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PRIVACY NOTICE provided by Homestead Consultancy Services Ltd

This privacy notice explains what personal data (information) we hold about you, how we collect it, and how we use and may share information about you during our management of your development and after it ends. We are required to notify you of this information under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Please ensure you read this notice and any other similar notice we may provide to you from time to time when we collect or process personal information about you. This privacy notice contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

1. WHO WE ARE

Homestead Consultancy Services Ltd collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.
In this privacy notice, references to “we” or “us” means Homestead Consultancy Services Ltd

2. DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES

We will comply with the data protection principles when gathering and using personal information, as set out in our GDPR data protection policy.

3. THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND USE: INFORMATION COLLECTED BY US

In the course of the performance of our contract as managing agent for the development where you are a leaseholder or freeholder we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:
• Name, contact details, address, property address, home and mobile telephone numbers, email address, mortgage details, next of kin details, bank details and contact details for your tenant if applicable. For RMC directors – date of birth, nationality, occupation The provision of the above information is required from you to enable us to perform our contract as managing agent. We will inform you at the point of collecting information from you, whether you are required to provide the information to us.

4. THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND USE: INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM OTHER SOURCES

We also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:
• Ownership, mortgage & charge details from the Land Registry
• Name, contact details, address, property address, home and mobile telephone numbers, email address, mortgage details, next of kin details, bank details. For RMC directors – date of birth, Nationality, Occupation from previous managing agents
• Name, contact details, address, property address, home and mobile telephone numbers, email address, mortgage details, bank details from solicitors upon purchase of the property we manage
• Name, contact details, address, property address, home and mobile telephone numbers, email address, mortgage details, bank details, date of birth, occupation, dependent children, other dependents, household information, earnings, benefits & tax credit, pensions, other income, monthly outgoings on: home and contents, utilities, water, care & health costs, transport & travel, pensions & insurance, professional costs, other essential costs, communications & leisure, food & housekeeping, personal costs & any other debts from the High Court Enforcement agents, only whilst pursuing arrears.
• Name, contact details, address, property address, home and mobile telephone numbers, email address, mortgage details, next of kin details, bank details from ground landlords
• Name, contact details, address, property address, home and mobile telephone numbers, email address, mortgage details, next of kin details, bank details from developers
• A CCTV system may monitor parts of the Homestead building. This data is recorded and retained for 14 days

5. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will typically collect and use this information for the following purposes:
• For the performance of a contract you have with our client and pursuant to which we are appointed as their agent.
(and/or)
• For the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party, but only if these are not overridden by your interests, rights or freedoms.
We seek to ensure that our information collection and processing is always proportionate. We will notify you of any material changes to information we collect or to the purposes for which we collect and process it.

6. WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INF

• Name
• Address
• Property address
• Telephone number home/mobile
• Debt information
• Email address
• Mortgage details
• Next of Kin details
• Bank details
• Contact details for your tenant (if applicable)
• RMC director information of date of birth, occupation, nationality
This personal information may be shared with the following categories of recipients:
• New managing agents
• Solicitors
• High Court Enforcement Agency
• Contractors
• Accounting software used to process invoices

This data sharing enables us to perform our contract as managing agent. Some of those third party recipients may be based outside the European Economic Area — for further information including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see ‘Transfer of your information out of the EEA’.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

We will not share your personal information with any other third party.

7. WHERE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE HELD

Information may be held at our offices and those of our group companies, and third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above.

We have security measures in place to seek to ensure that there is appropriate security for information we hold including those measures detailed in our GDPR data protection policy.

8. HOW LONG YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WILL BE KEPT

The length of time we retain all the personal information listed above is determined by a number of factors including the purpose for which we use that information and our obligations under other laws.

We may need your personal information to establish, bring or defend legal claims. For this purpose, we will always retain your personal information for 7 years after the date it is no longer needed by us for any of the purposes listed under “How we use your personal information” above. The only exceptions to this are where:
i) the law requires us to hold your personal information for a longer period, or delete it sooner;
ii) you exercise your right to have the information erased (where it applies) and we do not need to hold it in connection with any of the reasons permitted or required under the law;
iii) we bring or defend a legal claim or other proceedings during the period we retain your personal information, in which case we will retain your personal information until those proceedings have concluded and no further appeals are possible; or
iv) in limited cases, existing or future law or a court or regulator requires us to keep your personal information for a longer or shorter period.

9. REASONS WE CAN COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We rely on contract as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal data.

10. TRANSFER OF YOUR INFORMATION OUT OF THE EEA

We may transfer your personal information to the following which are located outside the European Economic Area (EEA) as follows:
• USA in order to raise invoices containing your name, address and property address for specific charges

This country does not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and EEA. Whilst the European Commission has not given a formal decision that the USA provides an adequate level of data protection similar to those which apply in the United Kingdom and EEA, any transfer of your personal information will be subject to the EU-US Privacy Shield as permitted under Article 46 of the General Data Protection Regulation that are designed to help safeguard your privacy rights and give you remedies in the unlikely event of a misuse of your personal information. To obtain a copy of the EU-US Privacy Shield

https://www.privacyshield.gov/welcome If you would like further information please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below). We will not otherwise transfer your personal data outside of the United Kingdom or to any other organisation (or subordinate bodies) governed by public international law or which is set up under any agreement between two or more countries.

11. YOUR RIGHTS

Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:
• fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information
• access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Notice is already designed to address
• require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
• request the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations
• receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations
• object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing
• object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you
• object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information
• otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
• claim compensation for damages caused by our breach of any data protection laws

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
• email, call or write to us
• let us have enough information to identify you
• 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 the information to which your request relates, including any account or reference numbers, if you have them

12. KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURE

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know 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.

13. HOW TO COMPLAIN

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you 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 European Economic Area) 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.

14. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

This privacy notice was published on 25 May 2018 and last updated on 22 May 2018.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time, and when we do, we will inform you.

15. HOW TO CONTACT US

Write to us:
Homestead Consultancy Services Ltd
29 St Annes Road West
Lytham St Annes
FY8 1SB
Email us: enquiries@homesteadcsl.co.uk
Call us: 01253 640040

It is the purpose of our roles to deliver an exceptional customer service to all our customers, whether that be residents, leaseholders, or clients. We understand that managing people’s homes requires dealing with customers and that have an emotional investment and this can sometimes cause distress and make dealing with customers difficult. We are prepared and have tools to enable us to ease such conversations and provide effective resolutions to these problems.

Occasionally however, there may be instances when we deal with an individual whose behaviour is considered unreasonable. We have a duty to ensure that our staff are properly protected, in accordance with our health and safety obligations and our general responsibility to safeguard their welfare. We do not expect our staff to tolerate unreasonable behaviour.

What is unreasonable behaviour?

Unreasonable behaviour is any behaviour that is deemed unacceptable, the various forms of which are detailed below. We do not view behaviour as unreasonable just because a person is forceful or determined. However, we do consider behaviour that results in unreasonable demands of our staff, or unreasonably distresses our staff, to be unacceptable.

Wherever possible, we will give the person the opportunity to change their behaviour or action before a decision is taken. In the event that action needs to be taken to deal with unreasonable behaviour, we will make a detailed note of events, including the unreasonable behaviour and any action taken to mitigate it. This will be recorded in a central register and will be done as soon as possible after the event. We may choose to record phone calls to company phones. When this is the case, we will give clear and subsequent reminders.

Forms of unreasonable behaviour

We deem the following behaviour to be unacceptable when liaising with our staff:

• Being unreasonably persistent – for example, ringing frequently to raise points already addressed, sending voluminous repetitive or irrelevant emails or letters; (Note that there is no set period for being unreasonably persistent as the nature of the persistence will inevitably vary. However, depending on the circumstances, we will consider whether a person is being unreasonably persistent by assessing the frequency of persistence over a period of 3,6 and 12 months)
• Rudeness – swearing (generally or directed at a member of staff), persistent interruption, name calling or general discourtesy.
• Anger – in volume or tone of voice, such as shouting.
• Aggressive behaviour – threats of physical harm to person(s) or property; behaviour which indicates that physical harm to person(s) or property is imminent or actual physical aggression.
• Insulting or disparaging remarks or comments – especially on the grounds of an individual’s sex, martial status, sexual orientation, disability, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religion, belief or age.
• Inflammatory remarks or personal remarks directed at staff.
• These are examples and not a definitive list of unacceptable behaviours. There are other behaviours not included in the above which may constitute unacceptable behaviour.

Dealing with unreasonable behaviour

We may choose to deal with unreasonable behaviour by any of the following means:

• Call Termination – Where a person behaves unreasonably during a telephone call to a member of staff, we will ask them to change their behaviour. If they persist in behaving unreasonably, we will warn that we will terminate the call. If they persist further, we will follow that through. The staff member who terminates the call may report this to a senior figure within the company, and a written note of the telephone conversation will be made and logged.
• PLimiting Contact – Where a person is unreasonably persistent, for example by telephoning us several times a day for a number of days in succession, or by sending us voluminous emails or letters, we will ask them to reduce their contact with the office to that which is absolutely essential. If our request is ignored, we will take steps to limit their contact with the office. Such steps might include requiring contact in a particular form – for example by letter only; requiring telephone contact on specified days or at specified times; or insisting that contact is only made with specific staff members (s) or through a third party to contact us on the person’s behalf.
• Terminating Contact – In exceptional circumstances, we may refuse to have further cotnact with individuals who are unreasonably persistent or abusive. Where we put limitations on contact with the office, this will be sanctioned by a senior figure within the company.
• Informing the Authorities – Where we receive threats against individual staff members/voluntary advisers or office property, immediate action may be taken including informing the police or other emergency services.

Through the above measures, we have taken steps to recognise and safeguard our staff from unreasonable behaviour.