Mortgage Brokers Privacy Notice

This is the Privacy Notice of Northern Ireland Co-Ownership Housing Association Limited (Co-Ownership) & its subsidiary OwnCo Homes Limited (Rent to Own). 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 & Rent to Own we treat your 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 on the Co-Ownership online application portal & complete an application for a customer through our Co-Ownership or Rent to Own products, we ask you to supply information about your company, including details of your company’s name and address, your network name, your telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and employee details.

We use the information you provide in order to register your firm as a financial adviser/intermediary on the Co-Ownership online application portal and communicate with you regarding a customer’s case when you represent them in an application for either the Co-Ownership or Rent to Own products. We will keep a record of your information for monitoring and statistical purposes and also so that we can provide you with updates on Co-Ownership and Rent to Own, such as criteria changes.

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.

2. Consequences of failure to provide Information

If we cannot collect the necessary information from you, it will not be possible for your company to be registered as a financial adviser/intermediary user on Co-Ownership’s online applications portal. We will be unable to communicate with you regarding a customer’s application and will be unable to send you updates about our products and changes to our application criteria. It may prove impossible for you to act as an intermediary/representative of the customer.

3. The Lawful Grounds for Processing your Information

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

• Contract – the processing is needed in order to perform a contract we have together
• 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)
• Criminal Law Enforcement

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

5. Transfer of Information

We will not transfer your personal data outside of the EU.

6. How long do Co-Ownership and Rent to Own keep your Information?

We keep your information for as long as required for the purpose that you gave it to us for. Please note that you can unsubscribe to the mailing list at any time. For more information please contact our Data Protection Officer.

5. Criminal Convictions and Offences:

Co-Ownership & Rent to Own 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, valuation & other professional advisors;
• IT Maintenance personnel;
• our funders – the Department for Communities and our own lender
• our auditors
• the customer you represent

7. Transfer of Information

We will not transfer your personal data outside of the EU.

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

When you apply for registration on our online financial adviser/intermediary portal and act as a financial adviser/intermediary for an applicant to the Co-Ownership or Rent to Own products, 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, after our last dealings with any customer represented by you, we will keep your data for whichever is longest of:

a) 1 year, where that customer was an unsuccessful applicant, or

b) 6 years, where we have entered a contract with that customer and that contract has ended.

For more information please contact our Data Protection Officer.

9. Your Rights

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.

10. Correcting your Information:

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

11. 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.

12. 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. 028 903 7276 (In the interest of customer service and to ensure the accuracy of our records, calls may be recorded and monitored).

13. 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. Tel 03031231113

14. Cookies

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

15. Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated in June 2020.