Legal - Privacy Policy

What is this Privacy Policy for?

This privacy policy is for this website and served by Walkers People & Property and governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it.

The policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is concerned and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore the way this website processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.

The Website

This website and its owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience. This website complies to all UK national laws and requirements for user privacy.

Contact & Communication

Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the Data Protection Act 1998. Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form to email submission process but advise users using such form to email processes that they do so at their own risk.

This website and its owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the products / services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to email process. Or whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about purchasing from the company a product or service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights in regard to receiving email marketing material. Your details are not passed on to any third parties.

Email Newsletter

This website operates an email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about products and services supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their own discretion. Some subscriptions may be manually processed through prior written agreement with the user.

Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. No personal details are passed on to third parties nor shared with companies / people outside of the company that operates this website. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website's email newsletter program. A small fee will be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to the business address at the bottom of this policy.

Email marketing campaigns published by this website or its owners may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity [this is by no far a comprehensive list].
This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based around their activity.

In compliance with UK Spam Laws and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 subscribers are given the opportunity to un-subscribe at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email campaign. If an automated un-subscription system is unavailable clear instructions on how to un-subscribe will by detailed instead.

External Links

Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites, similar to; www.websitename.co.uk.)

The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Adverts and Sponsored Links

This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, to whom may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.

Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertisers website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computers hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened Links in Social Media

This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy urls [web addresses] (this is an example: http://bit.ly/zyVUBo).

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened urls published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine urls are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Data Protection

This section sets out how we will process personal data we collect from or about you, or which you provide to us. Please read this notice carefully to understand why data is being collected and what we do with that data.

Our website and services may contain links to independent websites which are not provided by us. Such independent sites are not under our control, and we are not responsible for and have not checked and approved their content or their privacy policies.

We may change the privacy notice from time to time by amending this page.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 and General Data Protection Regulation EU 2016/679, the data controller is [Walkers Village & Country Homes Ltd, a company registered in England under company number 6641271, whose registered address is 146 High Street, Billericay, Essex, CM12 9DF.

What type of information will we collect from you?

The personal information we collect from you will typically include the following:

Full name and contact details (including your contact number, email and postal address)
Information relating to your identity where we are required by law to collect this to comply with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and the Immigration Act
Information on your close connections where we are required to conduct conflicts of interests under regulatory obligations
Your banking details where required such as where you are letting a property or, where renting, to set up an approved tenancy deposit account for you and arrange for rental payments
Information on any access requirements you have necessary to enable us to find suitable properties for you, which may consist of special category personal data comprising details of any disability or other health information about you
Details about your areas of interest where we wish to send you marketing information about similar products and services
Usage information about your visits to our website (which enable our website to remember information about you and your preferences) and use of our site. [Please read our 'Cookie Policy' for further details.] This may include information about your visit, including [the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL),] [clicks through to and from our site (including date and time),] [products you viewed or searched for'] [page response times,] [download errors,] [length of visits to certain pages,] [page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs),] [methods used to browse away from the page,] [OTHER] and any phone number used to call our customer service number
Other technical information, including what devices you use to connect to our App, device location data where this function is not disabled by you on your device, [the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet,] [your login information,] [browser type and version,] [time zone setting,] [browser plug-in types and versions,] [operating system and platform
Your communications with us, including a record of the email or telephone correspondence created when you contact us as part of a product or service query

Where we need to collect personal data by law (for example to meet our obligations to prevent fraud and money laundering) or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with our services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

On what basis can we process your information?

The legal grounds under data protection legislation for processing your personal data are as follows:

It is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or to take steps prior to entering into a contract with you, for us to provide you with our products and services
You have given us explicit consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes, namely 1) where you have given us consent to receive electronic marketing by us and/or 2) to process your Special Category Personal Data described above. You do not need to provide us with marketing consent in order to receive our services
It is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests, except where our interests are overridden by the interests, rights or freedoms of affected individuals (such as you). To determine this we shall consider a number of factors, such as what you were told at the time you provided your data, what your expectations are about the processing of the data, the nature of the data, and the impact of the processing on you. Our legitimate interests include processing necessary to improve and to promote our services and product and to better understand our customers’ interests and knowledge of the property market and to administer the technical aspects of our service and products.
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation; or in rare circumstances
Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests); and/or
Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes

What are we going to do with your information?

We will hold and use personal information about you in the following ways:

To fulfil our obligations to you when providing you with our property services
To share your information with others where necessary to fulfil our property services for you or where acting as agent for a third party on your behalf
To comply with our statutory and regulatory obligations, including [verifying your identity, prevention of fraud and money laundering and to assess your credit worthiness
Communicate with you during the course of providing our services, for example with your enquiries and requests
Statistical purposes so we can analyse figures to help us manage our business and plan strategically for the future
To provide you, or to enable third parties to provide you, with information about goods or services we feel may interest you, where you have provided permission for us to do so or, if you are an existing customer only, where we choose to contact you by electronic means (including e-mail or SMS) with information about our own goods and services similar to those which you have already obtained from us or negotiated to obtain from us . For those marketing messages you can unsubscribe at any time
Track your use of our service including your use of our App in order to improve these
To notify you about changes to our service
To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer

How long we keep your data for

We will retain your personal data for different periods depending on the service you have chosen to use us for, which may be a longer period than that for which we need to hold your data to provide those services, i.e. where we are under regulatory or statutory duties to hold your data for a longer period or need to retain it in the event of a legal claim or complaint.

Who your information will be shared with

We will pass your details to the following organisations (our “data processors”) who carry out certain activities on our behalf as part of us providing our services: ehouse photographers, Guild of Property Professionals, London & Country Mortgages (with explicit consent only), Mortgage Business (with explicit consent only), Vebra Alto (our cloud-based CRM software provider), Get Me Moving Conveyancing, Barringtons Letting Agency and other management companies, where appropriate, GCAMS Accountancy & Bookkeeping, Rightmove, Zoopla Property Group, Johnson Technical IT Support, Brief Your Market e-mail marketing, and Agency Express Signs Ltd.

We will also pass your details where necessary to your property solicitors and those of the other party to your transaction. We will also disclose your personal information to third parties:

In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
If our company or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about our customers will be one of the transferred assets.
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal or regulatory obligation, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our company, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes without first obtaining your prior consent.

Security of your data

Your data will be held on secure servers within the European Economic Area ("EEA") with all reasonable technological and operation measures put in place to safeguard it from unauthorised access. Where possible any identifiable information will be encrypted or minimised.

If we have given you a username and password which enables you to access certain parts of your matter on our systems, you are responsible for keeping it confidential. Please do not share it with anyone.

Your rights

How you can access and update your information

You have a right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, known as a data subject access request. You also have the right to request that information we hold about you which may be incorrect, or which has been changed since you first told us, is updated or removed. These requests are free of charge and can be sent to Adam Walker at 90 High Street, Ingatestone, Essex, CM4 9DW.

How you can request erasure of your data

You can ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where you have withdrawn consent for us to process it (as explained below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

How you can withdraw your consent

You have the right at any time to withdraw any consent you have given us to process your personal data. Please note if you withdraw your consent it will not affect the lawfulness of any processing of your personal data we have carried out before you withdrew your consent. Should you wish to do so you can change your consent preferences at 90 High Street, Ingatestone, Essex, CM4 9DW or by telephone – 01277 355005.

How you can restrict or object to us using your data

You can ask us to suspend the way in which we are using your information in certain scenarios, or object to our processing your data where we are relying on a legitimate interest ground (or those of a third party) and you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms, or where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases where you object, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Please note that if you want us to restrict or stop processing your data this may impact on our ability to provide our services. Depending on the extent of your request we may be unable to continue providing you with our service.

Any queries or concerns about the way in which your data is being used can be sent to Adam Walker at 90 High Street, Ingatestone, Essex, CM4 9DW.

Moving your information to another organisation

In the event that we process your data by automated means where you have either provided us with consent for us to use your information or where we used the information to perform a contract with you, you have the right to request that we send to you or to another organisation, a copy of the personal data we hold about you, for example when you are dealing with a different service provider. If you would like us to move, copy, or transfer your information please let us know by email to sales@walkersestates.co.uk. We will respond to you within one month after assessing whether this is possible, taking into account the technical compatibility with the other organisation in question.

Complaints about the use of your personal data

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact us to have the matter investigated by writing to Adam Walker at 90 High Street, Ingatestone, Essex, CM4 9DW.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office. Further details can be found at www.ico.org.uk or 0303 123 1113.