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Privacy Policy

This version was last updated on: June 10, 2025

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At Lewis William Residential Lettings, we are committed to protecting your privacy and personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and share your personal information in accordance with the retained EU law version of the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (“UK GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018. As a letting agency, we act as a 'Data Controller' for the personal data we collect. This means we determine the purposes and means of processing your data. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (“ICO”).

 

1. Who We Are

We are Lewis William Limited (trading as Lewis William Residential Lettings) (company number 07562736). Our registered address is 98a Lord Street, Leigh, Lancashire, WN7 1BY.

You can contact us by email at info@lewiswilliam.co.uk or by telephone on 01942 514763.

Our website is https://www.lewiswilliam.co.uk

 

2. What Personal Data We Collect

We may collect and process various types of personal data depending on your interaction with us (e.g., prospective tenant, current tenant, landlord, guarantor, contractor). This may include:

For Prospective Tenants, Tenants, and Guarantors:

  • Identity and Contact Information including your full name (current and previous), address (current and previous), email addresses, phone numbers.

  • Identification Details including your date of birth, nationality, passport details, driving licence details, and visa/residency status (for Right to Rent checks).

  • Financial Information including your bank account details, salary, employment details, credit history, affordability assessments, and details of any benefits received.

  • Referencing Information including employer references, previous landlord references, credit checks, and information from third-party referencing agencies.

  • Household Information including your details of other occupants, dependants, and emergency contact details.

  • Special Category Data (previously called sensitive personal data) including, in limited circumstances only and subject always to your explicit consent (or where otherwise legally required), we may collect information about your health (e.g., for reasonable adjustments due to disability) or criminal convictions (e.g., for certain referencing checks). We will always inform you clearly if we need to collect such data and the purpose for it.

  • Communication Records including records of correspondence (emails, letters, phone calls, webchat discussions).

  • Viewing History including details of properties viewed and your preferences.

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For Landlords:

  • Identity and Contact Information including your full name (current and previous), home/correspondence address (current and previous), email addresses, and phone numbers.

  • Identification Details including copies of your passport or driving licence details and the results of any Anti-Money Laundering checks.

  • Property Details including details of your property addresses, ownership details and mortgage information in relation to properties you engage us to provide services in relation to.

  • Financial Information including your bank account details for rent payments and other financial transactions.

  • Marketing Preferences including confirmation whether you wish to receive marketing communications from us.

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For Contractors/Suppliers:

  • Identify and Contact Information including your full name (current and previous), details relating to your company (if any), your correspondence addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.

  • Financial Information including your bank account details for payment of services.

  • Insurance and Qualification Details including details of relevant business insurance and professional qualifications.

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For All:

  • Technical Data including your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, operating system and platform, information about your visit including URL clickstream, pages viewed, download errors. This is primarily for website improvement and security.

 

3. How We Collect Your Personal Data

We collect personal data through various channels, including:

  • Directly from you: When you enquire about a property, apply for a tenancy, sign an agreement, provide us with documents, or communicate with us via phone, email, or in person.

  • From Third Parties:

    • Referencing agencies (e.g., for credit checks, employment verification, previous landlord references).

    • Credit reference agencies.

    • Previous landlords or employers (with your consent).

    • Publicly available sources (e.g., Land Registry).

    • From landlords (regarding tenant information).

    • From tenants (regarding landlord information or other occupants).

    • Utility companies or local authorities.

  • Through our Website: Via enquiry forms, cookies (please see our separate Cookie Policy), or web chat functions.

  • CCTV: If we have CCTV at our premises, your image may be captured for security purposes.

 

4. How We Collect Your Personal Data​

We collect personal data through various methods:

  • Direct Interactions: You may provide us with your personal data when you:

    • Enquire about a property to let or advertise a property.

    • Apply for a tenancy or guarantor agreement.

    • Sign a tenancy or management agreement.

    • Complete forms, surveys, or questionnaires.

    • Correspond with us by post, phone, email, web chat, or in person.

    • Enter a competition or promotion.

    • Give us feedback.

  • Third Parties or Publicly Available Sources: We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources, such as:

    • Referencing agencies and credit reference agencies (e.g., for tenant and guarantor checks).

    • Previous landlords or employers (with your consent).

    • Government bodies, local authorities, or regulatory bodies (e.g., for Right to Rent checks, council tax information).

    • Publicly available registers (e.g., Companies House, Land Registry).

    • Social media platforms (if you interact with our official accounts).

    • Utility providers (e.g., for change of tenancy notifications).

  • Automated Technologies or Interactions: As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, Browse actions, and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our separate [Link to Your Cookie Policy Here, if applicable] for more details.

  • CCTV: Our premises may be equipped with CCTV cameras for security and crime prevention purposes. If you visit our offices, your image may be captured.

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5. How We Use Your Personal Data (Purposes and Lawful Bases)​​​​

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​For more information about the cookies we use and how to change your cookie preferences, please refer to our Cookie Policy here

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6. Who We Share Your Personal Data With

We may share your personal data with the following categories of recipients where necessary and lawful:

  • Landlords: Your personal data (as a tenant/prospective tenant) may be shared with the landlord of the property you are interested in or residing in, to facilitate the tenancy and property management.

  • Tenants: Your personal data (as a landlord) may be shared with the tenant(s) of your property to facilitate communication and management.

  • Referencing Agencies: For comprehensive background and financial checks on prospective tenants and guarantors.

  • Credit Reference Agencies: To assess creditworthiness.

  • Deposit Protection Schemes: To register and manage tenancy deposits as legally required.

  • Utility Providers & Local Authorities: To facilitate changeovers for council tax, water, gas, electricity, and other services at the start and end of a tenancy.

  • Approved Contractors & Maintenance Companies: To arrange and carry out repairs or maintenance on properties.

  • Professional Advisers: Such as solicitors, accountants, or auditors, where necessary for legal, financial, or compliance purposes.

  • Debt Collection Agencies: In cases of unpaid rent or other outstanding payments.

  • Insurance Providers: If required for property or tenancy-related insurance policies.

  • Government Bodies & Regulators: Including the ICO, HMRC, police, or other law enforcement agencies, where we are legally obliged to do so.

  • Cloud Service Providers: For secure data storage and processing (e.g., property management software, email hosting).

  • Other Third Parties: Only with your explicit consent or where required by law.

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We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

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7. International Transfers

We primarily store and process your personal data within the UK.

We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law.

If we transfer your personal data outside the UK, we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

  • we will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK government; and/or

  • where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.

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8. Data Security

We have implemented appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. This includes:

  • Physical Security: Secure offices, locked filing cabinets for hard copies.

  • Technical Security: Password protection, encryption, firewalls, anti-virus software, secure networks, and regular security updates.

  • Organisational Measures: Staff training on data protection, restricted access to personal data on a 'need-to-know' basis, and strict internal policies and procedures.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

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9. How Long We Keep Your Personal Data

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

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

By law (including for tax purposes), we must keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for a period of six years after they cease being customers.

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Otherwise, we generally retain data for:

  • Unsuccessful Tenancy Applicants: Up to 1 year.

  • Tenancy Records (including ex-tenants and landlords): Up to 7 years after the end of the tenancy agreement to comply with legal obligations (e.g., HMRC, deposit scheme rules, potential claims).

  • Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Documents: At least 5 years after the end of the business relationship.

  • Marketing Consent: Until you withdraw your consent or a reasonable period of inactivity.

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In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

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10. Your Legal Rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data; namely, the:

  • Right to Be Informed: To be informed about how your personal data is collected and used (this Privacy Policy serves this purpose).

  • Right of Access: To request access to the personal data we hold about you (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

  • Right to Rectification/Correction: To request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

  • Right to Erasure (i.e. the 'right to be forgotten'): To request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue to process it. Please note that this right is not absolute, and we may be legally obligated to retain certain data.

  • Right to Restrict Processing: To request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in certain scenarios (e.g. If you want us to establish the data's accuracy; where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

  • Right to Data Portability: To request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. This right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

  • Right to Object: To object to the processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.

  • Rights in relation to Automated Decision-Making and Profiling: You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you, unless certain exceptions apply.

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No fee usually required​

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

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What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

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Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

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11. Complaints

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us directly using the contact details in Section 1. You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

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12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review, and we may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal or regulatory reasons. The updated version will be posted on our website with a revised "Effective Date” and we encourage you to review this policy periodically. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us, for example a new address or email address.

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13. Third-party links 

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.​​​

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