Privacy Statement

PRIVACY STATEMENT

Christine Smith trading as MIKE SMITH PROPERTIES (“MPS” or “we”, “our” or “us”) is committed to protecting the security and privacy of all personal information or data collected from you. MPS therefore conducts our business in compliance with applicable laws on data privacy protection and data security. This privacy statement tells you what to expect when we collect and process your personal information.

We try to meet the highest standards when processing your personal information. The data controller who is responsible for how we handle your personal information is Mike Smith Properties. Any queries you have in relation to the same should be directed to sales@mikesmithproperties.co.uk.

Information We May Collect from You

We may ask you to provide certain information about you when you use our website, complete forms or contact us by telephone, email or post about the services and activities we provide. You will know when we are collecting information intended to be kept for future use via our website because the web page will contain a link to this privacy statement as will any forms we require you to complete. The information collected may include:

• Details in relation to your identity such as your name, occupation and job title
• Contact details including your postal/e-mail addressand phone number
• Transaction details about services you specifically requestfrom us
• Financial details in relation to any services bought from us including addresses for invoices, card payment details etc.
• Additional specific information about you and your family in order to assess your suitability for a particular property or service.
• Profile details from documents you complete on-line such as your user name and password, preferences, interests and your transaction history
• details of your visits to our website including but not limited to traffic data, location data,

weblogs and other communication data and the resources that you access or use

Additional specific information about you may include name, gender, place and date of birth, past addresses, credit referencing, employment details and earnings, details of benefits and general information about you and your family that assists us in providing individualised property sales or purchase services to you.

Sensitive data is personal information which includes your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, or information concerning your health or mental wellbeing or sexual orientation. We will generally not collect sensitive data from you via our website. Where we do require to process such sensitive data to provide services to you we will notify you in advance and, if appropriate, will request your express consent in writing to process such sensitive data. Please bear in mind however where you do instruct us to act on your behalf we will require to carry out identification checks on you as required by Anti-Money Laundering Legislation and this may include your passport or other similar identification and in those circumstances express consent is not required because it is required as a matter of law.

If you do not wish us to collect any of the personal information stated above, you should discuss this with us. We can explain the reasons for collection and discuss the consequences of not providing the information or of providing partial or incomplete information and the effect this may have on our ability to provide our services.

Uses Made of Your Information

By law we can only process your information if we can demonstrate the lawful grounds we have for doing so. Currently there are six potential lawful grounds for processing personal information, namely

• we have your consent;
• it is necessary for performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into such contract;
• it is necessary for our compliance with a legal obligation;
• it is in the public interest;
• it is necessary to protect your vital interests; or
• that it is in our legitimate interest to do so but only where that interest does not override your interests or your fundamental rights and freedom.

If none of these grounds apply or ceases to apply we must cease processing your personal information immediately.

We may use personal information held about you in the following ways: –

We will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary in line with the purposes for which it was originally requested or collected or where we are required to do so for some legal or reporting purpose.

In working out how long we retain personal data we look the type of personal data involved, the purpose of processing, how sensitive or confidential the data is and at legal and commercial considerations including any legal obligations we have. By way of example by law we are required to keep accounting records for six years after end of the year in which the last transaction occurred. This means that we will be required to keep some basic client details for that purpose even although our relationship with you may be at an end. However, it should be noted that the requirement is basic client details and therefore it is not legitimate to also keep information such as your preferences for that period of time. On that basis we will retain information about prospective purchasers in respect to enquiries that do not progress to viewing or offering or purchase for six months from the date the enquiry was received. Similarly where a property is viewed and/or offers made and/or a purchase takes place we will retain the information about that property transaction including information about the successful purchaser for 6 years from the end of the Sole Selling Rights Agreement in place with you in order to comply with our statutory duties to retain information for anti-money laundering purposes, to comply with The Property Ombudsman Code of Practice for residential estate agents in Scotland as well as to protect our legitimate interests and those of our clients in defending possible legal claims.

If you have any questions relating to either retention periods or more require more detail on the purposes of processing or the specific reason or legal grounds, we are relying on for that processing then please contact us for additional information.

Sharing Your Information

We will not sell the personal information that we collect from you and will only use it for the purposes set out in this privacy statement. We may share your personal information with the following parties: –

• Service providers who provide us with IT and administration services such as our IT Support and back up provider and webhosting company;
• Service providers used in relation to the sale and/or marketing of your property including but not restricted to surveyors for the purposes of acquiring a Home Buyers Report, specialist surveyors, if required, regarding any specialist works required to your property, photographers for the purposes of obtain photographs of your property for inclusion in any marketing materials (whether in brochure format or online format), marketing sites and social media as agreed with you such as Rightmove and Zoopla;
• Third party Solicitors and Mortgage Brokers but only to the extent that you have consented to us doing so;
• HMRC and other regulatory authorities who require reporting of our activities by law;
• Professional advisers such as our lawyers, accountants, bankers and insurers;
• Third parties to whom we sell, transfer or merge our business or any part of it;
• Credit referencing and other identity reference providers/checkers for referencing purposes and decisions to assess your suitability as a purchaser or seller; and
• Third parties to whom we sell, transfer or merge our business or any part of it

All third parties with whom we share your data are required to protect your personal data, treat it confidentially and to process it in accordance with the law. Where we use third parties we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that: –

• they have adequate technical and other measures in place to ensure the security of your personal information;
• that they only use it for specified purposes;
• That any employees or contractors who have access to the information are adequately trained and deal with it on a need to know basis only;
• and that they act only in accordance with our instructions.

IP Addresses and Cookies 
We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns and does not identify any individual.

Some websites use “cookies” which are text only strings of information that the website you are visiting transfers to the cookie file of the browser on your computer. The purpose is to identify users and to enhance the user’s experience by customising web pages. A cookie will usually contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, an expiry date for the cookie, and a value which is usually a randomly generated unique number.Where we use third party providers such as Google Analytics although these third-party services record data such as your geographical location, device, browser and operation system none of this information identifies you to us. We do not make and do not allow these third-party services to make any attempt to find out the identities of anyone who visits our website. 

Marketing Information

We may provide you with information on activities such as outings that we may provide. This is regarded as marketing activity. We will only market to you where you have: –

• specifically requested marketing information from us; or
• Previously acquired similar services/goods from us; or
• Consented by way of ticking a box or opting in to receiving marketing from us.

If you have opted out of marketing, we will not send you any future marketing without your consent.

Each time we market to you we will always give you the right to opt out of any future marketing but

would point out that you have the right at any timeto ask us not to market to you at any time by emailing us at sales@mikesmithproperties.co.ukrather than waiting on a specific opt out.

Security of Personal Data

We take information security very seriously.  Your information and records will be stored securely to ensure privacy of your personal data. We take all reasonable steps to ensure that there are technical and organisational measures of security in place to protect your personal data from unauthorised access to or disclosure of it, and against loss or accidental damage or unauthorised alteration of it. Staff handling your personal data are also adequately trained in relation to the legal requirements for handling personal data. These include robust procedures for dealing with breaches including incident reporting and notifying the Information Commissioner, and where appropriate you, of any breaches, the consequences of the same and the remedial action taken.

Where possible the information you provide us with will be held within the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or within the UK.

Overseas Transfers

Countries outside of the EEA do not always have similar levels of protection for personal data as those inside the EEA. The law provides that transfers of personal data outside of the EEA is only permitted where that country has adequate safeguards in place for the protection of personal data.  Some types of processing may use cloud solutions which can mean information may sometimes be held on servers which are located outside of the EEA or may use processors who are based overseas.

Where we use cloud-based services or third-party providers of such services and in either or both circumstances the data is processed outside of the EEA that will be regarded as an overseas transfer. Before instigating an overseas transfer, we will ensure that the recipient country and/or processor has security standards at least equivalent to our own and in particular one of the following permitted safeguards applies: –

• The country in question is deemed to have adequate safeguards in place as determined by the European Commission; or
• There is a contract or code of conduct in place which has been approved by the European Commission which gives your personal information the same protection it would have had if it was retained within the EEA; or
• If the overseas transfer is to the United States, then the transferee is a signatory to the EU-US privacy Shield as all Privacy Shield signatories are obliged to give your personal information the same degree of protection it would have had if it was retained within the EEA.

If none of these safeguards exist, then we may seek your explicit consent for an overseas transfer. In line with your rights as an individual you are free to withdraw this consent at any time.

Your Rights

You have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you. These rights are:

• the right to restrict processing of your personal data;
• the right to rectification or correction of your personal data;
• the right to object to processing of your personal data;
• the right of erasure of personal data (also referred to the right to be forgotten);
• the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing or profiling;
• the right to transfer your personal data (also referred to as the right of portability)
• the right to withdraw your consent to processing your personal data; and
• the right of access to your personal data.

Additional information about these rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.ico.org.uk/for-organisation/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/

If you have provided consent and we are relying on that as the legal ground of processing your personal information and wish to exercise your right to  withdraw that consent you can do so at any time by contacting us at sales@mikesmithproperties.co.uk.

Access to Personal Information

We try to be as open as we can in giving people access to their personal information. You can make a subject access request at any time about the personal information we process about you. Any request requires to be in writing and is not subject to any charges or fees. If we do hold any personal information about you, we will:

• give you a description of it;
• tell you why we are holding it;
• tell you who it has or will be disclosed to;
• the source of the information (if not you);
• where possible, the period for which it will be stored; and
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form

We will respond to a subject access request within 30 days. On occasion we may need additional information from you to determine your identity or help us find the information more quickly. Where the information you have requested is complex we may take longer than this but shall keep you advised as to progress should this be the case.

If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete you should email us at sales@mikesmithproperties.co.uk. Any information which is found to be incorrect will be corrected as soon as possible.

Complaints

We would prefer to resolve any issues or concerns you may have direct with you. If you feel you are unable to resolve matters by contacting us direct or are you are unhappy or dissatisfied with how we collect or process your personal information you have the right to complain about it to the Information Commissioner who is the statutory body which overseas data protection law. They can be contacted through www.ico.org.uk/concerns.

Contact 

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy statement are welcomed and should be addressed to sales@mikesmithproperties.co.uk.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 4th September           2018.