Solicitors Privacy Statement

This is the Privacy Notice of Northern Ireland Co-Ownership Housing Association Limited (Co-Ownership). It tells you about the information we collect from you, what we ask others to tell us about you and what we do with your information and who we share it with.

At Co-Ownership we treat your Personal Data with the highest standards of security and confidentiality, in accordance with Data Protection Law.

When we collect Personal Data, about you and other people this Information will remain strictly confidential.

1. Why do we collect your Personal Data?

When you complete an application for registration to the Co-Ownership Conveyancing Panel, we ask you to supply information about your firm, including details of your firm’s name and address, the type of legal entity of your firm and registration details thereof, details of storage facilities at your firm, your company or LLP registration number, names of partners, members, company secretary or directors of your firm, the name and email address of the appointed relationship partner, names of individual solicitors within your firm, confirmation that the relationship partner holds practising certificate and professional indemnity cover, confirmation that your firm holds a current certificate of recognition by the Law Society (if Company or LLP) and your firm’s client account bank details.

We use the information you provide in order to register your firm on the Co-Ownership Conveyancing Panel which allows your firm to carry out conveyancing transactions on behalf of Co-Ownership.

We may also use the information you supply for research and management information purposes, to help us improve

• our services to you
• the effectiveness and efficiency of our business
• how our managers make decisions, and
• how we look after public funds.

If your firm is selected to act on behalf of Co-Ownership we will use the information you give us in order to administer all aspects of the conveyancing transaction.

2. Consequences of failure to provide Information

If we cannot collect necessary Information from you, it may not be possible for your firm to be registered and to maintain your firm’s registration on the Co-Ownership Conveyancing Panel.

3. The Lawful Grounds for Processing your Information

We process your information for lawful reasons. These are:-

• Contract – the processing is needed in order for your firm to be registered and to maintain your firm’s registration on the Co-Ownership Conveyancing Panel and if successful you will have a contract with us.
• Legal obligation - this is so that we can comply with certain laws.
• Consent - When you have consented to us processing your information.
• Legitimate interests – this means that the processing is in our Legitimate Interests (We will not prejudice your rights when processing your information for our legitimate interests, but you have a right to object to this processing) at any time.
• Criminal Law Enforcement

4. The Purpose of Processing your Information and the associated Lawful Bases

5. Criminal Convictions and Offences:

Co-Ownership may hold, use, disclose and process Data relating to criminal conviction and offences where it is necessary for the assessment of risk or prevention of fraud.

6. Who Co-Ownership & Rent to Own share your Information with:

In order to provide our services and comply with legal obligations imposed on us we may share your Information with:

• Legal, financial, estate agency, valuation & other professional advisors;
• Someone appointed to act on your behalf or someone who has statutory authority to act for you;
• Outsourced processing companies for example merchant payment supplier, payment services supplier, external mailing company, archiving company, confidential waste disposal company, management companies, managing agents and valuation software;
• IT Maintenance personnel;
• Our funders – the Department for Communities and our own lender;
• Our auditors.

7. Transfer of Information

We may transfer the personal information we collect about you outside the UK to the countries in the European Union. If we do transfer your personal information, then we rely on the adequacy regulations that are in place in respect of those countries. This means that the countries to which we transfer your data are deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information.

8. How long do Co-Ownership & Rent to Own keep your Information?

When you apply for registration to the Co-Ownership Conveyancing Panel, it may be necessary to retain your information for an extended period of time. We keep your information for as long as required for the purpose that you gave it to us for. For legal and best practice reasons we keep your information for 6 years after the date on which your contract with us ended. For more information please contact our Data Protection Officer.

9. Your Rights

In certain circumstances, you have the following rights in relation to your personal information:

Accessing your Information:

You have the right to obtain a copy of your Data. If you would like a copy of your information, please write to our Data Protection Officer. Your request will be dealt with as quickly as possible and in any event you will not have to wait for more than a month for us to respond. If at that stage we are unable to provide the data you require (due to the complexity or number of requests) we can extend the period to provide the data by a further two months but shall explain the reason why.

Correcting your Information:

You have the right to have your information corrected free of charge by contacting our Data Protection Officer.

Restrict processing of your information:

You have the right to request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

Request the transfer of your information:

You have the right to request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

Right to withdraw consent:

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Protection Officer. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, or wish to withdraw your consent to our processing, please contact the Data Protection Officer in writing. Please note that we may not always be able to comply with your request to exercise your rights under this section 9, for example, there may be a specific legal reason why we cannot comply. If we are unable to comply with your request then we will notify you of the specific reasons for this at the time of your request.

10. Automated Decision Making

An Automated Decision is a significant decision affecting you that is made using your Personal Data solely by automatic means, where no humans are involved in the decision-making process. We do not and will not make automated decisions affecting you based on profiling. An indicative conclusion may be reached on the basis of Personal Data you have provided, but a member of our team will always review this.

11. Who controls your Personal Data and how can you contact them?

Co-Ownership controls your Personal Data. Any questions or concerns you have can be addressed to our Data Protection Officer, Moneda House, 25-27 Wellington Place, Belfast, BT1 6GD Tel. 028 9032 7276 (In the interest of customer service and to ensure the accuracy of our records, calls may be recorded and monitored).

12. Your Right to Make a Complaint

If you are unhappy about the way we handle your Personal Data please contact our Data Protection Officer and we will do our best to address your concerns swiftly and resolve any issues you have.

If you have a concern about an organisation’s information rights practices, you can report it to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

13. Cookies

You can read more about how we use cookies on our Cookies page.

14. Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated in June 2022.

Reference: D223/220627.2