Privacy Policy
At Bentley Hurst we are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. This privacy notice, together with our Terms and Conditions and any other notice referred to in it, explains how we collect and use your personal data when you visit our website or use our services.
Please note that all personal data sent to a Bentley Hurst email address (for whatever purpose) will be stored on our IT systems and may be subject to wider systematic monitoring procedures which we have implemented for the purpose of our legitimate business interests to protect confidential and personal data and assist in our ability to identify potential data breaches.
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children.
1. Personal data we collect
As a business we collect, use, store and transfer different types of personal data depending on who you are.
If you are purchasing, renting, selling or letting a property through Bentley Hurst, or purchasing, renting, selling or letting a property from one of our clients, we collect and use your personal data to provide you with our services. The personal data we collect and use may include:
- Identity Data (name, marital status, title, date of birth, gender, purchases made by you, your interests and preferences, property ownership details or other evidence of your ability to sell or let the property, references, credit checks, details of your immigration status, feedback and survey responses)
- Contact Data (billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers)
- Financial Data (bank account and payment details)
- Transaction Data (details about payments to and from you and other services you have purchased through us)
- Technical Data (browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, identification number, online identified, location data and other similar identifying information required for the customer's device(s) to communicate with websites and applications on the internet)
- Usage Data (how you use our website products and services, the full uniform resource locators clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time), download errors, lengths of visit to certain pages, page interaction information, methods to browse away from the page and any phone numbers you use to call us)
- Marketing and Communications Data (your marketing preferences from us and our third parties and your communication preferences)
- Call recordings (recordings of your conversations with us)
We also may collect and use Aggregated Data. For example, when you visit our website we may aggregate data about your usage to tell us about how certain features on our website are used. This is not usually classified as personal data as whilst it derives from personal data (in the example, it is derived from your Usage Data) it does not reveal your identity to us. If we do link this Aggregated Data to your personal information, it will be treated as personal data in line with this policy.
2. How we collect personal data
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Direct interactions
You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
- apply for our services;
- subscribe to our service or publications;
- request marketing to be sent to you;
- contact us through social media;
- walk-in to our branch offices or telephone our call centre;
- enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
- give us some feedback; or
- speak with us on the telephone and we record the call
Third parties or publicly available sources
We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources, for example:
- Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of payment services such as Mastercard based inside the EU.
- Identity and Contact Data from data brokers or aggregators such as TwentyCi, Rightmove, Zoopla (based inside the EU, or Facebook (based outside the EU)
- Identity and Contact Data from publicly availably sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the EU.
- Credit referencing agencies
3. How we use your personal data
We may use your personal data for some or all the purposes shown in the table below. We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it. If we need to process your personal data for a different purpose that is not compatible with the original purpose we will let you know.
We may process your personal data for a different purpose without your consent where it is necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations.
Purpose/Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
To contact you | Identity Contact Financial Transaction Marketing and Communications |
Performance of a contract with you Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, to recover debts due to us, to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services) |
To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide with you the information, products and services you request from us | Identity Contact Financial Transaction Marketing and Communications |
Performance of a contract with you Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business and to recover debts due to us) |
To provide you with information about other goods and services that we offer which we feel may interest you | Identity Contact Technical Usage |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business) |
To permit selected third parties:
|
Identity Contact Technical Usage |
Consent (in relation to SMS and email marketing communications) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our service offering) |
To assist us in the improvement and optimisation of advertising, marketing material and content, our services and the website |
Identity Marketing and Communications |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business and provision of administration and IT services, for training and monitoring of our customer service standards and to help resolve disputes |
To notify you about changes to our service | Identity Contact |
Performance of a contract with you Necessary to comply with our legal obligations Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated) |
To ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer | Identity Contact Financial Transaction |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business and provision of administration and IT services) |
To verify your identity | Identity Contact Financial Transaction |
Necessary to comply with our legal obligations Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business and to prevent fraud and money laundering) |
As part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure and to prevent or detect fraud | Identity Contact Financial Transaction |
Necessary to comply with our legal obligations Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) |
To provide customer support | Identity Contact |
Performance of a contract with you |
To facilitate and to enable you to partake in a property viewing, open house event or visits to property marketing suites | Identity Contact |
Performance of a contract with you Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business and to develop and grow our business) |
To comply with the requirements imposed by law or any court order | Identity Contact Technical Usage |
Necessary to comply with our legal obligations |
Where you have viewed through us, we may disclose your name to a landlord or vendor where we have been dis-instructed, in order to avoid a potential commission dispute | Your name | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to protect our entitlement to a commission and to avoid commission disputes wherever possible) |
We may disclose tenant references and any forwarding address to a landlord | Identity Contact |
Necessary for our legitimate interests (to help protect our landlord customers' legal rights) |
Marketing
You have the right to withdraw your consent for us to use your personal data for marketing purposes at any time. You also have the right to withdraw consent for us to pass your information to third parties for marketing purposes. If you do withdraw your consent, this will result in us ceasing to market goods and services to you.
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by:
- following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you; or
- contacting us at any time by emailing hello@bentleyhurst.co.uk or by calling 0161 543 0310.
Where you withdraw your consent to receiving marketing messages, we will still process your personal data in order to fulfil our contract with you and in accordance with our legal, accountancy and regulatory obligations.
If you no longer wish to be contacted by third parties for marketing purposes, please follow the instructions in their marketing communications, or consult their privacy policies about how to unsubscribe.
Third-party marketing
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside the Bentley Hurst Group of companies for marketing purposes.
Facebook Integration and Data Processing
When you interact with our website or use our services, you may choose to log in or authenticate using your Facebook account. By doing so, you authorize us to access certain information from your Facebook profile as permitted by Facebook's platform policies.
We may collect the following information from your Facebook profile:
- Your name
- Profile picture
- Email address
This information is used solely for the purpose of providing you with access to our services and enhancing your user experience. We do not post on your behalf or engage in any other activity on Facebook without your explicit consent.
Additionally, please note the following:
-
Data Sharing: We do not share your Facebook-related information with third parties without your consent unless required by law or as necessary for the provision of our services.
-
Data Retention: We retain any Facebook-related information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy policy or as required by law.
-
User Rights: As a user, you have the right to access, rectify, or delete any personal information we have collected from your Facebook profile. You can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact information provided in this privacy policy.
-
Withdrawal of Consent: If you no longer wish to log in or authenticate using your Facebook account, you can disconnect your Facebook account from our services at any time by adjusting your account settings.
Cookies
The Bentley Hurst website and applications may automatically collect data about how you use our services in order to help us improve future functionality of our website and to assist with advertising and targeting. We use Google Analytics, which is a web analysis service provided by Google.
The cookies on the Bentley Hurst website do not track, collect or upload data such as your name, email address or billing information, but it may collect data about your equipment and browsing activities. We may collect and report on the adoption and usage of specific features, crashes and exceptions and other useful, anonymous metrics.
Certain devices can detect your approximate location, via latitude and longitude. The accuracy of this data is not in the control of Bentley Hurst. If this feature is requested, Bentley Hurst will prompt you to provide your permission to access your location data for the purposes of providing you with results or directions based on your current location. You can disable location settings within your browser or app.
To read more about our use of cookies on the Bentley Hurst website, please consult our cookie policy.
4. Disclosures of your personal data
We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the "How we use your Personal Data" table above. We have agreements in place with our third parties that restrict their use of your personal data. We only allow third parties to use your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions
Category | Explanation |
External Third Parties |
Service providers acting as processors based in the United Kingdom who provide IT and system administration services, anti-money laundering service providers (such as NorthRow), tenancy deposit administrators (such as the Tenancy Deposit Scheme) and services to enable us to perform our contract with you, or carry out surveys to help us improve our services. Property developers acting as Processors or independent controllers based in the UK who process your personal data in order to arrange and facilitate your visit to their marketing suite. Advertisers and advertising networks (including social media) that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you. Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accountancy services. HMRC, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances. We will refer your personal information to the following third parties, but only where you have consented for us to do so :
We may forward your present and future contact details to utility suppliers, local authorities and credit or reference providers, including for the purposes of debt recovery. Where you are a landlord or a vendor we may forward your personal data to HM Land Registry for proof of property ownership purposes. Other agencies with whom we have entered into a sub-agency agreement and where they have introduced a potential purchaser/vendor/landlord/tenant for your property |
Other Third Parties | Sometimes there may be third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice. |
5. Data security
We are, through technical and organisational means, committed to ensuring the security of, and prevention of unauthorised access to, your personal data. For example, we limit who can access your personal data to those individuals and third parties who need to know it and who are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We also systematically monitor outbound emails for the purposes of protecting confidential and personal data and assisting in our ability to identify potential data breaches. If we become aware of a data breach we will, where we are required to, notify the Information Commissioner's Office. If we believe that the data breach is serious, we may notify you as well.
6. International transfers
We will not transfer your personal data outside of the European Economic Area, except to a country offering the same level of protection for your personal data. For example, with certain service providers we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which ensures that your personal data has the same protection as it would have in Europe.
7. Data retention
We will retain your personal data whilst you use our services (or whilst we provide services connected to you) and/or are in communication with us and for at least seven years thereafter, for legal, regulatory and accounting purposes. If we need to retain your personal data for longer, we will take into consideration the potential risks in continuing to store your data against why we might need to keep it. In some circumstances we might anonymise your personal data so it is not associated with you, and we may then use this information indefinitely.
8. Your legal rights
To the extent provided by law, you have the right to:
access a copy of the personal data that we hold and process about you. You have rights to the following information:
- the purpose(s) for which we are processing your information;
- the categories of personal information we hold about you
- the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed;
- the period for which we will store your information, or the criteria used to determine that period;
object to the use of your personal data (including for marketing purposes)by
- informing a Bentley Hurst telephone operator; or
- by ticking the relevant boxes on the data collection forms; or
- by emailing hello@bentleyhurst.co.uk
Please note that even if you refuse marketing, we will still contact you to discuss the services you have asked us to provide to you or to tell you about changes to our terms and conditions:
- rectification of any inaccurate information we hold about you;
- erasure of the personal data we hold about you (in certain situations);
- ask that we do not make decisions about you using completely automated means; and/or
- ask that personal data we hold about you is, where technically feasible, transmitted to a third-party chosen by you, in a commonly used, machine-readable format.
The rights listed above may not apply in certain circumstances. Therefore we may not always be able to comply with your request. We will tell you if this is the case. We will usually respond to a request from you to exercise your rights within one month of receipt, but it might take longer if your request is particularly complex or if you have made a number of requests. Please be aware that we may need to process your personal data and/or request specific information from you to help us comply with your request. Generally, you do not have to pay a fee to exercise these rights, but you may have to pay a fee if your request is unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request.
9. How to contact us
We are registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. To contact us about how we handle your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer at hello@bentleyhurst.co.uk. Alternatively, write to us at Data Protection Officer, Bentley Hurst, 35B Whitworth Street West, Manchester, M1 5ND. If you have a complaint about the way in which your personal data has been processed you have the right to contact the Information Commissioner's Office but you may be required to first complete our internal complaints procedure.
Anti-Money Laundering
Bentley Hurst is committed to operating its business in a transparent and open manner consistent with our legal and regulatory obligations. We are aware that the real estate industry is a target for organised criminals seeking to launder the proceeds of criminal activity. We always seek to prevent this activity by cooperating fully with the authorities and reporting suspicious activity to the National Crime Agency.
As part of this commitment, we adopt a strict compliance of all Anti-Money Laundering rules, with specific emphasis on the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, the Bribery Act 2010 and the Terrorism Act 2000.
Bentley Hurst policy commitment is applicable to all of our customers, including vendors, buyers, landlords and tenants. As a result we obtain and hold for a period of at least seven years evidence pertaining to our customers' identity and, where appropriate, we obtain proof of ownership of property and source/destination of funds. We will be unable to proceed with any work on behalf of our customers if we are unable to obtain this information. Customers' identity will be subject to an electronic identity check, which may also include a credit check.
We are registered and supervised by HM Revenue & Customs for compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.If you would like to speak to us about Anti-Money Laundering, please email hello@bentleyhurst.co.uk
Indemnity
You acknowledge that you are solely responsible for the use to which you put this website and all the results and information you obtain from it and that all warranties, conditions, undertakings, representations and terms whether expressed or implied, statutory or otherwise are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Save in respect of liability for death or personal injury arising out of negligence or for fraudulent misrepresentation, we and all contributors to this website hereby disclaim to the fullest extent permitted by law all liability for any loss or damage including any consequential or indirect loss or damage incurred by you, whether arising in tort, contract or otherwise, and arising out of or in relation to or in connection with your access to or use of or inability to use this website.
Whilst we take every care to ensure that the standard of this website remains high and to maintain the continuity of it, we do not accept any ongoing obligation or responsibility to operate this website (or any particular part of it).
If any part of our terms and conditions is deemed to be unenforceable (including any provision in which we exclude our liability to you) the enforceability of any other part of these conditions will not be affected.
These terms and conditions and your use of this website are governed exclusively by English law.
This does not affect your statutory rights as a consumer.
Bentley Hurst is registered in England and Wales(registered number 12797058). Our registered office is at 5, Brooklands Place, Brooklands Road, Sale, Cheshire, United Kingdom, M33 3SD.
We keep this Policy under regular review, the last review was on 19/10/2023. This Privacy Policy was last updated on 19/10/2023.