Privacy & Cookie Policy

1. Who we are

This website is operated by Selling Surrey Limited ("Selling Surrey", "we", "us", "our"), an independent estate agency covering Surrey and the surrounding area.

Selling Surrey Limited is the data controller responsible for your personal information in connection with this website.

2. What information we collect

We primarily collect personal information that you choose to give us directly, through the forms on this website, or that is generated automatically through your use of the site (such as analytics data, described in Section 9). We may also receive personal information about you from third parties where relevant to providing our services or meeting our legal or regulatory obligations.

Valuation and seller enquiries

If you request a property valuation or register interest in selling, we collect information such as your name, email address, telephone number, property address/postcode, and details about your property and your plans (for example, your timeframe for moving).

Buyer Network registrations

If you register with our Buyer Network, we collect information such as your name, email address, telephone number, budget, property preferences (bedrooms, property type), preferred areas, and your timescale for buying.

New Homes and developer enquiries

If you register interest in a new-homes development, or contact us as a developer or landowner, we collect information such as your name, email address, telephone number, and details of the development or land you're enquiring about.

General enquiries

If you contact us directly (for example, by email), we collect whatever information you choose to share with us in that correspondence.

3. How and why we use your information

We use the personal information described above to:

• respond to your enquiry, valuation request, or registration;
• take the steps you've asked us to take before entering into a service with you (for example, arranging a valuation appointment);
• provide the property or buyer-matching service you've instructed us to provide;
• keep records required for legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or anti-money-laundering purposes; and
• understand how visitors use this website, but only where you have given analytics consent (see Section 9).

Submitting an enquiry or registration through this website does not sign you up to general marketing communications. See Section 4 for more on this.

4. Marketing

We distinguish clearly between:

• Service communications — messages necessary to respond to, progress or manage an enquiry or service you've requested (for example, confirming a valuation appointment, or telling you about a property matching your Buyer Network criteria). These are a normal part of providing the service you've asked for.
• General marketing — broader promotional communications not tied to a specific enquiry you've made.

General email marketing is not currently part of how this website operates. Submitting a form on this site does not opt you into general marketing. If we introduce general marketing in future, we will ask for your separate, specific opt-in where required by law, and you will always be able to opt out.

5. Our lawful bases for processing

Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases, depending on the specific processing activity:

• Legitimate interests, and/or taking steps at your request before entering into a contract — for property and service enquiries, as appropriate to the particular enquiry (for example, responding to a valuation request or Buyer Network registration).
• Performance of a contract — where processing becomes necessary to provide a service you've instructed us to carry out.
• Legal obligation — where we're required to process or retain information for legal or regulatory purposes, including applicable anti-money-laundering requirements.
• Consent — for analytics cookies (Google Analytics), which only run after you actively grant consent. See Section 9.

6. How long we keep your information

• Enquiries that don't become clients — normally retained for up to 12 months after our last interaction with you, unless there is a legitimate or legal reason requiring a different period.
• Client, transaction and anti-money-laundering records — relevant records may be retained for at least 5 years where required by applicable legal or regulatory obligations. Other records are retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for legal, regulatory, tax, contractual or dispute-resolution purposes.
• Google Analytics — our GA4 property is configured to retain event and user data for 14 months.

7. Who we share information with

We don't sell your personal information. We may share it where necessary to provide our services, operate this website, comply with legal or regulatory obligations, or establish, exercise or defend legal claims. The website services we currently use, which may involve sharing personal information, are:

• Formspree — used to process and deliver submissions from the forms on this website to us.
• Google Analytics 4 / Google — used for website analytics, but only once you've actively granted analytics consent. See Section 9.
• Google Fonts — the typefaces on this website are currently served from Google's infrastructure. As a technical consequence of loading a web font, your device's IP address may be transmitted to Google when font files are requested, regardless of cookie consent.

We may also disclose information where required by law, regulation, or to a professional adviser, regulator or law-enforcement body where legally necessary.

8. International data transfers

Some of the processors referred to in Section 7 (including Google) may process information outside the UK. Where this happens, we rely on the safeguards those providers have in place for international transfers, such as the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum or equivalent standard contractual clauses.

9. Cookies and similar technologies

This website uses Google Consent Mode (Basic implementation). In practice, this means Google Analytics does not load, and no request is made to Google's analytics or tag infrastructure, until you actively grant analytics consent.

When you first visit, a banner lets you choose to:

• Accept all — enables analytics cookies as well as strictly necessary technologies;
• Reject non-essential — only strictly necessary technologies are used; Google Analytics never loads;
• Manage preferences — choose individually.

The site remains fully usable whichever option you choose — strictly necessary functionality is never affected by your analytics choice. You can reopen these controls and change or withdraw your choice at any time using the "Cookie settings" link in the footer of every page.

Your cookie preference itself is stored in your browser's first-party localStorage, not a traditional cookie, so that we can remember your choice without needing to ask again on every page.

We haven't stated a specific lifetime for the Google Analytics cookies above, as this is controlled by Google and can change. Our GA4 property's own data retention setting (which governs how long Google retains analytics data associated with you, not the cookie's browser lifetime) is set to 14 months.

10. Data security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we hold from unauthorised access, loss, misuse or disclosure. No method of transmission over the internet is ever completely secure, but we work to protect your information appropriately.

11. Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

• be informed about how your personal data is used;
• access the personal data we hold about you;
• have inaccurate personal data corrected, or incomplete data completed;
• request erasure of your personal data, in certain circumstances;
• request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, in certain circumstances;
• object to our processing of your personal data, in certain circumstances;
• request portability of your personal data, in certain circumstances; and
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example, analytics cookies).

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at hello@sellingsurrey.co.uk. We may need to verify your identity before responding, and we will respond within the timeframes required by law.

12. Right to complain

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your personal information, we'd welcome the chance to put things right — please contact us first at hello@sellingsurrey.co.uk. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent regulator for data protection. Full details of how to do this are available on the ICO's official website.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example to reflect changes in our practices or in the law. We'll update the "last updated" date at the top of this page when we do. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

14. Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your personal information, please contact us at hello@sellingsurrey.co.uk.