RB Gates Ltd have a Privacy Policy in place to ensure you are confident about the security of the information you provide to us.

Data controller: RB Gates, 129 Charles Street, Leicester, LE1 1LA

1. Introduction

RB Gates is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

RB Gates collects, stores and processes personal data relating to tenants, residents and guarantors in order to provide rental accommodation. This privacy notice sets down how RB Gates collects and uses personal information about you before, during and after a tenancy.

RB Gates is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. RB Gates is committed to being clear and transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

2. Data Protection Principles

   RB Gates will comply with data protection law. This means that the personal information we hold about you must be:

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

3. What information does RB Gates collect and process?

RB Gates collects and processes a range of personal information (personal data) about you. Personal data means any information about an individual from which the person can be identified. This includes:

• Identity and personal contact details, such as your name, title, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, national insurance number;
• Background information such as previous landlord details, employer details, accountant details, next of kin, dependants and emergency contacts;
• Bank account details, bank references and credit check results;
• Tenancy details including renewals, joint tenants, other residents and guarantors;
• Tenancy deposit information (if any) including return on tenancy termination;
• Immigration/right to rent checks (England only);
• Rent and utilities payment records;
• Recovery of arrears, claims or possession proceedings;
• Repair and health and safety records;
• Breach of tenancy terms/complaints
• Council Tax and utilities records;
• Universal credit/housing benefit records;
• Notices and correspondence regarding termination of tenancy;
• CCTV and audio recordings (if any); and
• General correspondence in all formats (letters, emails, text messages etc).

We may also collect, store and use the following special categories of more sensitive personal information:

• Information about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a disability for which the Landlord / RB Gates needs to make adaptations; and
• Equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief.

RB Gates collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through the tenancy application process and through correspondence during the tenancy. The Landlord also generates its own records such as rent payment records.

In some cases, RB Gates collects personal data about you from third parties, such as:

• References supplied by former landlords, employers and personal referees;
• Information from credit reference agencies;
• Other tenants, residents or neighbours;
• Guarantors;
• Local authorities;
• The police or other law enforcement agencies;
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Utility companies or service providers;
• Letting/managing agents; and
• Websites or online rental portals such as Rightmove, Zoopla or OnTheMarket.

Data is stored in a range of different places, including in paper files and in the RB Gates’ IT systems (including the RB Gates’ email system).

4. Why does RB Gates process personal data?

RB Gates needs to process data to consider applications for tenancy agreements and manage tenancies.

In addition, RB Gates needs to process data to ensure that we are complying with our legal obligations, for example, we are required to check a tenant’s “right to rent” for properties in England.

In other cases, the Landlord has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the landlord/tenant relationship.

5. Situations in which we will use your personal information

Situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below:

• To verify the identity of a proposed tenant/resident;
• To decide on the suitability of a proposed tenant/resident;
• To assess the financial standing/suitability of a proposed tenant/resident;
• To check immigration status/right to rent;
• To deal with joint tenants and residents who are linked to the tenancy;
• To enter into a tenancy agreement
• To secure payment of rent and performance of tenant obligations;
• To collect rent and other payments;
• To manage the tenancy and the property;
• To keep accurate records relating to the Landlord’s rental business;
• To arrange repairs and maintenance of the property;
• To monitor and enforce performance of tenant’s obligations;
• To recover debts and/or obtain possession of a property;
• To ensure Council Tax and utilities charges are billed and paid appropriately;
• To ensure that welfare benefits (such as Universal Credit and housing benefit) are paid to the landlord or tenant where appropriate;
• To handle tenancy termination and the return of any tenancy deposit;
• To handle complaints;
• To address health and disability issues relating to tenants/residents;
• To create and keep audio and CCTV recordings;
• To provide information to public or local authorities who are legally entitled to require this information;
• To contact next of kin or close relatives in case of emergency;
• To store of emails, records of calls and other communications;
• To comply with legal and regulatory requirements;
• To bring and defend legal claims; and
• To prevent, detect and investigate crime and anti-social behaviour.

6. If you fail to provide personal information

If you do not prove certain information when requested, RB Gates may not be able to proceed with the grant of a tenancy agreement.

7. Change of purpose

RB Gates will only use your personal information for the purpose for which it was collected 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 advise you of this and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

You should be aware that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

8. Use of sensitive personal information

Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, are processed to comply with legal obligations (for example, in relation to tenants/residents with disabilities and for health and safety purposes).

9. For how long do you keep data?

RB Gates will only hold your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. The period for which your data is held after the end of a tenancy is seven years. The period for which your data is held following an unsuccessful tenancy application is one year.

10. Who is data shared with?

Your information will be shared internally.

RB Gates also shares your data with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary in order to administer the relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. Information can be shared with:

• Professional advisers, including solicitors and accountants;
• Letting/managing agents;
• Freeholder and/or their managing agent (for property in block of flats);
• Existing or previous landlords;
• Existing or previous employers;
• Credit referencing agencies;
• Debt collectors and tracing services;
• Local authorities and government/public bodies;
• Ombudsman/redress schemes;
• Professional body/regulator;
• Courts/Tribunals;
• Police/enforcement agencies;
• Internet service providers;
• Banks/building societies;
• Tenant’s/resident’s next of kin or close relatives in case of emergency;
• Joint tenants and other residents;
• Guarantors;
• Tenancy Deposit Schemes;
• Universal Credit/housing benefit/other benefit administrator;
• H M Revenue and Customs;
• Council Tax authority;
• Contractors and trades people providing services at the property;
• Prospective purchasers of property; and
• Other landlords including where you apply to another landlord for a tenancy.

RB Gates will not transfer your data to countries outside the European Economic Area.

11. How does RB Gates protect data?

RB Gates takes the security of your data seriously. RB Gates has internal policies and controls in place to prevent your data being lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed. Details of these measures are available on request.

When RB Gates engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.

12. Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please be sure to keep us informed if your personal information changes during the tenancy application process or during the course of a tenancy.

13. Your Rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

• access and obtain a copy of your data on request (known as a “data subject access request”);
• require RB Gates to change incorrect or incomplete data;
• request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask the Landlord to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
• object to the processing of your data where the Landlord is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
• ask the Landlord to suspend the processing of your personal data for a period of time if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, or you have any questions about the privacy notice, please contact the Manager at RB Gates, Leicester.

If you believe that RB Gates has not complied with your data protection rights, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Disclosure of information

RB Gates Ltd comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 in the United Kingdom. We take all reasonable care to prevent any unauthorised access to and use of your personal data.

Our staff and those working for our agents and contractors maintain a responsibility to keep your information confidential and will only use it to offer relevant products and services related to your enquiry.

Any personal details that we use to provide or promote our products and services to you (e.g. name, address, email address, telephone number, or any details of the services you have purchased or about which you have enquired) will not be passed to any third party organisation for marketing purposes without your permission and will not be used by us for any purpose other than that which you requested.

The Internet is not a secure medium. However to protect your data we put in place various security procedures including use of firewalls, backup measures, we limit access to data to relevant personnel and password protect all machinery holding personal data.

Personal information

If you have registered your details with our office or on our website; your details may be combined with other information in our records in order to:

1. Save you having to keep giving us the same information for different RB Gates Estate Agency services.

2. Help you to get more out of your visits to our website by suggesting information about products and services which may be useful to you.

3. Keep other parts of RB Gates up to date with your details in order to offer you products and services by post or email that may interest you.

When you register you consent to us using your personal data in the manner described in this Policy.

If any of the information that you provide to RB Gates changes, for example if you change your email address, name, address or contact numbers, please let us know the correct details by sending an email to contactus@rbgates.com.

Cookies

To make this site work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device. Most big websites do this too.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.

How do we use cookies?

A number of our pages use cookies: to remember your display preferences, such as contrast colour settings or font size; remember your login details (if you register with us for newsletters, updates, etc); if you have already replied to a survey pop-up that asks you if the content was helpful or not (so you won’t be asked again); and if you have agreed (or not) to our use of cookies on this site.

Code is embedded within our pages make use of cookies to anonymously gather statistics on how you got there and what products / pages you visited. This will enable us to know which pages your are currently / have previously viewed and whether we can speak to you through our live chat to see if we can help you any further. We simply want to make your experience as easy and efficient as possible giving you best possible customer service we can provide when visiting our site.

Enabling these cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience. You can delete or block these cookies, but if you do that some features of this site may not work as intended.

The cookie-related information is not used to identify you personally and the pattern data is fully under our control. These cookies are not used for any purpose other than those described here.

How to control cookies?

You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish – for details, see aboutcookies.org. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.