Privacy Policy

Your privacy matters to us. This Privacy Policy explains how Crowborough Surveyors ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, stores and protects your personal information when you use our website at crowboroughsurveyors.com or engage our professional surveying services.

We are committed to handling your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

Crowborough Surveyors is an independent firm of chartered building surveyors and registered valuers based in Crowborough, East Sussex. We are the data controller responsible for your personal data.

If you have any questions about this policy or about how we handle your data, please contact us using the details in Section 11 below.

2. Information We Collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal information:

Information you give us directly

• Your full name
• Your email address
• Your postal address or property address
• Any message or enquiry you send us via our contact form
• Information about the property you wish to have surveyed

Information collected automatically

• Your IP address and browser type
• Pages you visit on our website and time spent on each
• How you arrived at our website (e.g. search engine, referral)
• Device type and operating system

We collect this technical information using cookies and similar technologies. See Section 8 for more details.

Information from third parties

We may receive information about you from third parties such as HubSpot (our CRM and form provider) when you submit an enquiry form on our website.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your personal information for the following purposes:

• To respond to your enquiries — when you contact us via our website form, we use your details to get back to you about your survey or valuation requirements.
• To provide our surveying services — once you instruct us, we use your personal and property information to carry out and report on your survey.
• To send you relevant information — with your consent, we may send you property advice, updates or news that we think may be useful to you.
• To improve our website — we analyse website usage data to understand how visitors use our site and to improve its content and user experience.
• To comply with legal obligations — we retain certain records as required by law, including financial and professional records.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under the UK GDPR, we must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. We rely on the following bases:

• Contract: Processing necessary for the performance of a contract with you (i.e. providing our surveying services).
• Legitimate interests: Processing necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as responding to enquiries and improving our services, where these are not overridden by your rights.
• Consent: Where you have given us clear consent to process your personal data for a specific purpose (e.g. receiving marketing emails).
• Legal obligation: Where we are required to process your data to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

5. Who We Share Your Data With

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal data. We may share your information with:

• HubSpot Inc. — our CRM and contact form provider, who processes data on our behalf under a data processing agreement. HubSpot is certified under appropriate data transfer mechanisms.
• Google Analytics — for website analytics. Data is anonymised where possible and subject to Google's privacy policy.
• Our professional advisers — such as accountants, solicitors or insurers, where necessary.
• Regulatory bodies — such as RICS, where required by our professional obligations.
• Law enforcement or courts — where required by law or to protect our legal rights.

All third parties we work with are required to handle your data securely and in accordance with applicable data protection law.

6. How Long We Keep Your Data

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, taking into account our legal and professional obligations:

• Enquiry data: We retain contact enquiry records for up to 2 years if no instruction is received.
• Client records: Where we carry out a survey or valuation, we retain records (including survey reports and correspondence) for a minimum of 6 years following completion, in line with our professional indemnity insurance requirements.
• Marketing data: We retain marketing preferences until you withdraw your consent.
• Website analytics: Aggregated, anonymised data may be retained indefinitely.

7. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• Right of access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you (Subject Access Request).
• Right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to erasure: You have the right to request that we delete your personal data in certain circumstances.
• Right to restriction: You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability: You have the right to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Right to object: You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to withdraw consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in Section 11. We will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

8. Cookies

Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to improve your browsing experience and to help us understand how visitors use our site. We use the following types of cookies:

• Essential cookies: Necessary for the website to function. These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics cookies: Used by Google Analytics to collect anonymised data about how visitors use our site (pages visited, time on site, etc.).
• Marketing cookies: Used by HubSpot to track form submissions and manage our CRM communications.

When you first visit our website, you will be asked to accept or decline non-essential cookies via our cookie banner. You can update your preferences at any time by clearing your browser cookies and revisiting the site.

For more information about cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

9. Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously. We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information against unauthorised access, loss, destruction or alteration. These include:

• Secure HTTPS connections on all pages of our website
• Access controls limiting who within our firm can access personal data
• Regular review of our security practices
• Use of reputable, security-certified third-party service providers

However, no internet transmission is entirely secure. While we take every precaution, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of data transmitted to our website.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or in applicable law. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, want to exercise your data rights, or have a complaint about how we handle your personal data, please contact us: