Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting and respecting your personal information and privacy.

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you. We may change this Policy from time to time. It is your responsibility to check our privacy policy on a regular basis. Your continued use of this website and /or our services constitutes your acceptance of this Privacy Policy and any amendments made to it.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to southend@northwooduk.com or by writing to Northwood (Southend) Ltd, 161 Southbourne Grove, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, SS0 0AA.

Who are we?

We are Northwood (Southend) Ltd, a company registered in England with company number 5330138.  We are a franchisee of Northwood (GB) Ltd of which the ultimate parent company is Belvoir Group plc.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, when you provide it to us or to our franchisor or, occasionally, from third parties.

Our Network

This privacy policy applies to information you provide to us    The franchisor is also a data controller for some of our data, you can find their privacy policy here https://www.northwooduk.com/privacy-policy/.

What type of information do we collect?

The personal information we collect includes your name, email address, telephone number and property address when you register for a viewing, register for property alerts, request a valuation or lettings consultation, book a mortgage appointment or submit an enquiry.

We may also obtain:-

·         details included on any enquiry form you submit in relation to property insurance, life, critical illness or income protection, solicitors or mortgages;

·         cookie data which relates to your use of our website as to which see our separate cookie policy;

·         data sent from your browser to our server which may include:

o    the time, date and duration of your visit to our website;

o    the site from which you have come (the referral URL);

o    the pages visited on our website.

If you make a payment to us your payment details may be collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of such transactions and with whom we have a processing agreement requiring compliance with this Privacy Policy.

We may also collect information from you in connection with a service or product provided to you by us, third parties with whom we have entered into agreements to provide such services or products or which we are required to collect by law, for instance for money laundering checks, including personal information such as:

·         your marital status, date of birth, nationality and tax status when you enter into a residential sales or lettings agreement with us;

·         financial or other identifiers including your bank account details, tax URN number and income/expenditure details where we manage a financial transaction for you, take payments or make payments to you;

·         details of your existing or proposed mortgage arrangements, and confirmation of how long you have owned the property;

·         proof that you have sufficient funds to pay any deposit and/or the purchase price required for a property transaction;

·         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;

·         evidence that you have the right to let a property where you are a landlord;

·         details of any mortgage, insurance or other contract relating to a property you wish to let;

·         details relating to your property including photographs, floor plans, energy performance certificate ratings/home reports, property description, survey results and inventories when you engage us to market a property for you either for sale or rental;

·         your move in and move out dates, utilities information, deposit paid and debts owed in relation to a property and reference information.

How is your information used?

We, may use your information:

·         to carry out your, our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you, or us or which it is contemplated will be entered into;

·         to seek your comments on the services we have provided;

·         to notify you of changes to our services;

·         to send you communications which you have requested or that may be of interest to you;

·         to process a job application;

·         for administrative and business purposes;

·         for advertising and analytical purposes;

·         in connection with our legal rights and obligations;

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We will hold your personal information on our systems only for so long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract with you.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or provide your information to third parties other than to information processors with whom we have entered into contracts which require the information processors to comply in all respects with the requirements of this Privacy Policy and all legal requirements relating to information privacy.  We share data to the following types of company for the following purposes.

Providers of tenant referencing for referencing

Providers of financial advice, insurance and protection products

Providers of conveyancing for conveyancing purposes

Software platforms to facilitate email marketing

Property CRMs in order to manage your data

Website hosting companies for website hosting

Property specialist advisors for specialist advice

Property auction companies for auctioneering services

Telephone answering service and online chat providers

Internal client CRM for client management services

Lead management services to help us to generate leads

Accountancy software in order to fulfil our contracts for accounting services

Call recording providers for call recordings

Surveyors for surveying purposes

Other Belvoir Group franchisees if you have requested it

Debt recovery firms for debt recovery

Information that other parties to the contracts and or their legal representatives require, for example on tenancy agreements and sales agreements

Utility companies for the transfer of utilities on a property

Contractors for necessary maintenance and safety certificates

You can choose

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you want to receive communications from us, then you should tick the relevant boxes on the form on which we collect your personal information.

Your rights

You have the right to:

·         access your personal information and to be informed about its use by us and/or our franchisees;

·         correct your personal information;

·         have your personal information deleted;

·         restrict the use of your personal information;

·         object to the use of your personal information;

·         complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office;

·         withdraw your consent to the use of your personal information;

·         ask for the personal information to be transferred

Accessing your information

The accuracy of your information is important. If the personal information you have provided to us changes, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold, please confirm by email to southend@northwooduk.com or by writing to Northwood (Southend) Ltd, 161 Southbourne Grove, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, SS0 0AA.

Security Measures

We will ensure that your personal information is held securely.

Some of your “non-sensitive” details (such as your email address) may be transmitted over the internet and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

‘Cookies’

Our and our franchisors’ websites use cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. Cookies collect statistical information about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. We use cookies to improve our website and provide you with a better, more personal service. You may switch off cookies. Please refer to our separate Cookies Policy.

Other websites

Our and our franchisors’ websites may contain links to other websites which we do not own but this privacy policy only applies to our website. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites whether or not you access them using links from our or our franchisees’ websites.

Transferring your information outside of the UK

The information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the United Kingdom (“UK”) if any of our servers or our processors’ servers are located outside the UK. Countries outside the UK and countries within the European Free Trade Area (EFTA”) may not have equivalent information protection laws to those within the UK. By submitting your personal information, you are agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the UK or EFTA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

Telephone and website recording

We record telephone calls. We may also use web site recording services which may record mouse clicks, mouse movements, page scrolling and any text keyed into website forms. Information collected in such a fashion is for our internal use only. The information collected is used to improve our website useability and is stored and used for aggregated and statistical reporting.

Review of this policy

We keep this policy under regular review. This policy was last updated September 30th 2021.

UNDER 18?

We are especially concerned with protecting the privacy of children/minors. If you are under the age of 18, you must obtain your parent/guardian’s permission before providing any personal information. When providing personal information your parent/guardian should be with you to help you through this process.