House Clearance Sutton Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how House Clearance Sutton collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data relating to our customers and prospective customers in Sutton and the surrounding area. It also explains your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, and how you can exercise those rights.

This Privacy Policy applies to all House Clearance Sutton customers and enquiries within our service area, whether you contact us by telephone, email, online form, social media, or in person, and whether you are an individual, a business representative, or acting on behalf of someone else.

Who We Are And How To Contact Us

House Clearance Sutton is a house clearance service provider operating in Sutton and nearby areas. For the purposes of data protection law, we are the data controller of personal data we collect and use about you in connection with our services.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we handle your personal data, you can contact us using the contact details provided on our website or in your service documentation.

Personal Data We Collect

We collect only the personal data that we need in order to provide and manage our services. This may include:

Contact details such as your name, address, telephone number, and email address.

Service information such as property address for the clearance, access details, preferred dates and times, an inventory of items to be removed, and any relevant photographs you choose to share.

Billing information such as your invoicing details, payment status, and transaction information. We do not store full payment card details; these are handled by our payment providers.

Communications such as emails, text messages, call notes, and any other correspondence related to your enquiry or booking.

Technical information such as your IP address, device information, and basic usage data when you visit our website, to help us understand how our site is used and to maintain security.

Where necessary and relevant to a specific job, we may also collect limited additional information, for example if we are working with a solicitor, executor, landlord, or local authority in connection with a clearance.

How We Collect Your Data

We may collect personal data directly from you when you contact us by phone, email, contact form, or social media, when you request a quote, make a booking, or enter into a contract for services, when you provide feedback, reviews, or complaints, and when you visit or interact with our website.

We may also receive your personal data indirectly, for example from an estate agent, solicitor, landlord, local authority, or family member who is arranging a clearance on your behalf, or from our payment providers in relation to completed transactions.

Purposes And Lawful Bases For Processing

We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis under data protection law. The main purposes and lawful bases are:

To provide quotations, take bookings, and carry out house clearance services. We use your contact and service information to respond to enquiries, arrange visits, prepare quotations, and complete clearance work. The lawful basis is usually performance of a contract or taking steps at your request before entering into a contract.

To manage payments and accounts. We use billing and transaction information to issue invoices, process payments, and maintain our financial records. The lawful bases are performance of a contract and our legitimate interest in managing our business and complying with financial obligations.

To communicate with you. We use your contact details to send updates about your booking, respond to your questions, and notify you of any changes or issues. The lawful basis is performance of a contract and our legitimate interests in providing good customer service.

To meet legal and regulatory obligations. We may need to retain certain records for tax, accounting, waste disposal, or other legal requirements. The lawful basis is compliance with a legal obligation.

To improve our services and business operations. We may use anonymised or aggregated information to help us understand service demand, improve our processes, and train our staff. The lawful basis is our legitimate interests in running and improving our business.

For limited marketing communications. Where permitted by law or where you have given your consent, we may occasionally contact you about related services or offers. You can opt out of these communications at any time.

Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to meet any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

In most cases, records relating to bookings, invoices, and correspondence will be kept for up to six years from the end of our relationship with you, in line with tax and contract limitation periods. Quotations and general enquiries that do not lead to a booking may be kept for a shorter period, typically up to two years.

Where we rely on your consent for any processing, and you withdraw that consent, we will stop that processing and, where appropriate, delete or anonymise the relevant data unless we are required to retain it for other lawful purposes.

Sharing Your Data And Use Of Processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with trusted third parties where necessary for the operation of our services or to comply with the law.

These third parties may include service providers who help us operate our business, such as payment processors, accountancy services, waste disposal and recycling partners, and information technology or cloud service providers. These organisations act as data processors on our behalf and are only permitted to use your personal data in accordance with our instructions and for the purposes we specify. We require all such processors to implement appropriate security measures to protect your data.

We may also share your data with professional advisers such as accountants, insurers, legal advisers, and with government bodies or law enforcement agencies where required by law or where necessary to protect our rights or the rights of others.

Where we work with other parties involved in a clearance, such as estate agents, solicitors, landlords, or local authorities, we may share relevant information to coordinate the service, but only to the extent necessary for that purpose.

International Transfers

Some of our service providers may store or process data outside the United Kingdom. Where this occurs, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as using providers in countries that have been recognised as providing an adequate level of data protection, or by using standard contractual clauses or equivalent measures approved under data protection law.

How We Protect Your Data

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include restricted access to systems, secure storage, staff training on data protection responsibilities, and regular review of our security practices.

While we take reasonable steps to protect your information, no system can be completely secure. If we become aware of a personal data breach that may pose a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will assess the situation and, where required by law, notify you and the relevant supervisory authority.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These include:

The right of access to obtain confirmation of whether we process your personal data and to receive a copy of the information we hold about you.

The right to rectification to have inaccurate or incomplete personal data corrected.

The right to erasure in certain circumstances, for example where the data is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected and we have no other lawful basis to keep it.

The right to restriction of processing in certain circumstances, such as where you dispute the accuracy of the data or object to our use of it.

The right to object to processing where we are relying on our legitimate interests or conducting direct marketing.

The right to data portability, which in some cases allows you to receive the personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used format and to ask us to transmit it to another organisation.

The right to withdraw consent at any time where we rely on your consent for specific processing. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before your withdrawal.

You can exercise any of these rights by contacting us using the details on our website or in your service documents. We may need to verify your identity before responding. We aim to respond to all requests within one month, or within any extended period permitted by law where requests are complex.

Complaints And Supervisory Authority

If you are unhappy with how we handle your personal data, please contact us in the first instance so that we can try to resolve your concerns. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection matters.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, in law, or in how we handle personal data. The updated version will be made available on our website and will apply from the date of publication. We encourage you to review this Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information.