Privacy notice

1. What we ask for

When you apply for a long let, we ask each adult who will live in the room for:

• your full name, date of birth, email address and phone number
• your current address and roughly how long you’ve lived there
• your employment status, your employer (if you have one) and your income as a band, such as “£25,000–£35,000”. We never ask for payslips or bank statements on the form
• for Right to Rent: either your Home Office share code, or which document you’ll show us in person
• if you give them, a previous landlord’s details for a reference, and a guarantor’s details
• any pet request, and how many people in total will live in the room, including children

When you sign your offer or tenancy agreement online, we also record the name you type, the signature and initials you adopt, the date and time, your IP address and your browser type. This is so we can show who signed what, and when.

We never ask for, and never store, passport numbers, ID card numbers or National Insurance numbers. If you show us a document for Right to Rent, we look at it with you in person. We record the type of document, the date we checked it and the result. We don’t record the document’s number.

If you send an enquiry or ask for a viewing, we receive your name, email address, phone number and your message.

2. Why we use it, and our legal basis

• To decide on your application and, if we offer you the room, to set up your tenancy. You asked us to consider you for a tenancy, so this is a step towards a contract with you.
• Right to Rent. The law requires us to check that every adult who will live in the room has the right to rent in England. This is a legal obligation.
• Taking and protecting deposits. We take your holding deposit and, if you move in, your tenancy deposit, and we protect that deposit in a government-approved scheme. Some of this is for the contract and some is required by law.
• Records of who signed and when. We keep these because we have a legitimate interest in being able to prove the agreement. This also protects you.
• Replying to enquiries and arranging viewings. You asked us to, and it’s a step towards a contract.

We don’t use your information for marketing, and we don’t sell it. We don’t make automated decisions about you: a person reads every application. We never refuse an application because you receive benefits or have children.

3. Who sees it

• Us: the small team that runs our buildings.
• The Home Office online checking service, when we check a share code you give us.
• The referees you name (a previous landlord, a guarantor). We tell them only what they need in order to give a reference.
• Stripe, which takes your holding deposit payment. We never see your card details.
• A government-approved deposit protection scheme, if you become our tenant.
• The companies that run our systems for us: Cloudflare (this website), Vercel and Turso (our application and tenancy records), and Google (our email). Enquiries and viewing requests sent through this website go to us through Google Apps Script and are stored in Google Sheets. These companies only process your information on our instructions. Some of them are based in, or use servers in, the United States. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by safeguards that UK law accepts.

We would also share information if the law required it, for example with the police or a court.

4. How long we keep it

• If your application doesn’t go ahead (we decline it, you withdraw, or it lapses): six months after it closes, we automatically delete your name, date of birth, contact details, address, share code, references, guarantor details, pet request, IP address and any signature you gave. We keep only an anonymous record of the decision: the dates, the outcome, the reason, the room, the rent and the income band. We keep this so we can show that we decide fairly. If you paid a holding deposit, this only happens once it has been refunded or a lawful retention has been settled.
• If you become our tenant, your application becomes part of your tenancy record. We keep that record for the length of your tenancy and for six years after it ends. We keep Right to Rent records for at least one year after the tenancy ends, as the Home Office requires.
• Enquiries and viewing requests: we keep these for 12 months.

5. Your rights, and how to contact us

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the information we hold about you
• ask us to correct it if it’s wrong
• ask us to delete it, or to stop or limit how we use it. Sometimes we may have to keep information, for example where the law requires us to
• object to anything we do on the basis of our legitimate interests
• ask for a copy of information you gave us, in a format you can take elsewhere

Email info@mcconnell-properties.com or write to us at Office 374, 60 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 2EW. We’ll reply within one month. There’s no charge.

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or call 0303 123 1113.