Privacy policy

This website is operated by Propertymark Ltd (“Propertymark”, “we”, “us”) and this Privacy Policy provides information on how we collect, use, secure, transfer and share your personal data.

When we refer to Propertymark we mean any of the following divisions:

  • ARLA Propertymark inc. ARLA Inventories
  • NAEA Propertymark inc. NAEA Commercial
  • NAVA Propertymark

We understand that keeping your personal information safe is the foundation to building trust and confidence in Propertymark as an organisation.

This policy provides clear and concise information about what Propertymark does with your personal data.

If you are an employee of Propertymark, we have a separate policy that covers the processing of your personal data. If you are a former or prospective employee of Propertymark, please use the contact details at the end of this document if would like to receive a copy.

Introduction

Propertymark is the go-to organisation for any questions relating to property. Our focus is on helping people buy, sell and rent their treasured homes. We help protect and guide consumers in property transactions and all our property experts meet higher standards than the law demands.

We are a limited company by guarantee registered in England and Wales (897907) and our Registered Office is Arbon House, 6 Tournament Court, Edgehill Drive, Warwick, CV34 6LG.

We are dedicated to being fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and all successor legislation. Propertymark is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) as a data controller.

There are seven data protection principles which Propertymark use to underpin our approach to processing your information as follows:

Processing your information in accordance with the law and being fair and transparent with you

  • Clearly identifying our purpose for processing your information and checking any additional purpose is compatible with data protection legislation. We document these purposes and periodically review these purposes.
  • Making sure that the information we process is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purpose of processing your information
  • We take all reasonable steps to make sure the information we hold, and process is accurate and where information is correct take remedial action to correct this
  • We do not keep information for longer than is required, identifying personal information we no longer need and erase or anonymise information where appropriate
  • Ensure that we have appropriate technical security measures in place to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of your information
  • It is Propertymark’s responsibility to demonstrate our compliance with data protection legislation

What information do we collect?

To be able to provide you with services and support from Propertymark we must process your personal data. Some of the personal information will be information provided by you directly and there will be additional personal information that Propertymark collects or is provided to third parties or external sources, such as a member of the public or other companies.

The type of personal data we collect depends on the way you interact and use the Propertymark services for example accessing services as a Propertymark Member will be a different experience than interacting as a member or consumer.

Typically, we process your personal data for the following reasons:

  • To respond to your enquiries
  • To assess and manage your application for membership, qualification and events
  • To deliver and manage our services to you
  • To maintain and manage your membership and qualifications
  • To monitor compliance with our standards
  • To take pre-contractual and contractual steps with you
  • To comply with our legal obligations as an organisation

Information provided by you

You may provide us with information when applying for or renewing your Propertymark membership, completing online forms, booking on or attending a course or event, communicating with us by phone, registering for communications from us, online or by post, making purchases from us, or utilising our services and support. The categories of personal data may include:

  • Identity data e.g., your first and last names
  • Contact Data e.g., your address, telephone number and email address.
  • Financial details e.g., purchase and transactional information relating to payments
  • Communication data: e.g., emails, letters, social media interactions
  • Information that may cause reputational damage to Propertymark or it’s members and to prevent fraud e.g., credit history

Information we collect about you

 We collect information when you interact with the organisation, use our services, seek our support and guidance, or apply for and sit out qualifications.

  • Membership information e.g., membership dates, membership category
  • Information relating to your attendance at our events.
  • Information relating to your learning and qualifications e.g. course attendance, exam information, results
  • Technical data e.g. how you interact with our websites, webinars or other online content
  • Video data via the CCTV on our properties (please see separate CCTV policy for more information)
  • Compliance information collected on compliance visits.

Information we receive about you

From time to time we may receive information about you from a third party or external source. This may include occasions where we receive communications about you, e.g. a compliment or complaint. Where information is shared with us as part of a complaint, this information may be used to form part of our investigation.

Using your personal information

Some of the personal information we use is essential to be able to provide membership services, customer service, information and support. For example, when making a Propertymark Membership application contact details are essential to be able to communicate and progress an application moreover, if you wish to make a complaint about a Propertymark Member we will need to use information provided to investigate the complaint thoroughly. If a complaint is made about you, we may need to use the information provided to us in order to investigate the complaint.

The legal basis Propertymark relies upon when processing your personal information will depend on the information provided and the original processing purpose If we use your personal information for a different purpose, we will inform you and gain your consent if appropriate.

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

  • Your consent. Where consent has been given, you are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting us.
  • We have a contractual obligation.
  • We have a legal obligation.
  • We have a vital interest.
  • We need it to perform a public task.
  • We have a legitimate interest.

We may contact you with emails or SMS containing guidance, sector information, news and invites to participate in industry surveys where we believe there is a legitimate interest to do so. However, we understand that needs and requirements may change, and you can unsubscribe from these emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link within one of the emails or by updating your communication preferences.

We may email you, or use targeted Facebook and LinkedIn advertising, to let you know details of Propertymark events and training courses (which may be free to members or at additional cost), to help members to comply with CPD requirements that form part of the membership agreement. In addition, as part of your membership, we may email you with information about relevant external events or promotions from our Industry Suppliers, details of which can be found in your member handbook. You can opt-out of advertising via Facebook and LinkedIn by emailing [email protected].

Information sharing

Where necessary and in accordance with data protection legislation we share information internally within the Propertymark group and with third parties as required and where we have a legal basis to do so.

We share information where there is a legal, regulatory or professional obligation to disclose your personal information, in order to apply the relevant rules and/or to protect the rights, property or safety of our members and clients past and present.

We may also be required to share information with Regulatory authorities, law enforcement agencies and courts, or in the event of a transfer or acquisition of all or a part of our organisation.

Third party (Sub-Processor) organisations

For our general day-to-day data processing activities, we use third-party organisations to help us administer and monitor the services we provide: 

  • for the provision of software services to enable the management of our services and office administration 
  • for financial accounting 
  • to share newsletters, promotional detail, industry news or other information that maybe of interest to you 
  • to help us improve our services  
  • for the administration of our website and customer interactions  
  • for any legal guidance in the provision of our services 

Access to your personal information is only allowed when required by the law or is required as part our fulfilling our service obligations.  We do not, and will never, sell your personal information with other third parties.

International Transfers (to include EEA)

Where we have partners and service providers based outside of the UK (e.g. Microsoft for our IT Services), your personal data may be accessed or otherwise processed in other countries. We have implemented measures and safeguards to ensure that any transfer of data is compliant with our data protection laws. For example, we ensure that Standard Contractual Clauses or International Data Transfer Agreements that are approved by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), the UK Government and/or European Commission after carrying out a detailed assessment to ensure the companies receiving your data can comply with these Clauses. Please contact us if you wish to know more.

How long we keep your information for

We will only keep your information for as long as necessary to perform our obligations and to fulfil the original processing purpose. Based on the legal basis we may need to keep some information for longer i.e., to comply with tax and accounting law and in some cases, we will anonymise your information so that it can no longer be associated with you.

When establishing our Retention Schedule, we consider the legal basis, sensitivity of information, the type of information and once the retention period has ended how we deal with the information.

Keeping your data correct

We are committed to keeping your information up to date. If you believe that we have made an error, then please contact us as we have outlined below and we will use reasonable endeavours to correct.

Keeping your information safe and secure

We are committed to keeping customers’ personal information secure to protect it from being inappropriately or accidentally accessed, used, shared or destroyed, and against it being lost. We endeavour to ensure that our suppliers take similar steps to keep your data secure. We take organisational measures to keep information secure and provide regular training for staff on data protection

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to improve your experience and the performance of the site.  Cookies help us to understand trends among the behaviour of groups of users and make improvements based on this. We want to ensure that as a user you have full control over which cookies are used and you can find full details in our cookie policy.

Your data protection rights

Your rights under the data protection legislation are as follows.

  • Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
  • Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
  • Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
  • Rights related to automated decision-making including profiling – You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have a calendar month to respond to you.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how your information is being processed and wish to make a complaint, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Propertymark
Arbon House
6 Tournament Court
Edgehill Drive
Warwick
CV34 6LG
[email protected]

If you remain unsatisfied you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner (ICO):

Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Changes to this policy

We reserve the right to amend this policy at any time. Please check back regularly to see if there have been any updates. It was amended last in May 2024.

Any questions on this policy or how Propertymark handles personal information please contact our Data Protection Officer.