‍ Advance Northumberland (Developments) Limited trading as Ascent Homes: Privacy Notice

How we handle your information

Everyone working for Advance Northumberland (Developments) Limited (Ascent Homes from hereon in) has a legal duty to keep and process information about you in accordance with the law.  This document aims to explain why we ask for your personal information, how that information will be used and how you can access your records.

Why is information recorded about me?
We use information about Ascent Homes customers and prospective customers to enable us to provide information about our housing developments, process property sales, manage customer care services, and fulfil our legal and contractual obligations. We keep records about Ascent Homes customers that are written down (manual records), and ones kept on a computer (electronic records) including records held in our customer relationship management systems, maintenance software, finance systems, and secure document storage platforms.

These records may include:

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• Basic details about you, such as your name, address, telephone number(s), and email address. ‍ ‍

• Information you provide when registering an interest in one of our developments through our website, sales offices, or third-party property portals.

• Information required to reserve and purchase a property, including details needed to progress the sale with solicitors, financial advisers and warranty providers.

• Records of contact we have had with you, including telephone calls, emails, correspondence, appointments, and meetings.

• Information relating to customer care queries, property defects, snagging issues, repairs and maintenance requests following completion of a property purchase.

• Information relating to payments and financial transactions associated with the purchase of a property.

• Any other information provided by you that is necessary for us to provide our services and meet our legal, regulatory and contractual obligations.

• CCTV images.

Where necessary to progress a property sale or comply with legal requirements, we may request identification documents and proof of address to verify your identity. These documents will only be used for verification purposes and will be retained only for as long as necessary to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

What is the information used for?
We use your information to respond to enquiries about our developments, register your interest in a property, provide information about homes available for sale, process reservations and property purchases, and deliver customer care services following completion of a sale.

Your information may also be used to carry out customer due diligence, identity verification, anti-money laundering (AML) checks, and sanctions screening where required by law, regulation, or our legitimate business interests. This may include checking your details against the UK Sanctions List and other relevant sanctions, fraud prevention, and financial crime databases to ensure compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Your information may also be shared with solicitors, financial advisers, warranty providers, and contractors where this is necessary to progress the sale of a property, fulfil our contractual obligations, or resolve defects, snagging issues, repairs and maintenance requests.

It is important that the information you provide is accurate and kept up to date. This helps us ensure that we can contact you regarding your enquiry or purchase, provide appropriate customer support, and meet our legal and contractual responsibilities.

If you choose not to provide the information we request, we may be unable to register your interest in a development, carry out required identity, anti-money laundering, or sanctions checks, progress a property reservation or sale, deliver customer care services, or otherwise fulfil our obligations to you as a customer.

In addition, temporary CCTV may be deployed from time to time at development and construction sites. These systems are managed by contracted third-party security providers, who retain responsibility for operating the system and managing recorded footage. Ascent Homes will only access or request footage where required to investigate an incident, respond to a legal or regulatory requirement, assist law enforcement, or protect its legal interests.

How long is the information used for?
In order to provide our services, we rely on a number of lawful bases under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), depending on the purpose for which your information is being processed.

Where you make an enquiry about a property, reserve a home, or enter into a contract for the purchase of a property, we rely on Article 6(1)(b) UK GDPR, which permits processing that is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into a contract or for the performance of a contract. This includes activities such as registering your interest, progressing a reservation, managing the sale process, liaising with solicitors and financial advisers, and providing customer care services following completion of the purchase.

Where we are required to process information to comply with legal or regulatory obligations, such as health and safety requirements, warranty obligations, financial record keeping, or other statutory duties, we rely on Article 6(1)(c) UK GDPR.

Some processing activities are carried out on the basis of your consent under Article 6(1)(a) UK GDPR. This may include contacting you with marketing communications about our developments, properties, products or services where your consent is required. You may withdraw your consent at any time, although this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

Your personal information will be retained for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including the management of enquiries, property sales, customer care services, defects and snagging obligations, and to meet our legal, regulatory and business requirements.

Once information is no longer required for operational purposes, it will be securely archived and retained in accordance with our Records Retention Policy. At the end of the applicable retention period, the information will be securely deleted or destroyed. Processing is kept to a minimum and will only be undertaken where there is a lawful basis to do so and in accordance with applicable data protection legislation.

Sharing your information

In order to provide our services and fulfil our contractual and legal obligations, we may need to share your information with third parties involved in the sale, completion and ongoing customer care of your property. This may include solicitors, financial advisers, warranty providers such as NHBC, contractors, consultants and other service providers who support the delivery of our services.

We may also share information with contractors and maintenance providers where this is necessary to investigate and resolve defects, snagging issues, repairs or other customer care matters relating to your property.

Where required, information may be shared with regulatory bodies, local authorities, utility providers, insurers, professional advisers, or other organisations where we have a legal obligation to do so or where sharing is necessary to protect our legitimate business interests.

Information will only be shared where there is a genuine and lawful need to do so, and we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal information. We will never sell your personal data to third parties.

Occasions when your information needs to be disclosed (shared) include:

• To progress the reservation, purchase and completion of a property, including sharing relevant information with solicitors, financial advisers and mortgage providers.

• To fulfil warranty and aftercare obligations, including sharing relevant information with NHBC and other warranty providers.

• To investigate, manage and resolve defects, snagging issues, repairs and maintenance requests relating to your property. This may involve sharing information with approved contractors, subcontractors, consultants and maintenance providers.

• To contact you regarding your enquiry, reservation, purchase, customer care request or other service-related matters.

• To comply with legal, regulatory and statutory obligations, including planning, building control, warranty, health and safety and financial requirements.

• To establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or where professional advice is required from solicitors, insurers, auditors or other advisers.

• To protect the health, safety and welfare of customers, employees, contractors or members of the public.

• To prevent, detect or investigate fraud, financial crime or other unlawful activity.‍ ‍

• To provide information to regulatory bodies, law enforcement agencies, courts or government authorities where we are legally required or permitted to do so.‍ ‍

• When the law requires us to pass on information or where disclosure is necessary to protect our legal rights, property or interests.

Anyone who receives information from us has a legal duty to keep it confidential

We are required by law to report certain information to appropriate authorities, for example:

• Where a formal court order has been issued.

• Where we encounter infectious diseases which may be a public health concern.

Partner organisations who receive information about you
To provide our services and fulfil our obligations in relation to property sales and customer care, Ascent Homes may share your personal information with a range of trusted partner organisations and service providers. Information will only be shared where there is a legitimate business need, a contractual requirement, a legal obligation, or where you have provided consent.

Partner organisations that may receive information about you include:

• Solicitors acting on your behalf or on behalf of Ascent Homes to progress the purchase and completion of your property.

• Financial advisers, mortgage providers and other organisations involved in arranging or supporting the purchase of your home.

• Warranty providers where information is required to register warranties and fulfil post-completion obligations.

• Contractors, subcontractors and maintenance providers engaged to investigate or resolve defects, snagging issues, repairs or customer care requests relating to your property.

• Professional advisers, consultants, surveyors, architects, engineers and other specialists involved in the design, construction, management and maintenance of our developments.

• Utility providers, statutory authorities, local authorities, planning bodies, building control organisations and other regulatory bodies where information is required to support the delivery, compliance and operation of a development.

Data may also be shared with service providers who host, support or maintain our business systems, including customer relationship management systems, maintenance software, document management platforms and other IT services. These providers are required to keep your information secure and process it only in accordance with our instructions.

Advance Northumberland engage with reputable and competent contractors to supply, service and maintain equipment on site, which includes our CCTV Systems. Through the process of maintaining this equipment, it is possible the service engineer will have access to personal data, i.e. an image stored on the hard drive at a particular site. 

Your personal information will normally be stored and processed within the United Kingdom and/or the European Economic Area (EEA). Where we use suppliers or service providers that transfer personal data outside the UK or EEA, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your information and that any transfer complies with applicable data protection legislation.

We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

Can I see my records?

The General Data Protection Regulation allows you to find out what information is held about you, on paper and computer records. This is known as ‘right of subject access’ and applies to your Ascent Homes records, along with all other personal information we hold.

If you wish to see a copy of your records you should submit a Subject Access Request directly to The Data Protection Officer at Wansbeck Workspace, Rotary Parkway, Ashington, Northumberland, NE63 8QZ or by emailing dpo@advancenorthumberland.co.uk or by calling 01670 528400. You are entitled to receive a copy of your records free of charge, within a month. In certain circumstances access to your records may be limited, for example, if the records you have asked for contain information relating to another person.

Do I have Other Rights?
Data Protection laws gives you the right:

1.            To be informed why, where and how we use your information.

2.            To ask for access to your information.

3.            To ask for information to be corrected if inaccurate or incomplete.

4.            To ask for your information to be deleted or removed where there is no need for us to continue processing it.

5.            To ask us to restrict the use of your information.

6.            To ask us to copy or transfer your information from one IT system to another in a safe and secure way, without impacting the quality of the information.

7.            To object to how your information is used.

8.            To challenge any decisions made without human intervention (automated decision making).

9.            To lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office whose contact details are below.

10.         If our processing is based upon your consent, to withdraw your consent.

Further information

If you would like to know more about how we use your information, or if for any reason you do not wish to have your information used in any of the ways described in this leaflet, please tell us. Please contact the Data Protection Officer on 01670 528400 or at email address dpo@advancenorthumberland.co.uk

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Details of the Information Commissioner can be found at: https://ico.org.uk/

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Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. We have therefore established the following personal data control mechanisms:

Promotional offers from us 

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing 

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any other company or third party for marketing purposes. 

Opting out 

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, warranty registration, product/service experience or any other transactions between us. 

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.