Harmony Homes Estate Agents - Privacy policy

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Douglas 01624 616200
South 01624 835252

Privacy Policy

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are subject to 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 for the purposes of those laws.

Key Terms

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:

We, us, our McArd Properties Ltd trading as Harmony Homes Douglas, Estate Agents and Harmony Homes Ltd Port Erin
Controller (for the purposes of Isle of Man data protection law) Data Compliance Team - McArd Properties Ltd, Harmony Homes Douglas, 36 Victoria Street, Douglas IM1 2LB

Data Compliance Team - Harmony Homes Ltd Port Erin, 22 Church Street, Port Erin IM9 6AQ
Personal information Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual

Personal information we collect about you

We may collect and use the following personal information about you:

  • Your name and contact information including email address and telephone number and company details if applicable
  • When you use our website, we automatically collect information about you, your computer or mobile device, your IP address and information about how you use our website and other websites
  • Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth
  • Your gender information, if you choose to give this to us
  • Your billing information, transaction and payment card information
  • Your professional or personal online presence, e.g. LinkedIn profile, if you share it with us
  • Your contact history, transaction and instruction history with us
  • Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification, and immigration information, e.g. if you are a potential tenant applying for a tenancy
  • Information to enable us to undertake Anti Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing electronic checks on you
  • Information about how you use our website, IT, communication and other systems
  • Your responses to surveys, competitions and promotions

This personal information is required to provide our services to you. If you do not provide personal information we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.

How your personal information is collected

We collect most of this personal information directly from you — in person, by telephone, text or email and/or via our website. We may also receive information about you if you use a property portal website to contact us. This could include details of your property search, for example.

We may, on rare occasions, also collect information from publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House or Isle of Man online planning.

We may also collect information from other publicly accessible sources such as:

  • directly from a third party, e.g. credit reference agencies;
  • from cookies on our website — for more information on our use of cookies, please see our cookies policy below

How and why we use your personal information

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g. to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party or where you have given consent.

We use your personal information under the legitimate interest basis for using and processing. Legitimate Interest may be used as a basis for processing when we have a business or commercial reason to process your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

When we use and process your personal information for our legitimate interest, we will consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights under data protection and any other relevant laws. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your valid consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

The table below explains what we use (process) your personal information for and our reasons for doing so:

What we use personal information for Our reasons
To provide services to you For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
To prevent and detect fraud against you or us For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for us and for you
Conducting checks to identify our customers and verify their identity. Screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes. Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, customer base, range of services or other efficiency measures For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you
Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Updating and enhancing customer records For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about existing orders and new products
Statutory returns To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you
Marketing our services to:
  • existing and former customers;
  • third parties who have previously registered with us or expressed an interest in our services;
  • third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings
For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former customers and contacts. For our legitimate interests, when such information is in the public domain
Credit reference checks via external credit reference agencies For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to ensure our customers are likely to be able to pay for our products and services
External audits and quality checks For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards. To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Marketing communications

We may use your personal information to send you updates (by email, telephone calls, SMS or post) about our services, including exclusive offers (mainly for free market appraisals of your property), or highlighting of current market trends and properties on the market that may be of interest to you.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal information for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal information’) however, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your personal information with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

  • Contacting Harmony Homes Douglas by post at 36 Victoria Street Douglas IM1 2LB, by telephone at 01624 616200 or by email at douglas@harmonyhomes.co.im
  • Contacting Harmony Homes Ltd Port Erin by post at 22 Church Street Port Erin IM9 6AQ, by phone at 01624 835252 or by email at porterin@harmonyhomes.co.im

Who we share your personal information with

We routinely share personal information with:

  • Third parties we use to help deliver our services to you, e.g. payment service providers, tenants’ vetting companies, electronic search providers, maintenance contractors etc;
  • Other third parties we use to help us run our business, e.g. website suppliers etc;
  • Third parties approved by you, e.g. social media sites you choose to link your account to or third party payment providers;
  • Credit reference agencies;
  • Our banks;
  • Other companies within our group, to provide you with the same or closely related services;

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal information if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal information. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers (where possible) to ensure they can only use your personal information to provide services to us and to you.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may also need to share some personal information with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

Where your personal information is held

Information may be held at our offices and those of our third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see above: ‘Who we share your personal information with’). Our computer systems are based in the European Economic Area (EEA) but the transmission of confirmation over the internet is not completely secure. We will do our best to protect your personal information but cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our website. Once we receive your information, we will use strictest security procedures to try to prevent unauthorised access.

How long your personal information will be kept

We will keep your personal information while you have an active matter with us or we are providing services to you. We will keep your personal information, as a minimum, for as long as necessary:

  • To respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
  • To show that we treated you fairly;
  • To keep records required by law.

and thereafter

  • 5 years from any last communication with you for marketing of our services to you as detailed above under ‘How and why we use your personal information’ and under ‘Marketing communications’.

We will not retain your personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access The right to be provided with a copy of your personal information (the right of access)
Rectification The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal information
To be forgotten The right to require us to delete your personal information unless we are legally required to retain it
Restriction of processing The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal information — in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data
Data portability The right to receive the personal information you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party — in certain situations
To object The right to object:
  • at any time to your personal information being processed for direct marketing;
  • in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests
Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us — see below: ‘How to contact us’; and

  • let us have enough information to identify you;
  • let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill); and
  • let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates

You also have the right to raise any concerns with the Isle of Man Information Commissioner’s Office at:

Isle of Man Information Commissioner, Prospect House, Prospect Hill, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 1ET

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

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

Changes to this privacy policy

This privacy policy was published on 27 November 2018.

We may change this privacy policy from time to time —when we do we will inform you via email and/or via our website at www.harmonyhomes.co.im

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see the table below

Cookies on this site and their purpose
Cookie Name(s) Function
CMSSESSID* Essential This cookie is created by the foundation for this website, CMS Made Simple, to enable its functionality and ensure its security. This cookie are essential to the correct function of the website.
PHPSESSID Essential This cookie is created by PHP to enable some functionality and ensure security. This cookie are essential to the correct function of the website.
cookie_notice This is set when a visitor closes the cookie notice box to prevent it reappearing.
maps This is set when a visitor chooses to display maps, to remember that decision.
analytics This is set when a visitor chooses to allow analytics, to remember that decision.
_ga, _gat, _gid These are Google Analytics cookies, used by Google to provide a collective overview of visitor activity and trends on the website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites that are not run by us. If you follow a link to another website, please note that other websites have their own privacy policies and we are not responsible for those policies or other websites’ content. You should check these privacy policies before submitting any personal information to these websites.

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you. Our contact details are shown below:

Harmony Homes Ltd, 22 Church Street, Port Erin, IM9 6AQ.
porterin@harmonyhomes.co.im 01624 853252

McArd Properties at Harmony Homes Douglas, 36 Victoria Street, Douglas, IM1 2LB.
douglas@harmonyhomes.co.im 01624 616200

Testimonials View all testimonials

Don't just take our word for it.

My family and I recently sold our property through Harmony Homes. And we received a totally professional service from the start till completion. And it was during the pandemic so lockdowns which caused delays. However, contact continued throughout so there was never a break down in communication from Harmony Homes during a very challenging time to be selling a house. I would recommend them 100%. Great service from approachable dedicated staff.

Jayne B, Vendor

I have used Harmony Homes on several occasions and have always found them to be friendly and helpful. I have used them for rentals as a landlord and have recently used them to sell a house. At each time they have been able to carry out the sale or let quickly and without  trouble.

Peter H, Landlord/Vendor

Would like to recommend Harmony Homes Estate agents, the staff are so lovely everyone that we have spoken to is polite and helpful, all feedback is swift and constructive. Selling a house is a stressful time but at least dealing with pleasant staff makes it easier.

Frances B, Vendor

We have been very impressed with the service we’ve received from everyone at Harmony Homes. Friendly and professional and very knowledgeable about the local market, with prompt and reliable communication. A breath of fresh air in terms of our previous experiences of dealing with the property market. I would highly recommend them for one’s house sale or purchase.

Karen S, Vendor

Diane and the team at Harmony Homes were fantastic from start to finish. They sold our house straight away and found us our perfect home to purchase. I would highly recommend anyone to list their property with Harmony Homes.

Mr & Mrs Looker, Vendor/Purchaser

Our experience with Harmony Homes has been overwhelmingly positive. Prompt and courteous attention coupled with useful insights and clear advice on local property market trends have helped us get to where we want to be with our property and rental portfolio.

Chris M, Vendor