01767 348 288
Privacy Notice
Introduction
This is the privacy notice of the Hancock's Estates Limited (Hancock's) with a registered office at 39 Sanger Avenue, Biggleswade, SG18 8FY. It is designed to inform you about how we collect and use your personal data, and is divided into the following sections:
What personal data do we collect?
Special categories of personal data
Legal bases for processing your personal data
Why we collect personal data
Disclosures to third parties
How we protect your personal data
Data retention
Your Rights in relation to your personal data
How to stop hearing from us
Our copyright statement
Changes to this privacy notice
We take our responsibility for the privacy and security of your personal data very seriously. This privacy notice tells you what to expect when we collect and process your personal data. We will ensure that:
any personal data you provide to us or we receive from other organisations is kept safe and secure;
we will be clear about our reasons for collecting and processing it; and
we will not do anything with it that you wouldn’t reasonably expect.
You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you have a concern about how we process your personal data and you can do this via ICO Concerns.
Our privacy notice is set out below. Please read this with care; it describes how we will process your personal data and what we will use it for. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.
Contacting Us
If you have any enquiries, questions or concerns about the information contained in this privacy notice or more generally about how we collect and use your personal data, you can address these via email to data.protection@hancocks-estates.co.uk, in writing to the Managing Director Hancock's Estates, 39 Sanger Avenue, Biggleswade, SG18 8FY, or by calling us on 01767 348288.
1. What personal data do we collect?
There are a number of scenarios where we collect personal data about you. In most instances, these are where you choose to provide personal data to us. We set out the different scenarios below:
Enquiring about a property
If you ask for details of a property, Hancock's will collect the following information:
Your name (including title, first name and last name)
Your contact details (including email address, address, town / city, post code and country)
Details of properties you are interested in
Any additional personal data you provide
How you found us
How you prefer us to communicate with you
Whether or not you agree to participate in our customer satisfaction research
Selling your home
If you use our sales service, Hancock's will collect the following information to process your request:
Your name (first name and last name)
Your contact details (including postal address, email address and contact number)
Your date of birth, nationality and other details from identity documents which you provide to us where we are required by law to carry out know your client anti-money laundering checks and the results of those checks
details of your existing or proposed mortgage arrangements, confirmation of how long you have owned the property and details of the source of monies invested in the property when you register to sell
proof that you have sufficient funds to pay any deposit required when you wish to make an offer to buy a property
evidence of the source of funds you will be using to buy a property, including for example, a copy of your bank statement or an agreement in principle from your mortgage provider
details of any mortgage or insurance, any licensing documentation and service contracts which you have in place in relation to a property you wish to let, where you are a landlord and we are providing you with letting services;
Your employer and job title (if appropriate)
your marital status, employment details, national insurance number, nationality, residential status, bank details and credit history when carrying out referencing and credit checks and the results of those checks;
details relating to your property including floor plans, photographs, energy performance certificate ratings/home reports, property description and survey results
your contact details, move in and move out date, utility meter serial number and meter readings where you are a landlord or tenant, prior to a tenant moving in to a property and when the tenant moves out;
your move in and move out date and details of the deposit you have paid if you are a tenant when registering or releasing any deposit from a deposit protection scheme;
your client reference number and the balance of any debt which you owe when we are required to take steps to collect a debt or take possession of a property
Any additional personal data you provide
Whether or not you agree to participate in our customer satisfaction research
Subscribing to newsletters
If you subscribe to one of our newsletters, Hancock's will collect the following information to enable us to provide the requested service in a timely manner:
Your name (first name and last name)
Your email address
General enquiries:
If you submit a general enquiry to us, Hancock's will collect the following information to enable us to respond to your enquiry and contact you to provide any additional information:
Your name (first name and last name)
Your contact details (including email address, address and contact number)
Any additional personal data you provide in your enquiry
Your enquiry details
Job Applicants
If you apply for a role at Hancock's, we will collect the following information to enable us to process your application efficiently and provide you with additional information:
Your Name (forename, last name other names)
Your title
Your contact details (including address, town, county, post code, email address and contact telephone number)
Other personal data (Including nationality, gender and date of birth)
Special category data (used for monitoring purposes, including ethnic origin, religion and sexual orientation)
Any additional information required to process your application (including a question on your right to work, any disability (optional), qualifications (secondary, further education or professional), career history, skills and experience for the role and where you saw the advertisement)
Where we request special category data, you have the option in each case to select ‘other’ or ‘prefer not to say’.
If you are selected for interview then we have a legal obligation to collect and process information which proves your right to work including a work permit, copy of a passport or a copy of a visa, and will do so on the basis of this legal obligation.
Social Media
Depending on your settings and the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you might give us permission to access personal data about you from those accounts or services.
Through our website
Like most websites, we use “cookies” and other tracking technologies to help create a better experience for you when using it. Cookies allow a website to remember you; they are small text files that sites transfer to your computer (or phone or tablet). They make interacting with a website faster and easier – for example by automatically filling your name and address in text fields. For further information please see our Cookie policy
In addition, the type of device you’re using to access our website and the settings on that device may provide us with information about your device, including what type of device it is, what specific device you have, what operating system you’re using, what your device settings are, and why a crash has happened. Your device manufacturer or operating system provider will have more details about what information your device makes available to us and how you can control that.
2. Special categories of personal data
Data protection law defines special categories of personal data as personal data revealing:
racial or ethnic origin;
political opinions;
religious or philosophical beliefs; or
trade union membership;
These categories also include:
genetic or biometric data processed for uniquely identifying individuals; and
data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.
We will not ask you for this information, except as required and described above. Please see Section 3 below for further information about the basis upon which we use special category data.
3. Legal bases for processing your personal data
The legal bases we will usually rely on are:
Contract; or
Consent.
Contract
If you choose us to market your property, we will need to process certain personal data in order to fulfil your request.
Consent
Where we send you emails about our services or you sign up to our newsletters, we will only do so having collected your prior consent. You can revoke your consent at any time by emailing us at enquiries@hancocks-estates or calling us on 01767 348 288.
4. Why we collect personal data
We collect personal data for the following purposes:
Providing you with services:
To allow us to provide you with the estate agency services which you have asked us to provide, including but not limited to:
helping you to sell your property, or to find a property to purchase;
valuing your property;
to arrange and carry out viewings;
referring you to our conveyancing services partners;
- referring you to our mortgage and insurance partners;
to take payment from you for the services which we provide;
to ensure that utilities are in place and that utility companies and local authorities are able to contact you for billing purposes when you move in to a property;
to better understand your requirements and provide you with services specific to your needs;
to keep our client records up to date;
Responding to your queries:
to help answer any questions which you have asked us;
to provide you with a quote for our services;
Marketing our services to you:
to provide you with general updates in relation to the property market, in accordance with your preferences;
to provide you with information which we reasonably believe may be relevant to you based on the services we are providing to you including information on mortgages, life protection, insurance and conveyancing;
to carry out targeted advertising to you on social media websites such as Facebook where you have already shown an interest in our services.
Improving our website:
to analyse cookie and website usage data to keep improving Our Site;
to allow us to customise the content which is presented to you based on your likely interests;
Legal and Regulatory obligations:
to comply with applicable laws where we are obliged to retain and/or disclose certain information;
to investigate or address claims or complaints relating to your use of our services;
to carry out anti-money laundering checks;
for internal and external auditing purposes;
Other:
to transfer information to any entity which may acquire rights in us;
to collect a debt which is owed to us;
5. Disclosures to third parties
The information you provide to us will be held on our computers in the UK and may be accessed by or given to our staff for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice or for other purposes approved by you.
We may also disclose your information to the third parties listed below for the following purposes:
service providers who need to know the information in order to provide us or you with a product or service including surveyors where you or your mortgage provider require a homebuyers or structural survey to be carried out, your conveyancer, mortgage or insurance adviser;
where you are receiving services from Hancock's Estates Ltd;
where you have provided your consent, Embrace Financial Services for the purpose of discussing your mortgage and protection requirements;
Simply Conveyancing if you ask us to arrange conveyancing services for you;
Ashcroft for Energy Performance Certificate production;
law enforcement bodies and/or other regulatory entities in order to comply with any legal obligation or court order including but not limited to the police, HMRC and local authorities;
auction houses where the property you are buying or selling is being sold by auction;
third parties we work with as part of providing our services and their associated companies and sub-contractors, including (but not limited to) IT administrators, inventory clerks, photographers, utility companies, marketing and transactional communication companies, energy performance certificate companies, companies that facilitate electronic signature of documents and relocation agents;
referencing companies to check your creditworthiness and to help prevent fraud and money laundering, the check will leave a soft ID footprint on your credit file which should not affect your credit rating;
social media networks such as Facebook for marketing purposes as explained in the ‘use of the information we collect’ section of this Privacy Notice;
debt collection companies to assist us in collecting any monies which you owe to us where payment is overdue;
our professional advisers, for the purpose of assisting us to better manage, support or develop our business and comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
third parties as necessary in the event of a claim or dispute relating to the use of our services;
These parties may be located in the UK or elsewhere in the world where different privacy laws may apply which may not offer the same level of protection as UK law. We only make these arrangements or transfers where we are satisfied that adequate levels of protection are in place to protect any information held in that country and that the service provider acts at all times in compliance with applicable privacy laws.
6. How we protect your personal data
We have access to shared systems and data; all access to personal data is managed through individual access permissions, which means that individuals only have access to personal data when it is appropriate for them to do so (this is known as the principle of least privilege). Where an individual is unable to access personal data that they believe they have the right to, for their role, the requirement for their access to personal data is checked with their line management.
Your personal data is held on secure servers in the UK and we ensure that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal data. For example, our online forms are always encrypted and our network is protected and routinely monitored. The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal data when you transmit it to our site.
If we use external companies to collect or process personal data on our behalf, we undertake checks before we begin work with them, and put a contract in place that sets out our expectations and requirements e.g. non-disclosure agreements and expected levels of security; especially regarding how they manage the personal data they collect or have access to.
International data transfers
Some of our partner organisations may run their operations outside the UK or the EU. The European Commission has assessed a number of countries and determined that their data protection legislation has sufficient safeguards and is adequate to enable the transfer of personal data to recipients in these countries. Where a recipient of your personal data is based in a country which has not been declared adequate by the European Commission we will take all reasonable steps to implement appropriate safeguards in accordance with EU law on data protection. We have a legitimate interest in the transfer of your personal data to a location outside the EU where it furthers the satisfactory resolution of your complaint.
We may also transfer your personal data to recipients in circumstances where it is requested under the laws of that country. In such cases, we will review the level of personal data being requested and if it is considered appropriate to transfer the data, we will inform you that this is the case. If you have any questions about the transfer of personal data outside the EU, you can contact us using the details set out above.
7. Data retention
When you supply personal data to us, we will retain it in line with our data retention policy. Personal data is retained for the purpose and the length of time necessary for which it was collected. We may also be under a legal obligation to retain personal data for a specific period and compliance with our legal obligation may limit the right of an individual to have their personal data erased. Where you exercise your rights under data protection law (e.g. the right to have your personal data erased) and this conflicts with any requirement or need for us to retain personal data you will be advised that this is the case and we will give you the timeframe within which we expect to comply with your right.
8. Your Rights in relation to your personal data
You have the right to be informed about what personal data is collected and how that is used; this information is contained in this privacy notice in the section ‘What personal data do we collect’.
You have the right to ask us to erase all the personal data that we hold about you, and if it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which you provided it to us and it is lawful for us to do so, we will erase your personal data and provide you with the outcome of that process.
You have the right to object to processing of your personal data, to stop us processing your personal data or restrict processing of your personal data, and if it’s no longer necessary for the purpose for which you provided it to us we will do so. Please contact us if you have any concerns.
You have a right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, although if the effort to provide such personal data is disproportionate (because of manifestly unfounded or excessive requests) then we may charge for processing these requests.
You have the right to have your personal data rectified, where it is shown to be inaccurate or incomplete; if there are any discrepancies in the personal data we use about you, please let us know and we will correct it.
You have the right to seek portability of your personal data in certain circumstances where we are relying on the lawful bases consent or performance of a contract to process your personal data.
If you want to access your personal data, please send a description of the personal data you want to see to data.protection@hancocks-estates.co.uk or write to the Managing Director at Hancock's Estates, 39 Sanger Avenue, Biggleswade, SG18 8FY. We may request proof of identity to ensure that we only provide the personal data to the right person.
If you have any questions or wish to exercise any of your rights please contact data.protection@hancocks-estates.co.uk.
You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
9. How to stop hearing from us
If you decide that the information we provide to you is no longer relevant or interesting to you and you do not wish to hear from us any more, it would be useful for us to understand the reasons; you may change your contact preferences at any time by emailing us at enquiries@hancocks-estates.co.uk, or calling us on 01767 348 288
10. Our Copyright statement
All material either on this website or provided in hard copy is owned by or licensed to Hancock's Estates Ltd and is protected by registered and/ or unregistered trademark rights, copyright, or other proprietary rights and laws.
Unless indicated as Crown-owned material or otherwise, the material featured on this website or provided in hard copy may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium, provided that it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Hancock's Estates copyright and the title of the document/publication specified.
Any enquiries regarding the material on this website should be addressed by email to enquiries@hancocks-estates.co.uk.
11. Changes to this Privacy Notice
If we decide to change our Privacy Notice, we shall post changes on this webpage so that you are always aware of how Hancock's use your personal data. If we make significant changes to our Privacy Notice, we will use reasonable efforts to contact you to notify you of such changes.