Privacy Policy

Introduction

The UK General Data Protection Regulations (“GDPR”) came into effect on 25th May 2018 and placed greater obligations on how companies, such as Convey Law, handle personal information held about our clients.

Convey Law are committed to protecting and respecting your personal information and privacy. Convey Law also recognises the importance of the correct and lawful treatment of personal information and will only use your personal information as set out in this Privacy Note, which should be read carefully and in conjunction with our standard Terms of Engagement (Transaction Guide document).

Convey Law have appointed our Legal Director, Mr Phill Edwards as our Data Protection Officer to oversee compliance with this Privacy Note. If you have any questions or queries in relation to the content of this Privacy Note or how we handle your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at datacompliance@conveylaw.com or by post to Data Protection Officer, Convey Law, Maxwell Chambers, 34- 38 Stow Hill, Newport, South Wales, NP20 1JE.

It is important that the personal information that we hold about you is accurate and current. Please ensure that we are updated of any changes to your personal information during the course of our working relationship.

Data Protection Principles

Convey Law will comply with Data Protection legislation, which provides that the personal information that we hold about you must be:-

• Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
• Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
• Accurate and kept up to date
• Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes that we have told you about.
• Kept securely.

How Convey Law collect personal information about you?

Convey Law use different methods to collect personal information from and about you, which include:-

Directly from you – Generally, the personal information that we obtain about you will be obtained directly from you during the initial instruction telephone conversation and from information provided by you in the Welcome Pack documentation, completed and returned by you at the outset of your instructions and during email/letter correspondence and telephone communication throughout the course of your property transaction.

From Third Parties – We will also obtain personal information about you from other sources, which may include introducers/referrers of business to Convey Law, estate agents, leasehold management companies, mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders, electronic identification verifiers or other professionals. Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

What information Convey Law holds about you?

Convey Law will collect and hold certain personal information about you to enable us to comply with your instructions; to comply with our regulatory responsibilities; to comply with the requirements of any third party such as your mortgage lender and to achieve legal completion of your property transaction.

Such personal information will include:-

Your Title and Full Name	Current and Previous Address
Contact Telephone Numbers	Contact E-mail Address
Date of Birth	National Insurance Number
Driving Licence/Passport Number	Occupation
Property Sale Address	Property Purchase Address
Property Sale Price	Property Purchase Price
Property Sale Mortgage Information	Mortgage Information Occupier Information
Bank Details for remittance of Sale Proceeds	Bank Details to evidence source of deposit Proof of Identification Documentation
Intended Use of Property	Evidence of Signature

Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

We do not collect any Special Categories of personal information about you – this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic information.

How will Convey Law use your information?

Convey Law will only use your personal information when the law allows us to and for the purposes for which we collected the information.

Convey Law WILL use the information held about you for the following purposes:-

• Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Convey Law may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are expected to be rare:-
  • Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
  • Where it is needed in the public interest.

Disclosure of your personal information

Convey Law need all of the categories of information as delineated in the Appendix to this Privacy Note primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases, we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided of course that your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

The situations in which we will process your personal information are set out in the Appendix to this Privacy Note along with the purpose for which we are processing or will process your personal information.

Some of the grounds for processing your information will overlap and there may be several grounds, which justify our use of your personal information.

Data Sharing

Convey Law may need to share your personal information with third parties, including third party service providers. Such third party service providers include:-

• Land Registry,
• HMRC,
• The Welsh Revenue Authority,
• Conveyancers acting on the other side
• Asking an independent Barrister or Counsel for advice; or to represent you
• Contracted suppliers
• External auditors or our regulator e.g. Legal Eye, CLC, ICO etc
• Bank or Building Society; or other financial institutions
• Insurance companies
• Providers of identity verification
• Any disclosure required by law or regulations; such as the prevention of financial crime and terrorism
• If there is an emergency and we think that you or others are at risk.

Convey Law will require third parties to respect the security of your information and to treat it in accordance with Data Protection legislation.

Convey Law will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

All of our third party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes.

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example our regulator, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers or to otherwise comply with the law.

If you fail to provide personal information

Convey Law will require certain information from you to perform our contract with you. Please note that if you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.

Change of purpose

Convey Law will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis, which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

How long will Convey Law retain information held about you?

Convey Law will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary and to fulfil the purposes for which your information has been collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, statutory, regulatory, accounting or reporting requirements.

When a prospective client makes contact with Convey Law to obtain a Legal Costs Estimate for conveyancing services and decides not to proceed with the instruction, we anticipate that your information will be deleted/removed from our systems within 12 months of your initial contact.

Where you have undertaken a property transaction with us, whether or not it has successfully concluded, we anticipate that we will retain your personal information for no more than 6 years on a sale transaction and 15 years on a purchase or remortgage transaction from the date of the last activity on your transactional instruction.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements.

In certain cases, we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

What are your rights relating to the use of your data?

Under the GDPR you have certain rights in respect of the processing of your personal information, which may vary dependent upon the legal basis for the collection of your personal information and the uses made of this personal information.

For all uses made of your personal information you have the right to be informed about how we use your personal information. This Privacy Note discharges that obligation. However, further rights may apply in different circumstances, as set out below:-

• Right of Access – you have a right to access a copy of the personal information that Convey Law hold about you (subject to Data Protection Laws). You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). However, we reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is deemed to be unfounded or excessive. We may also refuse to comply with such a request in such circumstances.
• Right of Rectification – you have a right to correct personal information that Convey Law hold about you if the information held is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Right to be Forgotten – in certain circumstances you may ask for the personal information held about you to be removed/destroyed (please note the limitations imposed by the retention period delineated above).
• Right to Restrict Processing – where certain conditions apply you have a right to restrict processing. However, please note that this may affect our ability to provide services to you.
• Right to Data Portability – you have the right to have the personal information held about you to be transferred to a nominated third party in accordance with your instructions. You also have the right for such information to be transferred in a suitable format.
• Right to Object – you have the right to object to certain types of processing, such as marketing purposes. Please note that we will only ever use your contact information for marketing purposes where you have provided express consent.
• Right to Withdraw Consent – in the limited circumstances where you have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time, by providing appropriate notification of the withdrawal of your consent to our Data Protection Officer at datacompliance@conveylaw.com or by post to Data Protection Officer, Convey Law, Maxwell Chambers, 34-38 Stow Hill, Newport, South Wales, NP20 1JE.
• Right of Notification – you have the right to be notified of any breach of our responsibilities in relation to the use of and processing of your personal information.

In the event that you wish to exercise any of these rights, please make your request in writing to our Data Protection Officer.

Is your information secure?

Convey Law will collect and store personal information about you securely. Convey Law will only pass this information to other parties where it is appropriate and lawful for us to do so and via controls, which require an identified purpose and which ensure that such information is transferred to such other parties safely and securely.

Convey Law have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.  In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.

They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

Convey Law have also implemented procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Transfer of Information outside of European Union

Convey Law will not transfer any information outside of the European Union.

Further information

For a full description of the information that Convey Law hold about you; your rights; the relevant legal information and complaints, please write to the Data Protection Officer of Convey Law, Mr Phill Edwards at Maxwell Chambers, 34-38 Stow Hill, Newport, South Wales, NP20 1JE or alternatively, datacompliance@conveylaw.com

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the relevant supervisory authority. The UK supervisory authority for Data Protection issues is the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).

Convey Law reserve the right to update this Privacy Note when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

Appendix

Details of information categories, how your information is processed and the legal basis for processing your information:-

Category of Information	How information is used	Legal Basis
Title, Full Name, Address details (including address of transaction and any correspondence address)	To provide an estimate, processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, internal data analysis, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Contractual Legal Obligation
Contact telephone numbers, email address	To provide an estimate, processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, internal data analysis, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Contractual Legal Obligation
Date of Birth and Occupation	Processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, internal data analysis, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Legal Obligation Contractual
National Insurance Number	Processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Legal Obligation Contractual
Driving Licence/Passport Number/Other Identification Documentation	Processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Contractual Legal Obligation
Proof of Address – Council Tax Statement, Mortgage Statement, Water/Utility Bill etc	Processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Contractual Legal Obligation
Source of Funds & Proof of Wealth Information – Bank statements, bank details, asset evidence, other financial information	Processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Contractual Legal Obligation
Evidence of Signature	Processing your property transaction, complying with our contract with you, compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.	Contractual Legal Obligation