Sort Legal Privacy and Cookies Policy

Sort Legal value your privacy and we care about how we look after your personal data. We are a Data Controller and as such are responsible for any personal information that we collect or you provide to us during the course of our contact with one another.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us via our dedicated email account dataprotectionofficer@sortlegal.co.uk.

Our full contact details are:

Sort Legal Limited, we are registered in England and Wales under registration number 09956080 and our registered office and principle place of business is Burdsall House, Derby Conference Centre, London Road, Derby DE24 8UX. You can contact us via post at the address above, email at dataprotectionofficer@sortlegal.co.uk or by telephone on 0333 323 1091 during the hours of 9am – 5.30pm Monday to Thursday and 9am – 5pm Friday (except on bank holidays). We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under reference ZA220686. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the ICO, the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (https://ico.org.uk) please read: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/raising-concerns/ for details of how to do this. We would appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance at dataprotectionofficer@sortlegal.co.uk.

1. What personal information do we collect?

We may collect personal information from you in the course of our professional relationship. This includes when you use our website, when you contact or request information from us, when you engage our conveyancing services, and possibly as a result of your relationship with one or more of our staff and clients.

The personal information that we process includes:

Basic information, such as your name (including name prefix or title), the company you work for, your title or position and your relationship to a person
Contact information, such as your postal address, email address and phone number(s)
Financial information, such as payment-related information
Technical information, such as information from your visits to our website or applications or in relation to materials and communications we send to you electronically
Identification and background information provided by you or collected as part of our business acceptance and identification processes
Any other information relating to you which you may provide to us

2. How do we collect your personal information?

Sort Legal collects and processes personal information about you in a number of ways, including:

We collect information from you as part of our business acceptance and identification processes and about you and others as necessary in the course of providing conveyancing services
We collect your personal information while monitoring our technology tools and services, including our website and email communications
We gather information about you when you provide it to us, or interact with us directly while engaging with our staff, accessing our recruitment process, or registering on one of our digital platforms or applications

3. How do we use your personal information?

To exercise and complete our legal contract and obligations to you
To provide information requested by you
To promote our services, including sending legal and service updates, publications, and details of events
To manage and administer our relationship with you and our clients
To fulfil our legal, regulatory and risk management obligations, including establishing, exercising or defending legal claims
To provide and improve our website, including auditing and monitoring its use
To provide and improve our services to you and to our clients, including handling the personal information of others on behalf of our clients where applicable
For the purposes of recruitment

Use of the Sort Legal website & our use of Cookies

A number of facilities on our website and portal areas invite you to provide us with personal information, such as the vacancy application facility in the ‘Careers’ section of our website. The purpose of this facility is apparent at the point that you provide your personal information and we only use that information for those purposes.

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web-based analytics tool that tracks and reports on the manner in which the website is used to help us to improve it. Google Analytics does this by placing small text files called ‘cookies’ on your device. The information that the cookies collect, such as the number of visitors to the site, the pages visited and the length of time spent on the site, is aggregated and therefore anonymous.

We also use personal information to understand whether you read some of the emails and other materials that we send to you, click on the links to the information that we include in them, and whether and how you visit our website after you click on that link (immediately and on future visits). We do this by using software that places a cookie on your device which tracks this activity and records it against your email address. If you receive marketing communications from us and no longer wish to do so, you may unsubscribe at any time by emailing dataprotectionofficer@sortlegal.co.uk.

You may refuse the use of cookies or withdraw your consent at any time by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser but please note that this may affect your use and experience of our website. By continuing to use our website without changing your privacy settings, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. To find out more about cookies, including how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org

Meetings, events and seminars

We will collect and process personal information about you in relation to your attendance at our offices or at an event or seminar organised by Sort Legal or its business partners. We will only process and use special categories of personal information, for instance; your dietary or access requirements, in order to cater for your needs and to meet any other legal or regulatory obligations we may have. We may share your information with IT and other service providers or business partners involved in organising or hosting the relevant event.

Legal and other services

We collect, create, hold and use personal information in the course of and in connection with the conveyancing services we provide to our clients. We will process identification and background information as part of our business acceptance, finance, administration and marketing processes. These processes include but are not limited to anti-money laundering, conflict, and financial checks. We will also process personal information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients for the purposes of the work we do for them. The information may be disclosed to third parties to the extent reasonably necessary in connection with that work for example HMRC, HMLR, Search provision companies and Lenders.

4. On what basis do we use your personal information?

To perform a contract, such as engaging with an individual to provide legal or other service
For the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims or proceedings
To comply with legal and regulatory obligations
For legitimate business purposes such as those identified in ‘How do we use your personal information?’

5. How long will we keep your personal information?

Your personal information will be retained in accordance with our Data Retention Policy which categorises all of the information held by Sort Legal and specifies the appropriate retention period for each type of data. Those periods are based on the requirements of applicable data protection laws and the purpose for which the information is collected and used, taking into account legal and regulatory requirements to retain the information for a minimum period, limitation periods for taking legal action, good practice and Sort Legal’s business purposes.

6. Who do we share your personal information with?

We may share your personal information with certain trusted third parties in accordance with contractual arrangements in place with them, including:

Our professional regulators, advisors, and auditors
IT service providers to Sort Legal
Third parties engaged in the course of the conveyancing services we provide to clients and with their prior consent, such as HMRC, HMLR, search providers, lenders, insurance intermediaries and providers, survey providers, and technology service providers, for example, our case management service.
Third parties involved in hosting or organising events or seminars

Where necessary, or for the reasons set out in this policy, personal information may also be shared with regulatory authorities, courts, tribunals, government agencies and law enforcement agencies. While it is unlikely, we may be required to disclose your information to comply with legal or regulatory requirements. We will use reasonable endeavours to notify you before we do this, unless we are legally restricted from doing so.

If in the future we re-organise or transfer all or part of our business, we may need to transfer your information to new Sort Legal entities or to third parties through which the business of Sort Legal will be carried out.

Sort Legal may use social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. If you use these services, you should review their privacy policy for more information on how they deal with your personal information.

We do not sell, rent or otherwise make personal information commercially available to any third party, except with your prior permission.

7. How do we protect your personal information?

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

You acknowledge that the Internet and email is not a completely secure medium for communication and accordingly, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you send to us (or we send to you) via the Internet. We are not responsible for any damages which you, or others, may suffer as a result of the loss of confidentiality of such information and you should take appropriate measures in your use of the internet and IT to protect your data security. For more information on how you can protect yourself from fraud and a breach of privacy please visit https://takefive-stopfraud.org.uk/advice/

8. What are your rights in relation to your personal information?

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and other applicable data protection laws provide certain rights for data subjects in particular circumstances:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it for example where you consider that we do not need it any longer for the purposes for which we originally collected it as explained to you in this Privacy Policy, where you have withdrawn your consent to our using it and we had relied on that consent according to this Policy, where you consider that we cannot show a ‘legitimate interest’ in continuing to process it and we have relied on that legitimate interest to process it as explained to you in this Policy . You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any process carried out before you withdraw your consent and you must be aware that even after you have chosen to withdraw your consent we may be able to continue to process your personal information to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law, in particular in connection with exercising and defending our legal rights or meeting our legal and regulatory obligations. You should also be aware that your withdrawal of any previously given consent could mean that we are unable to perform the actions necessary to achieve the purposes set out elsewhere in this policy or that you may not be able to make use of the services and products offered by us.
You may also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to Sort Legal’s processing of your personal information with a local supervisory authority

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at dataprotectionofficer@sortlegal.co.uk

NO FEE USUALLY REQUIRED

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

WHAT WE MAY NEED FROM YOU

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

TIME LIMIT TO RESPOND

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.