HomeForce Property Management Limited (HFPM) Privacy Notice for Customers (Property Owners, Tenants, Caretakers or managers using our service.)

Last updated April 2025.                       

1. Important Information and who we are

This Privacy Notice aims to give you information on how HomeForce Property Management Limited (HFPM) collects and processes your personal data. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any queries with regard to these practices please contact the Data Controller in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity:  HomeForce Property Management Limited

Email address:  info@homeforce.co.uk

Postal address:  20 Forth Street, Edinburgh EH1 3LH.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the Privacy Notice and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Any changes we may make to our Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

2. Information we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). The information we gather about Customers (property owners, property managers, tenants, businesses) is used to provide requested services and helps us personalise, develop and continually improve our services.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data: includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth, gender and details of your next of kin or emergency contacts
• Contact Data: includes geographical address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Rating Data: includes experience ratings and feedback from tradespeople.
• Transaction Data: includes details of service requests.
• Technical Data: includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website. It also includes information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our site; products & services you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.
• Profile Data: requests for work by you, your interests and preferences.
• Reference Check Data: includes employment history, residential history, financial background, credit checks, and references from previous employers, landlords, or financial institutions.
• Identity and Ownership Verification Data: Includes copies of documents provided for identity verification and proof of ownership, such as passports, national ID cards, driver’s licenses, property title deeds, utility bills, and other official documents.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

Sources of Personal Data

We collect personal data from the following sources:

• Direct interactions –Information you provide when filling out forms, communicating with us, or using our services.
• Third parties –Data obtained from credit reference agencies, previous landlords, employers, and tradespeople.
• Publicly available sources – Property ownership records, Companies House, the Land Registry, and other relevant sources.

Facebook and other Social media platforms: If you visit our Facebook page or other Social Media platforms, we may collect this information.

Information from other Sources: We may receive information about you if you use any of the other websites we operate or the other services we provide. In this case we will have informed you when we collected that data that it may be shared internally and combined with data collected on this site. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:

• trades contractors;
  • advertising networks;
  • analytics providers; search information providers; and
  • credit reference agencies

3. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests
• where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.

We do not use automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or significant effects on you. If this changes, we will notify you and explain the rights available to you.

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data:

Purpose/Activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest
To register you as a new customer	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Verification	(a) Performance of a contract with you
To provide services to you such as renting a property for you or to you and all management and maintenance associated	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Profile	(a) Performance of a Contact with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests including fraud prevention, to develop our services and grow our business.
To provide comparative assessments to establish your suitability as a recipient of our services.	RatingReference Verification	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop and to improve the smooth running our services)
To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile	(a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated)
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Reference (e) Verification	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)
To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, customer relationships and experiences	(a) Technical (b) Rating	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, and to develop our business)
To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you	(a) Identity(b) Contact(c) Marketing and Communications	Necessary for our legitimate interests for marketing and certain types of data processing (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

4. Disclosures of your personal data

Sharing of data is an integral part of our business model. We share your personal data when you request property management or maintenance services or tenant services such as renting a property we manage.

We will share your information including full name, address, postcode, email address, phone number and details of services requested with tradespeople when their services are required in order to meet your tenant or landlord requests.

We will also share your information with our proprietary internal Job Management system (Azure – Microsoft Database) Servers in Republic of Ireland.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Types of third parties we may share your data with

• Service providers (tradespeople, maintenance contractors).
• Regulatory authorities (e.g., HMRC, law enforcement).
• Financial institutions (e.g., banks for rent collection).
• Tenancy deposit schemes (if applicable).

5. International Transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

6. Data Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. These include Access controls limiting Employee Access and Cyber Security Audits

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

7. How long do we keep your information?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

If you ask us to delete your data and then request our services again at a later date you will have to submit a new request for the deletion of your data.

8. Cookies

Our websites use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

The Help feature on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Additionally, you can disable or delete similar data used by browser add-ons, such as Flash cookies, by changing the add-on’s settings or visiting the website of its manufacturer.

9.  What Are Your Rights?

You have the right to:

• ask us not to process your personal data. Doing so will mean that we will not be able to provide you with our services.
• be informed about the collection and use of your personal data. As explained in this privacy policy.
• access the data we hold about you. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it
• request that the data we hold on you is erased. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.
• have inaccurate information completed or rectified. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• request the transfer of personal data we hold. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a service for you.
• withdraw your consent to the processing of your data for the purposes of our providing services or for marketing.
• make a complaint If you have concerns about our data processing practices, you have the right to file a complaint with the ICO. Contact details are available at www.ico.org.uk.

You can exercise your rights by:

• not checking the necessary boxes to give such consent on the forms we use to collect your data; or
• by contacting The Data Protection Controller, HomeForce Property Management Limited, 20 Forth Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3LH.
• Data Breaches

GDPR stipulates that customers are to be notified within 72 hours of an actual or suspected breach, where this is feasible.

It is considered feasible to notify all customers, tradespeople, tenants and property owners within 72 hours where we hold their email address. Where we do not hold an email address we would write to the customers via mail. This would be done within two working weeks to allow time to produce and dispatch a letter.

This timing is considered sufficient at a breach of data we hold will not result in a high risk of adversely affecting individuals.

We do not store financial or other data that is considered high risk.