1. Introduction

PR Lettings & Management Limited (“we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

PR Lettings and Management is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

You are being sent a copy of this privacy notice because you are one of our tenants. It makes you aware of how and why your personal information will be used, namely for the purposes of managing your tenancy agreement, and how long we will usually keep your personal information for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘Data Protection Legislation”).

2. Data Protection Principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

  1. used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
  2. collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
  3. relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
  4. accurate and kept up to date;
  5. kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about; and
  6. kept securely.

3. The types of personal information we hold about you.

In connection with your tenancy or application for a tenancy agreement with us, we will collect, store, and use the following types of personal information about you:

  • personal details such as your name, date of birth, National Insurance number, identification documents, photographs, contact details and contact preferences;
  • next of kin information;
  • information you have provided in your application for housing, including references, pretenancy assessments, housing history and income details;
  • the details of other individuals living with you;
  • financial details including bank details, credit history, benefit support, rent account details and income and expenditure assessments;
  • employment status;
  • complaints of anti-social behaviour;
  • complaints about our services; and
  • repair logs.

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

  • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, trade union membership and political opinions;
  • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, trade union membership and political opinions;
  • Information about criminal convictions, criminal offences or court proceedings.

4. How we collect your information:

We collect, store and hold personal information relating to you from the following sources:

  • You, the tenant;
  • Your previous landlord;
  • Your named referees; and
  • Other agencies such as the local authority, the police, emergency services, probation, other RPs, the NHS, health professionals, drug and alcohol services and charities.

5. How we use your information:

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  1. where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you;
  2. where we need to comply with a legal obligation; and
  3. 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.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

  1. where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests); and
  2. where you have given to consent to the processing.

We use this personal information to carry out our duties as a Letting and Management Agent. This includes:

  • communicating with you about your tenancy;
  • letting, renting and leasing properties;
  • provision of management services e.g. repairs;
  • carrying out research;
  • maintaining our accounts and records;
  • as part of our marketing and promotional activities (if you agree).

Failure to provide the personal information requested may result in applications for housing being refused.

Automated Decision Making

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.

6. How we share tenant information:

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

Third party providers include the following:

  • Vouch reference services;
  • Expert Agent;
  • Ondrive;
  • Payprop;
  • Goodlord;
  • Googlemail;
  • Homeshift;
  • Reposit;
  • The Deposit Protection Service; and
  • Utility Providers.

Any third parties must process the information as permitted by the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Where it is required or necessary in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation, we may also share information with:

  • your Landlord
  • suppliers and service providers;
  • financial organisations;
  • debt collection agencies;
  • central government;
  • auditors;
  • survey and research organisations;
  • professional advisers and consultants;
  • police forces;
  • courts and tribunals;
  • professional bodies; and
  • insurers.

7. Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally 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.

We have put in place 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.

8. How long we keep personal information:

We will keep the personal information you provide whilst you are a tenant and we will also retain your personal information even after the end of your tenancy if this is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, maintain security, prevent fraud or to enforce any outstanding debts owed to us.

A copy of our Data Retention policy which details the retention periods for your information is available upon request.

9. Your rights:

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your employment with us.

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  1. Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  2. Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  3. Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information 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 information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  4. Object to processing of your personal information 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. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  5. Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  6. Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Branch Manager. Please note, there are some specific circumstances where these rights do not apply and we can refuse to deal with your request

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

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

In the limited circumstances where you may 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. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Branch Manager. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Complaints:

We take any complaints we receive about the collection and use of personal information very seriously. We would encourage you to bring it to our attention if you think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. You can make a complaint at any time by contacting us (see contact details section below).

If you think our collection or use of personal information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate or if you have concerns about the security of your personal information, you also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office. You can contact the Information Commissioner's Office at the following address:

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Contact us:

You can e-mail us at office@prlettings.com or write to us at the following address:

6 Cross Street, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 3LT

Tel: 01772 284606

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Branch Manager using the details above.