Privacy Policy

ELP-AM Solicitors Limited

Privacy Policy and Privacy Notice

As a firm of solicitors and estate agents, and as an employer, we process the data of individuals. In this policy/notice we aim to explain when and why we collect personal information about you. We also aim to explain how we use your personal information/data, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others if this is appropriate, and how we keep your personal information/data secure.

This policy/notice does not apply to any websites that may have a link to ours. If you are dealing with other organisations in relation to the same matter with which you are dealing with us you should contact them directly if you wish information in relation to how they deal with your personal information/data.

We take your privacy very seriously. When we use your personal information/data we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information/data for the purposes of the GDPR. Our use of your personal information/data is subject to your instructions, the GDPR, other relevant UK and EU legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.

Who we are

Data is collected, processed and stored by ELP-AM Solicitors Limited. We are the ‘data controller’ of the personal information you provide to us.

ELP-AM Solicitors Limited is a limited company registered in Scotland under number SC471191, having its registered office at 98 Ferry Road, Edinburgh EH6 4PG. We are also a firm of solicitors registered with The Law Society of Scotland.

Our Data Protection Officer (“DPO”) is Duncan McFadzean who can be contacted by email at drm@elpamsolicitors.co.uk

ELP-AM Solicitors Limited employs third party suppliers to provide services including utilising the services of a credit reference agency (https://www.callcredit.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-privacy-notice)

What Information/Data we may use

The exact information we will request from you or use in relation to you will depend on what your relationship with us is (for example whether you are an employee, a client, a third party service provider or supplier, or another third party such as a beneficiary in an estate), in the case of clients what you have asked us to do, and in the case of third party service providers and suppliers what we are dealing with you on.

There are two types of personal information/data that we may ask you to provide:

• Personal data: this is general information that you supply about yourself – such as your contact details, full name, address, previous addresses, gender, date of birth, employment details, national insurance number, previous employment details, insurance details, financial information, information relating to your family/household, etc.
• Sensitive personal data: this is more sensitive information and may include information relating to: your health; your sexual orientation; your political or philosophical views or opinions; your racial or ethnic origin; your religion and religious views; any trade union membership; biometric and genetic data.

In the majority of cases personal data will be restricted to basic information and information needed to complete ID checks, process employment matters, and progress transactions for clients. However some of the work we do may require us to ask for more sensitive information, for example in relation to employment law matters.

Where we will obtain Information/Data from

• We may obtain information about you from a number of sources, including:
• You may provide us with information in response to questions from us
• You may volunteer the information about yourself
• You may provide information relating to someone else – if you have the authority to do so
• We may obtain information from public sources such as Companies House, the Land Register, or Tribunal and Court records
• Information may be passed to us by third parties in order that we can undertake your legal work on your behalf. Examples of such third parties include:
  – Banks or building societies
  – Insurers and panel providers who allocate legal work to firms of solicitors
  – Other firms of solicitors and other organisations such as accountants who refer work to us
  – Medical or financial or surveying or other institutions who have provided us with personal records or information in relation to you

Why we need your Information/Data

Again this will depend on what your relationship with us is (for example whether you are an employee, a client, or a third party service provider or supplier, or another third party such as a beneficiary in an estate), in the case of clients what you have asked us to do, and in the case of third party service providers and suppliers what we are dealing with you on.

For employees, the main reason to ask you to provide us with personal information/data is to allow us to employ you, to allow us to process your employment salary and any other benefits, to allow us to continue to monitor your work and performance and employment needs, to allow us to arrange any insurance that is to be in place, to allow us to provide appropriate information to our professional indemnity insurers and The Law Society of Scotland, and to carry out any reference or other employment checks that are appropriate. We may also require to retain some your personal information/data for a period after your employment ends for the purposes of our accounts and in order that we can deal with any post-employment issues that may arise.

For third party service providers and suppliers, the main reason to ask you to provide us with personal information/data is to allow us to verify your identity, to have details of who we are contracting with, and to allow us to progress our contractual relationship with you. Again we may also require to retain some your personal information/data for a period after our relationship with you ends for the purposes of our accounts and in order that we can deal with any post-relationship issues that may arise.

For beneficiaries in estates, the main reason to ask you to provide us with personal information/data, or for us to have such information about you, is to allow us to progress the estate of which you are a beneficiary, and where appropriate to make payments or transfers to you from the estate.

For clients and potential clients, the main reason for asking you to provide us with your personal information/data is to allow us to do the legal/estate agency work that you wish us to do for you, and carry out any ancillary requests.

The following are some examples of things we may use your information for where appropriate, although these are not exhaustive:

• Verifying your identity
• Verifying where monies that you have submitted to us has come from
• Communicating with you
• Obtaining insurance policies on your behalf
• Processing your transaction, claim or file, or the matter which we are dealing with which concerns you, including:
  – Providing you with advice; corresponding on your behalf; advertising your property on your behalf; liasing with funders or lenders on your behalf; instituting or continuing litigation on your behalf; preparing documents on your behalf; concluding transactions on your behalf, making payments or transfers to you
• Keeping financial and other records of your transactions and the transactions we make on your behalf
• Seeking advice and reports from third parties; such as home reports, survey reports, searches, coal reports, legal reports, pension loss reports, legal and non-legal expert opinions
• Arranging payments to you, or payments into a pension scheme for you or on your behalf, or arranging for third party service provider such as accountants/payroll providers/financial advisers to make such payments
• Responding to any complaint or allegation of negligence against or breach of duty by us

Who has access to your Information/Data

We have a data protection regime in place in order to achieve the effective and secure processing of your personal data. We will not sell or rent your information to third parties. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Generally, we will only use your information within our firm. However there may be circumstances, in carrying out your estate agency/legal work, where we may need to disclose some information to third parties; for example:

• The Land Register to register a property
• The Books of Council and Session to register a deed
• Revenue Scotland; e.g. for Land and Buildings Transaction Tax returns
• ACAS, the Sheriff Court or the Employment Tribunal for the purpose of processing conciliation and claims
• Solicitors acting for other relevant parties
• Advocates or other niche firms of solicitors for obtaining specialist advice
• Non legal experts to obtain advice or assistance, such as pension loss experts
• Translation Agencies
• Contracted Suppliers such as surveyors providing home reports or surveys and search companies providing searches and legal reports
• The Law Society of Scotland or the Scottish Solicitors Complaints Commission to obtain advice from them or to respond to queries raised by them or complaints lodged with them
• Bank or Building Society; or other financial institutions
• Insurance Companies
• Providers of identity verification services for the purposes of verifying your identity
• Any disclosure required by law or regulation; such as those relating to the prevention of financial crime and terrorism
• If there is an emergency and we think you or others are at risk

In the event that any of your information is shared with the aforementioned third parties, we seek to ensure that they comply, strictly and confidentially, with our instructions and they do not use your personal information for their own purposes unless you have explicitly consented to them doing so.

There may be some uses of personal data that may require your specific consent. If this is the case we will contact you separately to ask for your consent which you are free to withdraw at any time.

How we protect your Information/Data

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

We have technology security systems in place designed to protect your information/data from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. Similarly, we adopt a high threshold when it comes to confidentiality obligations and we seek to ensure that both internal and external parties have agreed and do protect confidentiality of all information.

We use computer safeguards such as firewalls, passwords, virus protection software and malware software; and we enforce, where possible, physical access controls to our buildings and files to keep data safe.

How long we will keep your Information/Data for

Your personal information will be retained, usually in computer or manual files, only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected; or as required by law; or as recommended by The Law Society of Scotland; or as estimated by us as a reasonable period to allow for dealing with any post transaction matters or issues arising from the matter in question. For example:

• As long as necessary to carry out your legal or estate agency work
• For a minimum of 7 years from the conclusion or closure of your legal or estate agency work, or our relationship with you (for example where you are a supplier or employee); in case you, or we, need to re-open your case or records for the purpose of pursuing further claims arising from or securing enforcement of any matters agreed or awarded in your favour or of defending complaints or claims against us
• For the duration of a trust or lease or sublease to which you are a party or beneficiary or guarantor
• For the duration of any period over which you wish us to store your will, title deeds, or other documents, insofar as your personal information is relevant to that work
• Some information or matters may be kept for longer periods in respect of certain kinds of legal work files where this is suggested by The Law
• Society of Scotland, for example 10 years for civil court matters, 10 years from completion of an executry (although some executries are never complete if there are ongoing dealings provided for), 10 years from the termination of a Trust, and 10 years from the completion of Company work – such as commercial transactions, sales of leasehold purchases
• The Law Society of Scotland also indicates that we must retain client due diligence documents and client financial information obtained for the purposes of compliance with the Money Laundering Regulations for the remainder of the current financial year and a further 6 financial years
• Executry matters where there is a surviving spouse or civil partner may be retained until the survivor has died in order to deal with the transferable Inheritance Tax allowance
• Wills and related documents may be kept indefinitely unless instructed otherwise by you
• Deeds related to unregistered property may be kept indefinitely as they evidence ownership, unless instructed otherwise by you

What your rights are

Under GDPR, you are entitled to access your personal information/data. This is also known as a right to access. If you wish to make a request, please do so in writing to our DPO; or contact the person who has been dealing with you.

A request for access to your personal information/data means you are entitled to a copy of the data we hold on you – such as your name, address, contact details, date of birth, information regarding your health etc.- but it does not mean you are entitled to the documents that contain this data.

Under certain circumstances you also have the following rights:

• The right to be informed: which is fulfilled by way of this privacy policy/notice and any further explanation we give as to how we use your personal information/data
• The right to rectification: you are entitled to have personal information/data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete
• The ‘right to be forgotten’: you have the right to request the deletion or removal of your personal information/data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing. This right can apply in the following specific circumstances:
  – Where the personal information/data is no longer necessary in regards to the purpose for which it was originally collected
  – Where consent is relied upon as the lawful basis for holding your information/data and you withdraw your consent
  – Where you object to the processing and there is no overriding legitimate interest for continuing the processing
  – The personal information/data was unlawfully processed
  – Where you object to the processing for direct marketing purposes
• The right to object: you have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests; and direct marketing. This right can apply in the following circumstances:
  – An objection to stop processing personal information/data for direct marketing purposes is absolute – we must stop processing where you object to this or withdraw your consent to this
  – Where you have an objection on grounds relating to your particular situationIn these circumstances we must stop processing your personal information/data unless:- We can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms; or
  – The processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
• The right to restrict processing: you have the right to request the restriction or suppression of your information/data. When processing is restricted, we can store the information/data but not use it. This right may apply in the following circumstances:
  – Where you contest the accuracy of the personal information/data – we should restrict the processing until we have verified the accuracy of the information/data in question
  – Where you object to the processing (where it was necessary for the performance of a public interest or purpose of legitimate interests), and we are considering whether our legitimate grounds override your right
  – Where processing is unlawful and you request restriction

How to complain about the use of personal information/data, or object to the use or processing of personal information/data

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal information/data or other matters arising from this privacy policy/notice, or if you wish to object to the use or processing of your personal information/data or exercise a right in relation thereto, you can contact our DPO who will deal with the matter further. Our current DPO is Duncan McFadzean and he can be contacted by email at drm@elpamsolicitors.co.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal information/data legally, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Marketing data

Marketing is an important part of businesses in the modern world. We are extremely conscious that people do not want to be bombarded with direct marketing. We therefore take a limited and appropriate approach to direct marketing. We may therefore in some circumstances contact you for the purpose of direct marketing, but we would hope that this is not intrusive, and if you ever felt that it was we would be grateful for your feedback on this in order that we can better serve or clients and potential clients. We may use your personal information/data that we have collected in accordance with this privacy policy/notice to contact you about our services, special offers etc. which we feel may interest you. The direct marketing communications may be provided to you by social media channels, email or post. We will never send marketing communications via SMS or call you without your specific consent; nor do we ever pass on or sell your details to a third party.

How we collect personal data for Marketing purposes

The following are examples, although not exhaustive, of how we collect your personal information:

• You providing your personal information to us through an enquiry, instructing us to do work on your behalf, or otherwise
• You signing-up to receive one of our e-newsletters
• You submitting an online enquiry
• You following/liking/subscribing to our social media channels
• The use of ‘cookies’ on our website – please note that this is only to monitor how our website is being used so we can make improvements. Our use of Google Analytics requires us to pass to Google your IP address (but no other information) – We understand that Google uses this information to prepare site usage reports for us, but Google may also share this information with other Google services. In particular, Google may use the data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. However as a firm we will not use your IP address for direct marketing

If we collect your personal information/data and may wish to use it for marketing purposes, you will be provided the opportunity to ‘opt in’ to receiving marketing communications from us. We do hope you will ‘opt in’ as we hope that you will find our communications limited, informative, and of benefit to you going forwards, but this is entirely your choice and if you choose not to this will have no effect on accessing our legal or estate agency services.

If you do choose to ‘opt in’ to receiving marketing communications, you do of course then have the option of ‘opting out’ at any time, and we will ensure that there is an ‘opt out’ facility available for you to access easily from any marketing communication sent to you.

How we protect your personal information in the context of Marketing

We will only ever use non sensitive basic personal contact information to contact individuals with marketing materials; such as name, address, email. Sensitive information or specific details will never be used to target marketing communications.

We hope that this privacy policy/notice is clear and helpful. If you have any queries in this respect please contact our DPO on drm@elpamsolicitors.co.uk

Additional help in accessing this privacy policy/notice

If you would like this policy in another format (for example audio, large print) please contact our DPO by email at drm@elpamsolicitors.co.uk, or contact our offices.