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Privacy

Privacy Policy

This privacy notice 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 Gent Law Ltd a company registered in England under company number 12228058, whose registered address is G1 Trentham Business Quarter Bellringer Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, ST4 8GB. Our VAT number is 339291676.

Our Site is operated by Marley Creative Ltd, a limited company registered in England under company number 08921381  whose registered address and main trading address is Deansfield House, 98 Lancaster Road, Newcastle Under Lyme, Staffordshire, England, ST5 1DS

Our Data Protection Officer is James Du Pavey, and can be contacted by email at james@gentlaw.co.uk, by telephone on 01782 486700, or by post at Gent Law, G1 Trentham Business Quarter Bellringer Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, ST4 8GB.

We are regulated by The Solicitors Regulatory Authority and we are a member of The Quality Conveyancing Scheme.

What type of information will we collect from you?

The information we hold about you may include personal information and special category data. It will typically include:

  • Your name, address, phone number/s, email address/es
  • Identifiers such as date of birth; National Insurance, passport, visa, driving licence numbers; photographs or other digital images
  • Financial details to include bank details, mortgage account, means questionnaire
  • Names of and other personal information on your family and relationships
  • Details of your property
  • Social media information
  • Special category and (in some cases) criminal conviction data including health records, Trade Union membership, political affiliations, sexuality, ethnic origin, criminal records
  • We do not provide services directly to children or proactively collect their personal information. However, we are sometimes given information about children while handling a matter. The information in the relevant parts of this notice applies to children as well as adults.
  • 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, 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.

Where has the data come from?

The data we hold will have come from:

  • you in person, by telephone, by email, by SMS/text, or from your use of our website, through your initial enquiry, request for a quote, initial instructions, and when we deal with your matter
  • an intermediary, such as an estate agent or a financial advisor, who refers you to us
  • another firm that transfers your file to us
  • a client who names you as a joint party in a matter or other transaction, or as the joint owner of a property or business we are dealing with
  • a client who names you as the buyer/seller of a property or business we are selling/buying for them

It is very important to ensure that we hold up to date information, so please remember to tell us about any of the following as soon as possible:

  • changes of personal circumstances, such as relationship status or the birth of children
  • changes of name or address
  • change of contact details including mobile phone number and email address
  • bank details (if relevant to the retainer)

On what basis can we process your information?

The legal bases we rely on to process your personal data are as follows:

  • Performance of our contract with you under article 6(1)(b) GDPR
  • Compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, under article 6(1)(c) GDPR
  • Consent under article 6(1)(a) GDPR, where you have given consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes as listed in our Consent Form. Otherwise, we rely on (1) and (2)

If the information you provide us contains special category data, such as health, religious or ethnic information the legal basis in GDPR we rely on to process it is:

  • Consent under article 9(2)(a)
  • Establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims under article 9(2)(f)
  • Consent for processing information relating to criminal convictions under Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part (3)(29)

What are we going to do with your information?

We will process your data only for the purpose of providing you with the legal services described in the client care letter. If the scope changes, we will tell you. With your consent, we may also use the data for advising you of our other products and services which we think may be of interest to you. We also use personal information about you:

  • In order to fulfil our obligations to you when providing you with our property services
  • To share your information with others where necessary to fulfil our law 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 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
  • 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.

We will never sell your personal data to anyone.

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 may share information about you:

  • within the firm to enable us to deal with your matter effectively and efficiently
  • with other law firms acting for other parties in the same matter
  • with counsel
  • with experts
  • with our outsourced providers including for example our accounts function, IT consultant, risk and compliance consultant
  • with an external insurer, for example if certain types of insurance are required as part of your matter
  • with the intermediary who introduced you to us including for example an estate agent or a financial advisor
  • with law enforcement agencies where required, for example under a Court order
  • We will pass your details to the following organisations (our “data processors”) who carry out certain activities on our behalf as part of our providing our services: Credas, Marley Creative, Redrick, Quill, HMRC, James Du Pavey Ltd, Property Information Exchange Ltd.

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.

Some organisations may be located in countries outside of Europe where data protection laws are not as strict as they are in the UK. Where your personal data is being transferred outside the EU, we will either undertake an assessment of the level of protection in light of the circumstances surrounding the transfer or:

  • Only transfer it to a non-EEA country with privacy laws that give the same protection as the EEA; or
  • Ensure we have an agreement in place with the recipient under which they are under a duty to protect your data to the same standards as those in place in the EEA; or
  • Transfer it to US organisations that are signed up to the EU-US Privacy Shield scheme; or
  • We will make sure that any transfers are not repetitive and only limited to the minimum amount of information possible. In certain circumstances we may need to seek your consent unless there is an overriding legal need to transfer the information]

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 james@gentlaw.co.uk or by post to James Du Pavey, Gent Law, G1 Trentham Business Quarter Bellringer Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, ST4 8GB.

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 any time by unsubscribing or by emailing james@gentlaw.co.uk or by post to James Du Pavey, Gent Law, G1 Trentham Business Quarter Bellringer Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, ST4 8GB.

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 by emailing james@gentlaw.co.uk or by post to James Du Pavey, Gent Law, G1 Trentham Business Quarter Bellringer Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, ST4 8GB.

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 james@gentlaw.co.uk. We will respond to you within one month after assessing whether or not 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 emailing james@gentlaw.co.uk or by post to James Du Pavey, Gent Law, G1 Trentham Business Quarter Bellringer Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffordshire, England, ST4 8GB. 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.