- Purpose of this Policy
Charles Head are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected and this Notice serves to govern our use of your personal information collected from you from use of any of our services. This Notice serves to explain how and why we collect and process personal data provided to us whether through our website (www.charleshead.co.uk) or otherwise (enquiries about our services, communications, networking or from third parties) interacting with us as well as individuals’ rights. We may use personal data provided to us for the purposes herein described in this privacy statement.
Charles Head are committed to ensuring your privacy is protected and will treat information about you in accordance with this Notice and UK legislation. As such, whenever you provide your personal information we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal data including the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and The General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) together, and with other subsequent laws “Data Protection Laws”.
- Information Charles Head Collects
In general, you do not need to provide us with any Personal Information in order to browse our website. We only gather the personal information we need for business purposes in order to provide you with the services you have requested of us where you have agreed to this where you have chosen to use certain parts of the website. If you do not want to share your Personal Information with us in this way, please do not submit it. Regrettably, this may mean that we are not able to provide you with the services you have requested.
The personal information we typically collect includes:
- Name
- Email address
- Postal address
- Telephone and/or fax numbers
- Date of birth
- Copies of passport/ driving licences
- Photographs
- Payment information and bank details if progressing with a purchase or sale
- Forms
- Property types and geographic area preferences
- Future communication preferences
- Emergency contact details (Property Management)
We aim to ensure that the information we collect is appropriate for its purpose. Contact for marketing purposes will only be made following receipt of your specific consent or verification that you would like to receive marketing from our teams. Once you have consented to receive continuous communications by ‘opting-in’, if you decide you no longer wish to receive such communication it is simple to ‘opt out’ and withdraw your consent by following the instructions or emailing us confirming your wish to unsubscribe.
- Information we collect when you visit our website or other services
We use cookies and other technologies to collect technical information when you visit our website or other online services. Information we may collect in this way includes:
- Information about the browser and operating system you use to access our website
- Internet domain
- IP address
- Page interaction information (scrolling, clicks and mouse hover-overs)
- Clickstream to, through and from our website
- The time zone and date and time you access our site
- From emails Charles Head sends to you.
- Embedded Content from Third Party Websites
Articles on this website may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from third party websites behave in exactly the same way as if you had visited them directly.
These third party websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional tracking technologies and monitor your interaction with that content.
- How we Use Your Personal Information
We use the information we collect to provide you with products and services tailored to your interest and to conduct other business operations. Examples may include:
- To answer your questions or respond to your requests;
- To better understand your requirements;
- To improve our services offered and notify you of changes to our services;
- To provide services and carry out our contract with you as set out in our letter of instruction or Terms of Engagement;
- To maintain and develop new products and IT infrastructure;
- To enable us to invoice you for our services, for rent collection, service charge and other costs that you are obligated to pay as a Landlord, Tenant, property vendor or property purchaser;
- In the event of an emergency or if the Property is retained by our Lettings department to gain entry where there is risk of harm or damage to an individual or deal with a repair;
- To send you email and/or postal messages with information about Charles Head;
- To provide information on services, events or property details that you have requested or which we feel may be of interest to you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes or for legitimate interests;
- To protect against or identify possible fraudulent transactions;
- To analyse the use of and develop our products, services and marketing;
- To fulfil our legal obligations including money laundering and identification checks;
- Employment-related purposes with Charles Head.
We may pass your data to third party external organisations in order to undertake the tasks listed above, where it is necessary to administer the relationship between us, or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. Examples of who we may pass information to include:
- Our software providers and IT support.
- Banks, solicitors, joint/ other agents, professionals and subcontractors.
- When required by law and/or government authorities.
Furthermore, in accordance with this Notice where we required or permitted to do so we may also process your personal data without your knowledge or consent.
Charles Head do not sell or pass on personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.
- Other Uses of your Personal Information
- If we sell any part/ the whole of our business and/or integrate our business with another organisation your details may be disclosed to our advisers and to prospective purchasers or joint venture partners. In this scenario the new owners of the business will only be permitted to use your personal information in the same way as stipulated in this Privacy Notice.
- In order to comply with legal institutions, arbitrators or law enforcement authorities to comply with our regulatory and legal obligations as may be required from time to comply with our regulatory and legal obligations.
- If we receive your instruction to pass the sale/ letting of your property to another company.
- Where we use third party service providers to process personal information including IT companies and third party referencing and screening for the purposes of detecting criminal activity.
- We will retain your personal information on our client management system in order to offer you similar services to those which you have previously expressed an interest. You may opt out of receiving this information at any time.
Where you do not provide information requested we will not be able to fulfil our services to your or continue to provide services to you. This will be explained to you formally in writing on a case-by-case basis.
- Personal Information Retention Period
We will retain Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes of the service you have requested of Charles Head and that we collected it for, unless a longer retention period is required in the event of a complaint or if we believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect of our relationship with you, a legal claim or permitted by law.
- How we Protect your Information
We take the security and privacy of personal information we hold extremely seriously and have strict internal procedures which cover storage, access and disclosure of your information. We appreciate the Internet is not a secure medium but we have in place various security procedures to protect all data we hold. All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers.
- Your rights in relation to your personal information
Under the Data Protection Laws your rights are as follows:
i. The right to be informed: of the Privacy Notice in a transparent manner.
ii. The right of access: to know what details we hold about you and why and to access your personal information which we are handling.
iii. The right of rectification: to ensure we rectify any inaccurate personal information we hold about you.
iv. The right to erasure: which requires us to erase your personal information which we hold if: 1) we no longer require your personal information for the purposes we initially collected it, 2) where you have withdrawn your consent for Charles Head to use your personal information, 3) where you object to our handling of your personal information and we have no compelling reason to continue using your information in this way, 4) if our handling of your personal information is unlawful or 5) to comply with a law we are subject to.
v. The right to restrict processing: by either blocking or suppressing the handling of your personal information.
vi. The right to data portability: to receive personal information we hold about you in a structured, standard machine readable format and to reuse it for your own purposes.
vii. The right to object: to the way in which we use your information (for direct marketing or profiling).
viii. The right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling.
You may object to object to us handling your personal information when:
- We are handling your personal information based on your request to utilise a service we provide and our legitimate interests.
- For marketing purposes.
In line with point 10 below if you ask us to stop handling your personal information for either purpose we will do so as soon as is feasible.
10. Deleting or amending your data
To make a request for Charles Head to remove any personal data we hold about you please send an email to kingsbridge@charleshead.co.uk. Likewise, you can amend your data at any time please contact kingsbridge@charleshead.co.uk with the details of any amendments you wish to make.
The information we collect about you may come from a variety of sources which includes information directly from you, information we receive from you when you visit our website, view our online content or use other services; as well as information we collect.
- If we change our Privacy Policy
We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review and you should check back regularly to this website page to ensure you are aware of any changes made. We may place other messages on other pages of our website to raise awareness to this.
12. Cookies and how they benefit your use of websites
Cookies are small text files which assist users navigate websites more effectively, improve user experience and to perform certain functions. In addition, they are present on websites to provide statistical information to the website host.
Our use of Cookies
We do not use cookies to collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission), collect any sensitive information (without your express permission) or pass your personal information to third parties.
Granting us permission to use cookies
If your browser settings allow you to accept cookies we take this, and continued use of this website, as acceptance to our use of cookies.
The cookies we use are essential for the streamlined nature and usability of the website. You may delete and block all cookies from operating on this website but please be aware that by doing so may impact on the user experience of the website.
We are members of The Property Ombudsman.