Dere Street Homes Privacy Notice

Dere Street Homes General Privacy Notice

At Dere Street Homes we are serious about looking after your personal information.  We are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of our customers and will never sell or share your details with other companies and businesses for any purpose unless you give your explicit consent to do so.  Under UK Data Protection Laws all personal details must be protected, and we have developed and implemented strict protocols in the storage and disclosure of information to prevent unauthorised access.

By personal information and data we mean information as defined by the General Data Protection Regulations and the UK Data Protection Act 2018. In simple terms it is any information which can be used to identify you or is related to you. This could be information such as name, address, phone number, email address etc.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we use the information you give to us and why, and the limited circumstances under which we might share it with someone else.

The Data Protection regulations require us to let you know who collects and stores your data, what we are collecting and for what purpose we use your data.  Dere Street Homes is the Data Controller and we will collect customer data to enable us to fulfil a ‘contract’ for example, any customer buying a home from us, or because you have given your ‘consent’ for us to use your data to send you marketing information about our properties, for example by completing an enquiry form on our website, via Rightmove, email or telephone enquiry or in person in our Development Sales Centres.

Typically the information we collect will be names, addresses, contact numbers and email addresses.  We will also take payment information from you as necessary, which we dispose of securely as soon as we are finished processing your payment.

You have the right to make a request to us:

  • For access to your personal information
  • For rectification or erasure of your personal information
  • For restriction of processing concerning you
  • To object to direct marketing
  • To move data you have provided to us, either to you or to another provider

To exercise your rights and view, amend or delete the personal information that we hold about you please send your request to our registered Head Office at:

Dere Street Homes, Dere Street House, Bowburn North Industrial Estate, Bowburn, Durham. DH6 5PF.

You can withdraw your consent at any time for the use of your data by emailing our Compliance Officer Vicki Southgate on vickisouthgate@derestreethomes.co.uk  You can unsubscribe to general mailings at any time by emailing the address at the bottom of any of our emails or by emailing info@derestreethomes.co.uk with the word ‘Unsubscribe’. We do not transfer data outside of the EEA/UK.

How we will use your data

When customers give us their details we add them to our customer database.  We use this information to contact you with information you have asked for, such as when we launch a new site and to ask for feedback on a visit to our sites.  In addition, we would also use it to tell you of any news about the site you are interested in, to obtain additional information and to contact you in order to check our records are up to date.  We will not sell this list to any other business.  We may share it with a marketing company or estate agency purely for the purposes of sending you information you have asked for or arranging valuations of your home.

We may be required to pass your name and contact details to any government mandated Test and Trace programme as required by guidance in the future.

We will store this information until the site you are interested in is all sold or until you ask us to remove you from our list. At this point it will be deleted from our database.

For customers buying a home from us we will keep the full plot information for 2 years following completion of your home. Then only minimal information as we judge appropriate will be retained up to 10 years from completion, to enable us to support any home warranty claims.

Following the purchase of one of our homes we will occasionally need to send some of your details to approved sub-contractors in order for them to complete “snagging lists”, repairs or to inspect the property. These details will only be name, address, contact details and the nature of the work needed.  Failure to provide these details could lead to a delay in the work being completed.

To comply with planning conditions we may need to pass your details on to a third party contractor for the purposes of completing a travel survey via email or mail.  This contractor would always be required to treat your information confidentially and securely and dispose of it in line with their own Privacy Policy.

If you send us a copy of your personal details, for example as a CV or on an application or other correspondence we will hold that information for a minimum of six months beyond the end of the application process.  We may ask your permission to keep your information on file or you may ask us to do this and we will then do so as long as the application may be relevant for the future or until you tell us you wish us to destroy the information.

Telephone calls made to our and from our Head Office telephone number are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.  Call recordings are retained by our telecoms provider for 30 days and then either deleted or kept for two years or until the resolution of any dispute. For further information visit Privacy Policy – Russell Telecom (russell-telecom.co.uk)

Mail and Marketing

We are sometimes forwarded customer contact details by Estate Agents who we have instructed to market our properties.  This would be to enable us to provide further details of a home a customer is interested in.  These details would be added to our database and will be deleted on request or at the end of a development.

MailChimp – We occasionally use a platform called MailChimp to deliver our email updates.  For this purpose we would share only the name and email address.  We gather statistical information using MailChimp software to do with email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies.  This helps us to monitor and improve our news or updates.  For more information please see Mail Chimp’s privacy notice.  https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/

Fastsms – We may use Fastsms to send text message updates to our customers using the mobile phone number provided to us.  Only the mobile phone number is shared and it is done so anonymously.  For details of their privacy policy see https://fastsms.co.uk/downloads/fastsms-privacy-policy.pdf

SurveyMonkey – We use SurveyMonkey to deliver some email updates.  For this purpose we would share only the name and email address.  We gather statistical information using the software to do with email opening and clicks and other statistics according to the survey using industry standard technologies.  This helps us to monitor and improve our offerings.  For more information please see Privacy Notice | Momentive (surveymonkey.co.uk)

If you have any concerns about how we are using your data you are entitled to lodge a complaint with the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), whose contact details are: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire. SA9 5AF.  Further information on how to report a concern can be found here.  https://ico.org.uk/concerns/