Privacy Notice

General data protection regulations 2016 privacy notice.

This privacy notice should be read by our former clients and by persons who were never our clients, but in respect of whom we have acquired personal data such as  beneficiaries and other parties in transactional work.

A. FORMER CLIENTS

What we retain at the end of a matter

At the end of a matter we will retain your

  • archived file in whole or in part
  • financial transaction data in our Accounts software
  • identification paperwork for money laundering purposes

At the end of a matter we may retain depending on what the matter was about your

  • Title Deeds and
  • Other Title related documents which we call pre-registration documents
  • Testamentary Will

We call all this your retained information.  It is data held upon you and it is subject to Data Protection law.

Our right to retain your information

We have a right under Data Protection law to keep retained information in your closed or archived file  and to  store other documents belonging to you which contain information about you  as a  former client, upon these grounds;

  1. In respect of your archived file,  financial transaction data and identification paperwork,  in complying with our contractual obligations owed to you, our former client, when we have agreed with you  to retain parts of your retained information for a period of 6 years
  2. In respect of your archived file,  financial transaction data and identification paperwork,  in the carrying out of  legal obligations imposed upon us by our professional liability insurer and/or the Solicitors Regulation Authority which impose obligations to keep closed files for at least six years and to make available our account ledgers for inspection or audit
  3. In respect  of your Title Deeds, pre-registration documents and Testamentary Will, with your continuing agreement and consent

How we use your retained information

Archived Files,  financial transaction data and identification paperwork

We store all or part of your old file and all of the financial transaction data primarily for complying with data protection subject access requests and to show to you, any legal advisers you may have retained, our insurers,  The Solicitors Regulation Authority, and any auditors or accountants  how we complied with your instructions and accounted to you  in our contractual agreement with you for legal services.

We will have receivedidentification paperwork from you for the purposes of our money laundering checks which are carried out when we opened your file, such as a copy of your passport or driving license. We retain such information both upon your archived file but also in a separate file containing Money Laundering Verificationinformation.You consent to us retaining such data for longer than the five year statutory period, unless you tell us otherwise.

Deeds, Pre-registration  documents and Wills

In addition we may store the following  for your own safe-keeping if you have asked us to do so or you have not collected these documents from us at the end of a legal matter;

  • your Title Deeds ( which are required to prove your  title  to land which is not registered with the Land Registry )
  • Documents accompanying your legal title to land ( we call these pre-registration documents)
  • Testamentary Wills

Retention of this information is subject to your instructions, data protection law and our duty of confidentiality.

Sending your retained information elsewhere in the UK

We  may be required to pass on retained information to third parties such as;

in respect of your archived  files and financial transaction data;

  1. to solicitors you may have retained but only with your express permission
  2. to our insurers or regulator, without your express permission,  where you have raised a complaint against us and our insurers may pass information to their own solicitors

in respect of Title Deeds and Pre-registration documents;

  1. to Solicitors you may have retained in connection with a land transaction
  2. to Solicitors you may have retained in connection with a property dispute  or a family law dispute, but only with your express permission
  3. to the Solicitors acting for your opponent  in a current land Title dispute,  but only where Court Rules so provide

in respect of your Testamentary Will;

  1. to solicitors or probate lawyers whom have been instructed by you to store or change your Will but only with your express permission  or to a person acting on your behalf under a Power of Attorney
  2. to Executors or Administrators of your estate after your death or to other persons whom have been instructed by you to store or alter your Will; we may also be asked to  send any file retained in connection with the reasons why you made the Will.

and also please note

  • our practice may be audited or checked by our accountants or our by regulator, and
  • by other organisations such as Inland Revenue, HM Customs and Excise (VAT) and also by
  • criminal law enforcement agencies but their investigations  are subject to your rights of legal professional privilege

In respect this retained information, we do not use any automated decision making software.

Sending your retained information abroad

We do not normallysend retained  information to anyone outside the European Economic Area, however, we may do so however when the unusual or particular circumstances arise.

All such third parties outside Europe  will be required by us to maintain confidentiality in relation to your retained information  by being asked to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Your Rights in respect of the retained  information

You have the following basic  rights under Data Protection law;

  1. A right to know how we may use your retained information – this is why we are providing to youthis Privacy Notice
  2. A right of access (without  fee charge)  to the retained  information we hold about you ( a “subject access request”) within one month of asking
  3. A right to make corrections to the factual retained  information we hold about you if it is not correct
  4. A right to have the retained information we hold about you erased or deleted but we can refuse to comply in some circumstances
  5. A right to impose restrictions on what we do with your retained  information
  6. A right to have your retained information sent elsewhere
  7. A right to object to what we do with your retained  information

You have the followings additional rights;

  1. A right to complain to the Information Commissioners Office  about how we have used your retained information
  2. A right to know for how long we will store your retained information

Retained Information – Your Obligations

If you sent us personal information  about anyone other than yourself ( such as a child of your or a parent) and you now believe you had no right to do so, you should contact our Data Protection Officer.

We do not actively  keep retained information  up to date. If we hold your Title Deeds, pre-registration documents or your Will it is sensible for  you  let us know if you change your address or phone number.

Our Charges

We may impose an annual storage  fee for retaining your  Title Deeds and your  pre-registration documents but not your Will. If we intend to render a charge we will write to you separately and tell you how much the annual charge will be.  If you do not pay any the annual charge, we may return your Title Deeds and pre-registration documents to your last notified address  but if we do so we will do so by recorded post but the costs of such will be added to the charges we impose.

B. BENEFICIARIES AND OTHER PARTIES IN TRANSACTIONAL WORK

In the course of our work for our clients we have a right to process data from persons who are not our clients such as beneficiaries in a probate or estate matter of the other parties in transactional work  as the buying and selling of real estate.

We may  also retain your name,  address and bank details  in BACS  and CHAPS electronic bank transfer forms which we are then required to keep by our regulator for 7 years.

Our legal right to process your  data comes from

  1.  A legal obligation to perform a contract for legal services with our client
  2. The need to comply with legal obligations upon us

These two grounds give us the lawful authority to process your data.

At the end of a matter we retain your data mainly in  an archived file.

The section above on “Former Clients” describes how we process data in an archived file but we will not render any charge for retaining the data of persons  who were never our clients.

Your rights

You have a right to know how we may  lawfully process your data and you have a number of data rights namely the right of access to the data we hold upon you, the right to rectify data you think may be inaccurate, the right to sometimes have your data erased, the right to restrict or object to your data being processed.

If you wish to exercise a data right there is a form for that purpose on our website.

C. OUR DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

You may contact our Data Protection Officer at this address;

  • The Data Protection Officer, Salmons Solicitors Ltd, 336 Harthill Road, Hartshill, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire ST4 7NX.

Our website contains forms in the data protection section to assist you to exercise your data rights. If you use our website forms, the email generated is then automatically directed to the in-box of the Data Protection Officer.