Privacy Policy & Notice - Wokingham

This is the privacy policy of Michael Hardy & Company (Wokingham) Limited, a company registered in England (company number 01867303) whose registered office is 9 Broad Street, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 1AU and principal places of business are 9 Broad Street, Wokingham, Berkshire RG40 1AU and 28 Dukes Ride, Crowthorne, Berkshire, RG45 6LT.

We take your privacy seriously and this privacy policy explains what personal information we collect from you and how we will use it.

The personal information we collect from you may include your name, contact details, proof of identity and address, information about your property (if you are looking to sell or let your property), information about your requirements and budget (if you are looking for a property to buy or rent) and financial information.

The General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (“GDPR”) refers to certain types of information as “special categories” of personal data, for example information about racial or ethnic origin, physical or mental health and sexual life. In this privacy policy we shall refer to such information as “special category data”.

You may provide us with special category data but we shall not process it unless you have given us consent to do so. We shall in any event treat such data with the utmost care.

We collect personal information from you when you communicate with us in person or by letter, telephone, facsimile, email, text message and via our website.

We share personal information relating to you with third parties such as Rightmove, Zoopla, Niche Communications, Feefo, Property Jungle Ltd, Blinc and the Property Software Group.

If you visit our website (www.michael-hardy.co.uk), we may collect information about your visit, namely IP address, traffic data, location data and the resources that you access.

Depending on your relationship with us, we may process your personal information for the following purposes:

  • to provide estate agency and lettings services, in accordance with our contract with you;
  • to respond to enquiries from you (for example to value your property or to arrange for you to view a property we are marketing), on the basis that we have a legitimate interest to do so;
  • if you are a tenant of a property we manage, to provide a lettings service to the landlord, on the basis that we have a legitimate interest to do so;
  • to respond to any complaint you may make, on the basis that we have a legitimate interest to do so;
  • for administration, audit purposes, regulatory and governance activities and compliance; and
  • (if you have consented to receiving information from us about our services) to send you information about properties which may be of interest, newsletters and similar marketing communications.

If you visit our website, we may use information about your visit to help us make our website experience as user-friendly for as many visitors as possible, on the basis that we have a legitimate interest to do so.

We may share your personal information with the following parties:

  • service suppliers who undertake processing on our behalf (for example reference checks); and
  • where you propose entering into a contract for the purchase, sale or letting of a property, the other party to the contract and his/her representatives (such as solicitors).

If you are a tenant of a property we manage we may, with your consent, provide your contact details to tradesmen and contractors who we engage on behalf of your landlord to carry out repairs at the property.

As a general rule we will keep information for the following periods of time:

  • financial information and personal information relating to property transactions for a period of 7 years;
  • personal information relating to tenancies until the expiry of 6 months after the end of the tenancy; and
  • all other personal information for 2 years.

Any personal information you provide to us will be treated in the strictest confidence. However, please be aware that despite the security measures we have in place, no computer system is completely secure and there is always some degree of risk whenever personal information is transferred by electronic means. We hold all personal information provided to us in our Wokingham offices, on secure servers located in the UK and in secure archiving systems in the UK.

Under the GDPR you have the right to request access to, deletion of or correction of the personal information we hold about you. You can also request that we transfer your personal information to another person. The exercise of these rights is subject to our obligations to comply with all applicable data protection law. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at properties@michael-hardy.co.uk or at the address set out above.

If you have any queries about this privacy statement, or any complaints about the way in which we handle your personal information, please contact us at properties@michael-hardy.co.uk or at the address set out above. We will investigate any complaint promptly with a view to resolving the matter as swiftly as possible. However, if you wish to take the matter further you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk.

We may change the way in which we process personal information from time to time in which case we will update this privacy policy to reflect the changes.

This privacy policy was last updated May 2018.