House Clearance Soho Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how House Clearance Soho collects, uses, stores and protects personal data relating to individuals who enquire about or use our services. It applies to all House Clearance Soho customers and prospective customers within our service area, including those who contact us by telephone, email, contact form, or in person.

We are committed to complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. This Policy sets out what data we collect, the lawful bases we rely on, how long we keep your data, with whom we may share it, and the rights you have in relation to your personal information.

Who We Are

House Clearance Soho is a house clearance and related services provider operating in Soho and the surrounding area. For the purposes of data protection law, we are the data controller for the personal information we collect and process about you in connection with our services.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal data, you can contact us using the details provided on our usual business communications.

Personal Data We Collect

We collect and process different types of personal data in the course of providing our services. The categories of data we may collect include:

Identification and contact details such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, and any other contact information you choose to give us.

Service details such as property address for clearance, type of property, access information, preferred dates and times, description of the items to be cleared, and any photographs or notes you provide in relation to the service.

Communication records such as emails, messages, notes of telephone calls, and any feedback or complaints you submit to us.

Transaction and payment information such as records of quotes, invoices, amounts paid, payment method used and dates of payment. We do not store your full payment card details; where card payments are used, these are processed by our payment service provider.

Website and technical information where applicable, such as your IP address, device details, and basic usage information, to the extent that it is necessary for the security and functioning of our website.

You may choose not to provide certain information, but this may mean we are unable to respond to your enquiry or provide some or all of our services.

Purposes and Lawful Bases for Processing

We only process your personal data where we have a lawful basis to do so. Depending on the circumstances, we rely on the following lawful bases:

Contract. We process your personal data when it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. This includes handling your enquiries, providing quotes, arranging and delivering house clearance services, and managing payments.

Legitimate interests. We process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, and where these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This includes managing and improving our services, scheduling and logistics, maintaining records for internal administration, preventing fraud, and ensuring the security of our systems and premises.

Legal obligations. We process certain personal data to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, such as tax, accounting, and record keeping obligations, and to respond to lawful requests from public authorities.

Consent. In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example if you ask us to keep your details on file for future work beyond our normal retention times, or where required for specific marketing communications. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time by contacting us.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use the personal data we collect for the following purposes:

To respond to your enquiries, provide quotes and advice, and communicate with you about potential services.

To plan, organise and carry out house clearance and related services at the agreed locations and times.

To issue invoices, process payments, and maintain financial records related to the services provided.

To manage our relationship with you, including handling feedback, queries and complaints.

To operate, improve and secure our business operations, including staff training, quality control and service development.

To comply with legal, regulatory and insurance obligations, including evidencing services provided and dealing with disputes.

Data Sharing and Processors

We do not sell your personal data. However, we may share your data with carefully selected third parties where necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy.

Service providers acting as data processors. We may use third party providers to help us deliver our services, such as IT support providers, email and communications platforms, scheduling tools, and payment processors. These providers process your personal data on our behalf and are only permitted to use it in accordance with our instructions and data protection law.

Professional advisers. We may share relevant information with our accountants, insurers, legal advisers or similar professionals where reasonably necessary for accounting, insurance, legal or risk management purposes.

Public authorities and law enforcement. We may disclose your information where required to do so by law, or when necessary to protect our rights, property, safety or that of our staff, customers or others.

Where we use data processors, we take steps to ensure that appropriate technical and organisational measures are in place to protect your personal data.

Data Retention

We keep your personal data only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

In general, we retain core customer and service records for up to seven years after the end of our relationship, to meet tax, accounting and contractual obligations. Communications and enquiry records that do not result in a contract may be kept for a shorter period, typically up to two years.

Where we no longer need to keep personal data, we will securely delete or anonymise it. If we rely on your consent to keep data for longer, we will securely delete it if you withdraw your consent.

International Transfers

Our core systems and data are located within the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area wherever possible. If we need to transfer personal data outside of these locations, we will only do so where there are appropriate safeguards in place, such as using standard contractual clauses or transferring to countries with an adequate level of data protection as recognised by applicable law.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These rights may be subject to certain conditions and exemptions.

Right of access. You have the right to request confirmation as to whether we process your personal data, and to obtain a copy of that data together with information about how it is used.

Right to rectification. You have the right to request that inaccurate or incomplete personal data be corrected or completed.

Right to erasure. In certain circumstances, you may have the right to request that we delete your personal data, for example where the data is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected or where you withdraw consent.

Right to restriction. You may request that we limit the way we use your personal data in certain situations, such as while we are considering a request to rectify or erase it.

Right to data portability. Where processing is based on your consent or on a contract, and is carried out by automated means, you may have the right to receive the personal data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format, and to transmit it to another controller.

Right to object. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis, including profiling based on those interests. We will stop processing your data unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue.

Rights in relation to automated decision making. We do not carry out automated decision making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects on you.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details provided in our usual business communications. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request.

Complaints

If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, we would encourage you to contact us first so that we can try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office or with your local supervisory authority if you are located in another jurisdiction.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements or for other operational reasons. Any updated version will apply to all customers and prospective customers in our service area from the date it is published. We recommend that you review this Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.