Privacy Policy

At Arnison & Company Solicitors Limited (trading as Arnison Heelis and referred throughout this as Arnison Heelis) we take the privacy of our clients very seriously.  Please read the following information carefully. This privacy notice contains information about what data we collect and store about you and why. It also tells you who we share this information with, the security mechanisms we have put in place to protect your data and how to contact us if you have a complaint.  

Arnison Heelis uses and is responsible for personal information about you. When we do this we are the ‘controller’ of this information for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation and other applicable data protection laws.

Our Data Protection Officer is Charlotte Birtles who can be contacted at our Appleby Office on telephone number 017683 51591. 

Our website does not retain information from users, but if you include your contact details on our online form then we will use this for the purposes of contacting you about your specific query.  This information will not be passed to anyone outside of Arnison Heelis.  If you instruct us further, then we will use information as detailed under the heading below ‘Privacy Policy for our Clients’.

We will not send any marketing material to you unless you specifically ask us to do so.  If you would like to be included on a mailing list providing occasional updates on legal matters, then please contact us on [email protected] with a specific request and we will be happy to add you to that mailing list.  You can opt out at any time.

Specific Details relating to Arnison Heelis Estate Agents

As a client of Arnison Heelis Estate Agents, then the Privacy Policy entitled ‘Privacy Policy for our Clients’ below will apply, but if you have contacted our estate agents with your personal details, for the purpose of arranging a viewing on a property, arranging a valuation or any other enquiries in relation to a property for which we are or may be instructed, then we will hold your details to enable us to contact you to discuss the matter for which you have contacted us.  We will also retain this information for as long as the matter is ongoing and also, if you specifically advise us, to retain this information so that we may contact you in relation to another similar property that may come to our knowledge after the specific matter for which you have contacted us has come to an end.

This information may be passed to a seller or landlord of a property.  We may also pass your details to third parties for the purpose of arranging additional advice in relation to a transaction if appropriate and with your request, for example assisting with financial arrangements or surveys.

This data will be retained as detailed in the section headed ‘Privacy Policy for our Clients’ below.

Privacy Policy for our Clients

If you are a client at Arnison Heelis Solicitors or Arnison Heelis Estate Agents we will collect personal information from you.  This will usually include your name, address, telephone numbers, email, date of birth and National Insurance number.  If relevant to the matter for which we have been instructed, this may also include nationality, details of family members, details regarding health issues, details about property that you own, financial details (including details of existing borrowing), employment status and tax information.  

We need the information to enable us to carry out the task for which you have instructed us.  We will not ask for information which is not relevant to the matter.

We may also use your contact details to provide you with information about specific events arranged by us or, if agreed with us, to provide you with some marketing information created by us.  

The information may be shared with others outside of our organisation only for the purpose of carrying out the task for which you have instructed us, managing the services we provide to you, tracing your location to contact you about a matter or for recovering debt. 

The personal information will for the most part be used by Arnison Heelis, but for the purpose of carrying out the matter for which you have instructed us, we may also pass your personal details to third parties including the Land Registry, HMRC, Courts, solicitors acting for other parties in a matter, barristers or Counsel, experts for specific advice on a matter, external auditors, banks or building societies or financial institutions, providers of identity verification, estate agents, indemnity insurance providers or other individuals in the transaction (for the purpose of our estate agents in particular this relates to landlords, tenants, solicitors acting for the parties involved, the other parties involved in the transaction and those who we may request to perform a service for the landlords that we represent.

We will share personal information with Law enforcement agencies if required by applicable law. 

We appreciate that your data is very important which is why we have secure systems in place to ensure that both the electronic copies and hard copies of data that we are holding are retained securely.  Our staff are fully aware of our strict confidentiality policies, we have a number of secure and safety features on our computer systems which are updated and tested regularly and our office buildings are extremely secure.  

If you would like to amend any of the information that we hold for you then please contact us on [email protected] or contact our Penrith office on 01768 862007 to discuss this further.  

Should you wish to access your personal data, rectify your personal data or request erasure of your personal data, then please contact us.  You may also restrict the processing of your data or object to processing of your personal information.  The withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing activity we have carried out prior to you withdrawing your consent.   Again if you would like to discuss this further, then please contact us on [email protected] or contact the Penrith office on 01768 862007.  

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have a number of important rights that you can exercise free of charge. In summary, these rights are:

• Transparency over how we use your personal data and fair processing of your information;
• Access to your personal information and other supplementary information;
• Require us to correct any mistakes or complete missing information we hold on you;
• Require us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances;
• Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us or have this information be sent to a third party, this will be provided to you or the third party in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format;
• Object at any time to processing of your personal information for direct marketing;
• Object in certain other situations to the continued processing of your personal information;
• Restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
• Request not to be subject to automated decision making which produce legal effects that concern you or affect you in a significantly similar way;

If you want more information about your rights under the GDPR please see the Guidance from the Information Commissioners Office on Individual's rights under the GDPR.

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please:

• Email, call our write to us our Data Protection Officer
• Provide another information so that we can identify you. We may need to contact you to request further information to verify your identity;
• Let us have proof of your identity and address;
• State the right or rights that you wish to exercise;

We will respond to you within one month from when we receive your request. 

We hope that you are happy with our service but if you have any complaints about how we handle your personal data please contact Michael Robson at our Penrith Office on telephone number 01768 862007 to resolve any issues or complaints that arise. Please get in touch if you have any concerns (see ‘Get in touch’ below). 

The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where the alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The UK supervisory authority if the Information Commissioner’s Office who can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.  

We do not intend to process your personal information for any reason other than stated within this privacy notice.  If this changes we will inform you by post or e-mail. 

This privacy was published on 22nd May 2018 and last updated on 22nd May 2018.  We constantly review our internal privacy practices and may change this policy from time to time

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you, please contact us at our Penrith office on telephone number 01768 862007 (contact Michael Robson) or our Appleby office on telephone number 017683 51591 (contact Charlotte Birtles). 

Alternatively you can e-mail our office on address [email protected] 

If it would be helpful to have this notice provided in another format (for example: in another language, audio, braille) please contact us (see ‘Get in touch’ above).