PRIVACY POLICY

We are Opal Auctions part of Opal Property which is a trading name of London & Home Counties Estates Ltd with registered office at 32 Woodstock Grove, London W12 8LE, UK under company number 10349376.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

On May 25, 2018, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into effect across all European Union markets. We believe this presents a new opportunity for marketers to strengthen their brand loyalty by focusing on consumer privacy while delivering amazing experiences. Think of it as experiential privacy — having privacy be a key part of the customer experience, through relevant privacy notices presented in context and choices that are on brand. More info about GDPR.

Definitions and Interpretation

In this Policy the following terms shall have the following meanings: “Account” means an account required to access and/or use certain areas and features of our website.

“Cookie” means a small text file placed on your computer or device by our website when you visit certain parts of our website and/or when you use certain features of our website.

“Cookie Law” means the relevant parts of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003;

London & Home Counties Estate Ltd T/A Opal Property understands that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used. We respect and value the privacy of everyone who visits this website, or uses our services, and will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here, and in a way that is consistent with our obligations and your rights under the law. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully and ensure that you understand it. Your acceptance of this Privacy Policy is deemed to occur upon your first use of our website, and you will be required to read and accept this Privacy Policy when using our services. If you do not accept and agree with this Privacy Policy, you must stop using our website immediately.

What we collect

The following data is collected either through submission of data by yourself from your device or through activity you carry out on the website.

• Full name and date of birth
• Full address and postcode
• Job Title/Profession
• Information in relation to the property being sold or purchased
• Reasons for selling or buying property
• If looking to purchase property, we are required to establish your source of funds
• Contact information including telephone numbers and an email address
• Information that you provide by filing in forms on our website. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our website, subscribing to our service, posting material, or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our website.
• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
• IP Address
• Details of your visits to our website and the resources that you access

What we do with the information we gather

When provided with this information, we will use it in different ways – particularly for the following:

• To establish identity and carry out the anti-money Laundering checks as required under The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2019. For this purpose, we will share client’s personal information with our referencing provider Credas®, and/or solicitors. This is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests in ensuring we, and our clients are not the victim of fraud and to protect our legal rights.
• Where you are the vendor of a property that we are marketing, for the purpose of effectively marketing your property and subsequently progressing the transaction (upon successful sale).
• We use relevant personal information (including, but not limited to, name, address, and date of birth) to enable us to complete a transaction with you.
• This information may be required to be passed on to third parties such as solicitors, surveyors, and financial advisors.
• Where you are an interested party or a bidder, for the purpose of keeping you fully informed in relation to the property prior to bidding. If you are subsequently a successful bidder, we will use relevant personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, address, and date of birth) to enable us to complete a transaction with you. This information may be required to be passed on to third parties such as solicitors, surveyors, and financial advisors.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service(s) when you choose to do so.
• To ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device. We may alter the way the website works to improve and/or enhance the information displayed to you, or to optimise the way you interact with the Website. We may show personalised content based upon your preferences and/or previous interactions with the website.
• Internal record keeping.
• To improve our products and services. We use your personal information to allow us to understand your individual requirements and personalise the properties and/or services we offer you.
• For the provision of customer support. If you contact our team, or vice versa, we will use personal information such as your email address, phone number and residential address as well as your contact history to provide you with the best service possible.
• With separate consent, we may send promotional emails, post and/or SMS messages about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address and mobile phone number which you have provided.
• With separate consent, we may notify you about changes to our service that we think may be of interest to you via email, post and/or SMS messages.
• With separate consent, we may use your information to contact you for market research purposes either by email, phone, or mail.

In all instances, we will only process personal information in this way if it is necessary for the performance of a contract, you have requested us to do so or if it is required for us to comply with any legal obligations.

We will never process your data for anything other than legitimate interest in ensuring that we can provide the best service possible or providing you with information that may be of interest to you.

Storage and retention of personal information

Personal information (and sensitive personal information) will be kept securely in within electronic systems accessed by employees of London & Home Counties Estates Ltd T/A Opal Property. Personal information (and sensitive personal information) will not be retained for any longer than necessary. The length of time over which data should be retained will depend upon the circumstances, including the reasons why the personal information was obtained. Personal information (and sensitive personal information) that is no longer required will be deleted permanently from our information systems and any hard copies will be destroyed securely

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Links to other Websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

How We Use Cookies

A cookie is a text file containing small pieces of data unique to your device. These allow us to identify your device and respond to you as an individual, whilst you use our website. We use cookies to facilitate and improve your experience of our website and to provide and improve our products and/or services. By using our website, you may also receive certain third-party cookies on your computer or device. Third-party cookies are those placed by parties other than us. On our website, Third-party cookies are used only for website analytics. Website analytics refers to a set of tools used to collect and analyse usage statistics, enabling us to better understand how people use our Site.

Controlling your personal information

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways: whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, look for the box that you can click to indicate that you do not want the information to be used by anybody for direct marketing purposes if you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us at info@opalproperty.co.uk We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We may use your personal information to send you promotional information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.

You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998.

If you believe that any information, we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. This may be necessary, for example, if the law changes, or if we change our business in a way that affects personal data protection. Any changes will be immediately posted on our Site and you will be deemed to have accepted the terms of the Privacy Policy on your first use of our Site following the alterations. We recommend that you check this page regularly to keep up to date