(Updated 10th March 2023)
For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 and General Data Protection Regulation EU 2016/679, the data controller is;
Girard Lettings Ltd
The Gate House
90a Bartholomew Street
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 5DY
Tel: 01635 551911
Dated 10th March 2023
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect personal information, how we use the information, your legal rights and how you can manage the use of your personal information and how you can contact us, amend your data or make a complaint.
Why we are giving you this notice
We are required by data protection law to give you this notice. We must be open with you about why
Information/personal date is collected about you and we must advise you what we do with it and who we share it with. We must act fairly in relation to this information. You have various legal rights relating to your information/personal data which is detailed in this notice.
The information we collect
The personal information we collect from you will typically include the following:
- Full name and contact details (including your contact number, email and postal address)
- Information relating to your identity where we are required by law to collect this to comply with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and the Immigration Act, Right to Rent.
- Your banking details where required such as where you are a Landlord letting a property or, where you are a tenant renting, to set up an approved tenancy deposit account for you and arrange for rental payments
- Information known as special category personal data comprising of any disability or other health issue which may assist us in finding suitable property.
- Your communications with us, including a record of the email or telephone correspondence created when you contact us.
Where we need to collect personal data by law (for example to meet our obligations to prevent fraud and money laundering, to comply with the Immigration Act/Right to Rent) or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with our services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
Processing personal data
We will hold and use personal information about you in the following ways:
- To fulfil our obligations to you when providing you with our property services
- To share your information with others where necessary to fulfil our property services for you or where we are acting as agents for a third party on your behalf
- To comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations, including verifying your identity, prevention of fraud and money laundering and to assess your credit worthiness
- Communicate with you during the course of providing our services, for example with your enquiries and requests
- To notify you about changes to our service
The legal grounds under data protection legislation for processing your personal data are as follows:
- It is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or to take steps prior to entering into a contract with you, for us to provide you with our products and services
- You have given us explicit consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes, namely 1) where you have given us consent to receive electronic marketing by us and/or 2) to process your Special Category Personal Data described above. You do not need to provide us with marketing consent in order to receive our services
- It is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests, except where our interests are overridden by the interests, rights or freedoms of affected individuals (such as you). To determine this we shall consider a number of factors, such as what you were told at the time you provided your data, what your expectations are about the processing of the data, the nature of the data, and the impact of the processing on you. Our legitimate interests include processing necessary data to improve and to promote our services and products and to better understand our customers’ interests and knowledge of the property market and to administer the technical aspects of our service and products.
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation; or in rare circumstances
- Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests); and/or
- Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes
Website information
We use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. This helps us analyse the number of visitors to the various parts of our website. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.
We use a third-party service, to facilitate our website When you send a message, we collect the data you have given to us in that message in order to obtain confirmation that you are entitled to receive the information and to provide to you the information you need. We record your request and our reply and we may keep personally identifiable information associated with your message, such as your name or email address.
Our website search is provided by Joomla. Search queries and results are logged anonymously to help us improve our website and search functionality. No user-specific data is collected. We use this third-party service to help maintain the security and performance of our website. To deliver this service it processes the IP addresses of visitors to the Girard Lettings website.
Data may be “processed” outside the UK.
Our web sites are hosted in the EU. We may use outsourced services in countries outside the EU from time to time in other aspects of our business. Accordingly data obtained within the UK may be “processed” outside the UK and data obtained in any other country may be processed within or outside that country.
Data Retention
We will retain your personal data for different periods depending on the service we are providing you, these periods may be longer than that for which we need to hold your data to provide those services, i.e. where we are under regulatory or statutory duties to hold your data for a longer period or need to retain it in the event of a legal claim or complaint.
We keep information which forms part of our business records for a minimum of six years. That is because we may need it in some way to support a claim or defence in court. That is also the period within which our tax collecting authorities may demand to know it.
Where we have processed your data for any other reason (for example where you have viewed a property with us) we will retain your data for 1 year.
Information shared with third-party contacts
Girard Lettings Ltd share your data with some or all of the following third parties when marketing and letting a property. The companies listed are only allowed to use the information as authorised and have confirmed to us that they are all compliant with the general data protection regulations.
We will advise you in advance of the details of any occasional or one-off contractors we may have to use who are outside this list.
- Cfp Winman provide our software
- 1-Fix Ltd provide our IT support
- Microsoft outlook provide our email
- Vouch provide our tenant referencing
- Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS) to register tenant deposits
- Blue House Inventories and Verismart to provide our inventory and check out services
- EPC Property provide our Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) in line with current law
- Brady Craddock Plumbing and Heating, TS Gas Ltd, Ecomech and RSK Plumbing and Heating provide our Gas Safety Certificates
- SP Electrical & Sanchez Electrical provide our electrical & PAT testing certificates
- Azets provide our accountancy services
- Rightmove and On the Market.com
- Utility Companies, Councils, Water
We will also disclose your personal information to third parties:
If our company or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about our customers will be one of the transferred assets
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal or regulatory obligation or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our company, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes without first obtaining your prior consent.
Compliance with the law
This confidentiality policy has been compiled to comply with the law of every jurisdiction in which we aim to do business. If you think it fails to satisfy the law of your country, we should like to hear from you, but ultimately it is your choice as to whether you wish to use our website.
Access to personal information
At any time you may review or update the personally identifiable information that we hold about you, by contacting us at the address at the head of this notice. To better safeguard your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information. You have certain rights in respect of the management of the personal data we hold about you. You can exercise any of these rights by contacting us. The easiest way to get in touch is by emailing us at nicola@girardlettings.co.uk
Right of Access
You are entitled to receive confirmation as to whether your personal information is being processed by us, as well as various other information relating to our use of your personal information. You also have the right to access your personal information which we are handling.
Complaining
If we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us. We use that information to resolve your complaint. If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint. We do this as infrequently as possible, but it is a matter for our sole discretion as to whether we do give information, and, if we do, what that information is.
We offer our own internal complaints procedure and if you have any concerns about the way in which we collect or handle data please contact us. Additionally we are registered with the Information Coimmissioners Office.