privacy policy
Caxtons Commercial Ltd respects the privacy of your personal data. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
Our use of your personal data is subject to your instructions, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), other relevant UK and EU legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.
Key terms We, us, our, Caxtons | Caxtons Commercial Ltd |
Data protection officer | Graham Mitchell |
James Pilcher House 49/50 Windmill Street Gravesend, Kent DA12 1BG 01474 537733 |
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Personal data | Any information which can be used to identify a living individual |
Sensitive personal data |
Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership Genetic and biometric data Data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation |
1) PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
The table below sets out the personal data we will or may collect in the course of advising or acting for you.
Personal data we will collect |
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Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us |
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Personal data we may collect depending on why you have instructed us |
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This personal data may be required to enable us to provide our services to you. If you do not provide personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.
2) HOW YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS COLLECTED
We collect most of this information from you directly. However, we may also collect information:
- from publicly accessible sources, e.g.:
- Companies House;
- HM Land Registry;
- directly from a third party, e.g.:
- credit reference agencies;
- client due diligence providers;
- from a third party with your consent, e.g.:
- your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor;
- consultants and other professionals engaged in relation to your matter;
- your employer or trade union, professional body or pension administrators;
- your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals;
- your referees and guarantors?
- via our information technology (IT) systems, e.g.:
- case management, document management and time recording systems;
- reception logs; and
- automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV and access control systems, telecommunications systems, and email messaging systems.
- via our website – we use cookies on our website (for more information on cookies, please see section 4 of this policy.
3) COOKIES
Caxtons website, like many websites, uses cookies to run the content management system and to collect anonymous visitor data. In keeping with recent legislation, we are making users more aware of these cookies and providing links to help visitors decline or remove cookies.
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers put on your computer as part of your use of a website. More details about cookies are available from a number of online sources including All About Cookies.
Why do we use cookies?
Cookies are integral to modern websites. They allow us to distinguish visitors from each other and (anonymously) record the traffic to the website. This helps ensure a good user experience, and the data is valuable in assessing and improving the website.
Which cookies do we use?
If you have accepted cookies via our website – the cookies used are listed in the Cookie Control area below.
Session cookie (reflect). This cookie is ‘strictly necessary’ for the site to function. This is a session cookie that is integral to the code that runs the content management system. It only lasts for the duration of a user’s visit to the website. A web browser normally deletes session cookies when it quits.
Opting out, removing and managing cookies
If you are uncomfortable with the use of cookies, our website enables you to block them below via Cookie Control.
However if you choose to opt-out/block cookies you may not be able to access certain sections of the site, and/or functionality may be impaired.
Alternatively, you may wish to delete the cookies from your system at the end of your visit to our site.
Managing cookies
Simply user the below Cookie Control area to manage your cookies for this website.
Please note that opting-out or blocking cookies may impair your use of this (and other) websites.
Cookie Control
4) HOW AND WHY WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reasonfor doing so, e.g.:
- to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
- for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
- for our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
- where you have given consent.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
The table below explains what we use (process) your personal data for and our reasons for doing so:
What we use your personal data for | Our reasons |
To provide property related services to you | For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. |
Conducting checks to identify our clients and tenants and verify their identity Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business |
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
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Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies | To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
Ensuring business policies are adhered to | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to make sure we are following our internal procedures so that we can deliver the best service to you. |
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to ensure we are as efficient as possible in order to deliver the best service to you. |
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information |
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
Statistical analysis to help us manage our business | For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to ensure we are as efficient as possible in order to deliver the best service to you. |
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems |
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging to you or us. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
Updating and enhancing client records | For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract |
What we use your personal data for
Statutory returns Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and
Marketing our services to:
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Our reason To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to ensure we can keep in touch with our clients about new and existing services. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to ensure that we are following our internal procedures to work safely and efficiently.
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to promote out business to existing, former and potential clients.
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Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies |
For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party – for credit control and in order to verify the identity of our clients. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
External audits and quality checks, e.g. RICS Compliance, Association of Residential Managing Agents, Association of Residential Lettings Agents
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For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party – to maintain accreditations to demonstrate the high quality of our work and service. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
Insurance-related matters |
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party – to maintain appropriate insurance coverage as a professional firm and to report any potential claim as required under our policies. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. |
The above table does not apply to sensitive personal data, which we will only process with your explicit consent, unless one of the exceptions to explicit consent under Article 9 of the GDPR applies. They include:
- Processing which is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
- Processing which is necessary to protect the vital interests of a natural person who is physically or legally unable to give consent.
5) PROMOTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about property developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services.
We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for promotional purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional communications. However, where consent is needed, for example for electronic marketing communications, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell it to other organisations for marketing purposes.
You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:
- contacting us on [email protected] or
- using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails.
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
6) WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL DATA WITH
We routinely share personal data with:
- professional advisers who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, e.g. lawyers, accountants, medical professionals, tax advisors or other experts;
- credit reference agencies;
- external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our accounts;
- external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, e.g. typing services and public relations agencies.
We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.
We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may also need to share some personal data with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
7) WHERE YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS HELD
Information may be held at our offices and those of the third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see ‘Who we share your personal data with’).
Some of these third parties may be based outside the European Economic Area. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see below: ‘Transferring your personal data out of the EEA’.
8) HOW LONG YOUR PERSONAL DATA WILL BE KEPT
We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these reasons:
- to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
- to enable us to carry out checks for conflicts of interest in the future;
- to show that we treated you fairly; and
- to keep records required by law.
We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. When we complete advising you on a particular matter, we will inform you of how long we will retain your data for or you can ask us at any time for our current retention period that applies to your type of matter. We will retain a digital record of having acted for you for as long as is necessary to carry out checks for conflicts of interest in accordance with our professional regulations.
9) TRANSFERRING YOUR PERSONAL DATA OUT OF THE EEA
To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), e.g.:
- with your service providers located outside the EEA;
- if you are based outside the EEA; or
- where there is an international dimension to the matter in which we are advising you.
These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
- We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
- Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
- Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.
If you would like further information please contact our data protection officer – please see below: ‘How to contact us’.
10) YOUR RIGHTS
You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:
Access | The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data. |
Rectification | The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data. |
To be forgotten | The right to require us to delete your personal data in certain situations. |
Restriction of processing | The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data. |
Data portability | The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party in certain situations. |
To object |
The right to object:
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Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making | The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you. |
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation – https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
- email, call or write to our data protection officer – see below: ‘How to contact us’; and
- let us have enough information to identify you (your full name, address and client or matter reference number);
- let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
- let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.
No fee usually required
- You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
- We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
- We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
11) KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL DATA SECURE
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
12) HOW TO COMPLAIN
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.
The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union or EEA state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone: 0303 123 1113.
13) CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
This privacy notice was published on 4th May 2018 and last updated in May 2018. We will provide you with reasonable prior notice of substantial changes in how we use your information, including by email at the email address you provide.
14) HOW TO CONTACT US
Please contact us or our data protection officer by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.
Our contact details are shown below:
Our contact details | Data protection officer |
Caxtons Commercial Ltd [email protected] |
Graham S Mitchell FRICS 01474 537733 |
If you would like this notice in another format (for example audio, large print, braille) please contact us on 01474 537733.