Privacy policy

Hermens Property is a trading name of Hermens Ltd , company number 16063390 , registered in England and Wales.

Hermens Ltd is the data controller responsible for the personal information described in this Privacy Policy.

Our correspondence and trading address is 87 Lancaster Road, London W11 1QQ .

Our registered office is Watersmead, Addlestone Road, Addlestone, England, KT15 2RX .

For questions about this Privacy Policy or the way we use personal information, please contact us at

Info@hermens.co.uk

or telephone 01932 544346 .

Information we collect

We may collect and process personal information including your name, address, telephone number, email address and other contact details; information about properties which you own, occupy, wish to buy, sell, let or rent; information relating to property enquiries, valuations, viewings, offers, negotiations, tenancies and property management; financial and payment information where relevant; and correspondence and communications with us.

Where required for regulatory or transactional purposes, we may also collect identification and compliance information, including proof of identity and address, date of birth, nationality, source-of-funds or source-of-wealth information and information required for anti-money laundering, sanctions or politically exposed person checks.

For prospective tenants and landlords, we may process information required for referencing, affordability, tenancy administration, right-to-rent checks and the management of a tenancy. This may include identity documents, Right to Rent evidence, proof of address, bank statements, payslips, tax calculations, company accounts, credit or background checks, landlord references, guarantor information and supporting documents, and tenancy agreements.

If you report a repair or maintenance issue, we may also collect details of the problem, photographs you choose to upload, access information, appointment and contractor information, and communications or progress notes needed to investigate and manage the repair.

When you use our website, we may collect technical information such as your IP address, browser and device information, pages visited, referring website and information collected through cookies and similar technologies.

We do not routinely seek special category personal data. Where such information is provided to us and is relevant to the services we provide, we will only process it where there is a lawful basis and an applicable condition under data protection law.

How we obtain your information

We obtain personal information directly from you when you contact us, request a valuation, register an interest in a property, arrange a viewing, make an offer, instruct us, enter into a tenancy or otherwise use our services.

We may also receive information from landlords, vendors, purchasers, tenants, joint owners, executors, beneficiaries, solicitors, conveyancers, managing agents, referencing or identity-verification providers, property portals and other professional advisers involved in a transaction or property.

Where appropriate, we may obtain information from publicly available sources such as HM Land Registry, Companies House and other public registers.

How and why we use your information

We use personal information to respond to enquiries and arrange valuations and viewings; provide estate agency, lettings and property management services; market properties and communicate with prospective purchasers and tenants; negotiate offers and progress transactions; administer tenancies and managed properties; carry out identity, anti-money laundering and other regulatory checks; process payments and maintain financial records; respond to complaints and disputes; protect our business and clients against fraud and misuse; comply with legal and regulatory obligations; and improve our services and website.

Our lawful bases will depend on the particular processing involved. They may include taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, performance of a contract with you, compliance with a legal obligation and our legitimate interests in operating and protecting our property agency business and providing an effective service to our clients.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider whether the use of your information is necessary and proportionate and balance our interests against your rights and interests.

Where consent is required, including for certain forms of electronic marketing or optional cookies, we will obtain consent before processing. You may withdraw consent at any time.

Anti-money laundering and regulatory checks

As an estate agency business, we are subject to legal obligations relating to anti-money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions compliance.

We may therefore be required to verify identity, establish beneficial ownership, assess risk and obtain information concerning the source of funds or source of wealth. We may use specialist third-party providers to assist with these checks.

Information obtained for anti-money laundering purposes may also be disclosed to HM Revenue & Customs, law enforcement agencies or other competent authorities where required or permitted by law.

HMRC guidance requires relevant customer due diligence records to be retained for five years after the relevant business relationship ends or transaction completes.

Who we share information with

Where necessary for the purposes described above, we may share relevant personal information with property owners, landlords, purchasers, tenants and other parties to a property transaction; solicitors, conveyancers and other professional advisers; referencing, identity-verification and anti-money laundering providers; deposit protection providers; inventory providers and contractors; property portals and marketing providers; banks and payment providers; insurers; accountants and auditors; IT, website, cloud-storage and communications providers; and regulators, public authorities, law enforcement agencies or courts where required or permitted by law.

We only disclose information that is reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose and expect service providers processing personal information on our behalf to protect it appropriately.

Hermens Property and Oliver Fisher Solicitors are separate businesses. Personal information will not be shared with Oliver Fisher Solicitors simply because of the connection between the businesses. Where legal advice or representation is required, clients remain free to choose their own legal advisers, and information will only be provided to a solicitor where there is an appropriate basis to do so.

Marketing

We may contact you about properties, services or other matters which we reasonably believe may be relevant to you where data protection and electronic marketing law permits us to do so.

Where consent is required for marketing by email, text or similar electronic communications, we will obtain it. You may opt out of marketing communications at any time by contacting us or using any unsubscribe facility provided.

We will not sell your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

The ICO confirms that electronic marketing is subject both to data protection law and, where applicable, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.

Cookies and website statistics

We count public page visits in aggregate to understand which pages are useful and improve our website. Daily totals include the page path and, when available, a broad traffic source, medium and campaign label from tagged links or the referring site. We store only the day and these aggregate totals. We do not keep full URLs, query strings, full referrer addresses, IP addresses, cookie identifiers, visitor histories or advertising profiles. Traffic labels are normalized to broad categories. To estimate visits (not unique people), we use a short-lived last-activity timestamp in the browser tab session storage. It records a new visit on the first public page viewed or after 30 minutes of inactivity. This timestamp contains no visitor identifier, stays on the device, and disappears when the tab session ends; only daily totals are saved on our server. These aggregate statistics are collected by Hermens and are not sent to Google or used for advertising. To estimate unique and currently active browsers, we also store a random first-party token on your device for up to seven days. Only a one-way hash of that token and the time it was last active are held on our server, separately from page and enquiry records. We remove inactive tokens after seven days. We cannot identify people from these totals, and the same person using another device or resetting browser storage may be counted more than once. The token is not used for advertising or tracking browsing journeys. You can opt out of these statistics at any time using Privacy & analytics in the footer.

We also count successful public enquiry, valuation and viewing form submissions by day and form type. These totals are not linked to page visits or to individual people. Form details are processed separately to respond to the request, as described in the relevant parts of this Privacy Policy.

Optional Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is loaded only if you actively choose “Allow analytics” using our discreet, non-blocking page choice or accept it through the “Privacy & analytics” link in the website footer. If accepted, Google Analytics may set first-party cookies including _ga and ga. We use the GA4 measurement ID G-L8C47SNTVX to understand pages visited, how visitors move around the site, device and browser types, and how visitors arrive. Advertising storage, advertising user-data consent and personalised advertising are disabled. GA4 analytics events are sent only while you have accepted. If you reject or later withdraw analytics consent, analytics storage is denied and no further GA4 analytics events are sent. Your choice is stored in your browser and can be changed from “Privacy & analytics” in the website footer. Google Analytics is provided by Google; its privacy practices and any relevant international transfers are governed by Google’s terms and applicable data protection requirements.

You can also opt out of Hermens’ anonymous page counter using its separate control in the website notice or the “Privacy & analytics” link in the footer. This choice is stored locally. A brief, non-blocking analytics choice appears within the page for visitors who have not yet decided. You can also change your choice at any time using the “Privacy & analytics” link in the website footer. No tracking consent is inferred from silence.

Daily aggregate statistics are retained for 13 months. The site hosting provider may separately process ordinary connection data to deliver and secure the website.

How long we keep information

We retain personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected and to comply with applicable legal, regulatory, accounting and contractual obligations.

Agency, tenancy and property management records will generally be retained for an appropriate period after the relevant transaction or relationship has ended, normally up to six years where records may be required for accounting, contractual or legal purposes.

Anti-money laundering and customer due diligence records are generally retained for five years from the end of the business relationship or completion of the relevant transaction, subject to any lawful requirement permitting or requiring longer retention.

Unsuccessful enquiries, valuation enquiries and prospective-client records will be reviewed periodically and deleted or anonymised when they are no longer reasonably required.

Where you have opted out of marketing, we may retain limited information on a suppression list so that we can respect your preference not to be contacted.

International transfers

Some of the technology or service providers we use may process or store information outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred internationally, we will ensure that an appropriate lawful transfer mechanism or safeguard is used where required by UK data protection law.

Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, loss or destruction.

However, no internet or electronic communication system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have rights to access the personal information we hold about you, have inaccurate information corrected, request erasure or restriction of processing, receive certain information in a portable format and object to particular uses of your information.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

You have an absolute right to object to your personal information being used for direct marketing.

Some rights are subject to legal exemptions and may not apply in every circumstance, particularly where we are required by law to retain or process information.

To exercise your rights, contact

Info@hermens.co.uk

.

Automated decision-making

We do not ordinarily make decisions about individuals based solely on automated processing which produce legal or similarly significant effects.

We may use electronic systems to assist with identity, anti-money laundering, referencing, fraud or risk checks, but relevant decisions are not made solely by those systems where the law requires human consideration.

Complaints about data protection

If you have concerns about the way we have handled your personal information, please contact us first at

Info@hermens.co.uk

and we will try to resolve the matter.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Website:

ico.org.uk

The ICO confirms those current contact details.

Other websites

Our website may contain links to websites operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those websites and recommend that you review their own privacy information.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal obligations or the way we process personal information. The latest version will be published on this website with its date of revision.