information provided by you from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage.

We also expect you to take reasonable steps to safeguard your own privacy when transferring information to us, such as not sending confidential information over unprotected email, ensuring email attachments are password protected or encrypted and only using secure methods of postage when original documentation is sent to us.

Cookies

Our Site uses cookies (including cookies to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volumes to Our Site). To view more information on what cookies we use and how we use them please review our separate Cookies Policy which can be found at https://www.simonblyth.co.uk/cookie-policy.

Contact

If you have concerns, questions or comments about our Privacy Notice or if you wish to exercise your right to access, correct or delete anything mentioned above, please contact our Data Protection Officer by:

Email: dataprotection@simonblyth.co.uk;

Post: Data Protection Officer, Simon Blyth Estate Agents and Lettings, Fairfield House, Hollowgate, Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, HD9 2DG; or

Telephone: 07951 226 803

Complaints

If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled your personal data you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.