Privacy Notice

This policy tells you what to expect when we collect your personal information. Please read the following carefully to understand how we collect and handle your personal data and for what purposes.

Paul F Harfitt & Co (trading as Harfitts Solicitors & Property Agents) (also referred to as ‘us’, ‘we’, or ‘our’) complies with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Harfitts is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. For the purposes of GDPR, if you provide any personal information to us, we will be the Data controller. By law we must process all your personal data lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner.

Harfitts office address is: The Old Bank, 20 High Street, Wem, Shropshire, SY4 5AA

Telephone No: 01939 232775

Information Commissioner’s Office Registration No: Z2156060
 

What personal information we collect about you

The exact information we will request from you will depend on what you have asked us to do or what we are contracted to do for you. We may collect information from you when you use our website or contact or request information from us as part of providing legal and property services to you, including the following types of information:

• Your title, full name, and contact details (including for instance, your email address, home and mobile telephone numbers).
• Your home and correspondence address (where this is different from your home address).
• Bank account and payment details to enable us to make and take payments.
• Your date of birth, and information relating to your identity where we are required by law to collect this to comply with the current Money Laundering Regulations and the Immigration Act.
• Information on your close contacts where we are required to conduct checks in relation to conflicts of interest under regulatory obligations.
• Information provided by you or collected by us as part of client intake procedures and personal information provided by you or others to us, or which is created by us, in the course of our providing our services.
• Information arising from visits you make to our website and other websites associated with our legal and property business including information which you submit to us through these websites.
• Information collected at marketing events and from feedback forms and surveys.
• Information passed to us by third parties in order that we can undertake your legal work on your behalf. Typically these organisations can be:
  • Banks or building societies
  • Panel providers who allocate legal work to law firms
  • Organisations which have referred work to us
  • Medical or financial institutions – who provide your personal records / information

 

Why we need to obtain and hold your personal information

The primary reason for asking you to provide us with your personal information, is to allow us to carry out your requests – which will ordinarily be to represent you and carry out your legal and property work.

The following are some examples, although not exhaustive, of what we may use your information for:

• Verifying your identity
• Verifying source of funds
• Communicating with you
• To establish funding of your matter or transaction
• Obtaining insurance policies on your behalf

Processing your legal and property transaction including, providing you with advice; commissioning and carrying out services on your behalf; preparing documents to complete transactions

• Keeping financial records of your transactions and the transactions we make on your behalf
• Seeking advice from third parties; such as legal and non-legal experts
• To meet our legal, regulatory and risk management obligations

How we use and disclose personal information

Where we receive personal information in connection with the provision of legal, advisory and/or property services, we process that data for the purposes of the provision of those services. This includes:

• Providing you with our legal and related services.
• Complying with our legal obligations or making disclosures to government, regulatory or other public bodies where in our reasonable opinion the disclosure is appropriate and permitted by law. 
• Providing access to our files for audit, review or other quality assurance checks, by our clients, regulators, auditors, professional advisers and certification/accreditation bodies.
• Processing required in connection with the day to day operation of our business such as billing and payments, complaints handling and internal record keeping. For this we may use third party service providers such as IT service providers.
• Processing required in connection with any actual or proposed reorganisation, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other transaction relating to all or any portion of our business or assets.

 

How we protect your personal information

We recognise that your information is valuable and we take all reasonable measures to protect it whilst it is in our care.

We use technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction in accordance with relevant and applicable data protection law.

 

YOUR RIGHTS
 

How to access and update your information

You have a right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, known as a data subject access request. You also have the right to request that information we hold about you which may be incorrect, or which has been changed since you first told us, to be updated or removed. These requests are free of charge and can be sent to, Paul Harfitt, Harfitts, The Old Bank, 20 High Street, Wem, Shropshire, SY4 5AA.
 

How to request erasure of your data

You can ask us to delete or remove personal data 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 data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where you have withdrawn consent for us to process it (as explained below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
 

How to withdraw your consent

You have the right at any time to withdraw any consent you have given us to process your personal data. Please note if you withdraw your consent it will not affect the lawfulness of any processing of your personal data we have carried out before you withdrew your consent. Should you wish to do so you can change your consent preferences, which requests should be made in writing and sent to Paul Harfitt, Harfitts, The Old Bank, 20 High Street, Wem, Shropshire, SY4 5AA.
 

How to restrict or object to us using your data

You can ask us to suspend the way in which we are using your information in certain scenarios, or object to our processing your data where we are relying on a legitimate interest ground (or those of a third party) and you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms, or where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases where you object, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Please note that if you want us to restrict or stop processing your data this may impact on our ability to provide our services. Depending on the extent of your request we may be unable to continue providing you with our service.

Any queries or concerns about the way in which your data is being used can be sent to, Paul Harfitt, Harfitts, The Old Bank, 20 High Street, Wem, Shropshire, SY4 5AA.
 

Moving your information to another organisation

In the event that we process your data by automated means where you have either provided us with consent for us to use your information or where we used the information to perform a contract with you, you have the right to request that we send to you or to another organisation, a copy of the personal data we hold about you, for example when you are dealing with a different service provider. If you would like us to move, copy, or transfer your information please let us know by email to [email protected]. We will respond to you within one month after assessing whether this is possible, taking into account the technical compatibility with the other organisation in question.
 

Complaints about the use of your personal data

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact us to have the matter investigated by writing to, Paul Harfitt, Harfitts, The Old Bank, 20 High Street, Wem, Shropshire, SY4 5AA.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office.  Further details can be found at www.ico.org.uk or 0303 123 1113.