Privacy policy

This policy explains how Carmarthenshire Property Maintenance collects, uses and protects your personal information when you visit our website, contact us or use our services. We only collect what we need to deal with your enquiry and carry out work for you, and we never sell your information.

1. Who we are

Carmarthenshire Property Maintenance provides property maintenance services to homes and businesses across Carmarthenshire, Wales. For the purposes of UK data protection law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, we are the controller of the personal information described in this policy.

If you have any questions about this policy or your information, you can contact us by:

• Email: info@carmarthenshirepropertymaintenance.co.uk
• Phone: 07985 165149

2. Information we collect

Information you give us. When you fill in our quote form, email us, call us or message us on WhatsApp, we may collect:

• your name
• your phone number and email address
• your address and postcode, so we know where the work is
• details of the work you need and any other information you choose to tell us

Information from carrying out work. If you become a customer, we will also keep records of the work we carry out, invoices and payments.

Information collected automatically. Like most websites, our web server records basic technical information when you visit, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages you view. When you send our quote form, your IP address is also used briefly to help block spam and repeated automated submissions.

We do not ask for any special category information, such as health details, and we ask that you do not include this in your enquiry.

3. How we use your information

We use your information to:

• reply to your enquiry and give you information about our services and hourly rate
• arrange visits and carry out the work you have asked for, including emergency call-outs
• send invoices and keep records of payments
• keep business and tax records as required by law
• keep our website working properly and protect it from spam and misuse

We will not send you marketing messages unless you have asked us to.

4. Our legal basis for using your information

Under UK data protection law we must have a lawful reason to use your information. We rely on:

• Contract: when we need your information to give you a quote at your request or to carry out work you have asked us to do.
• Legal obligation: when we need to keep records for tax and accounting purposes.
• Legitimate interests: when we reply to general enquiries, run and protect our website and keep reasonable business records. We only do this where it does not override your rights.

5. Who we share your information with

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. We only share it where needed to run our business, with:

• Our website and email hosting provider, which stores our website and email on our behalf.
• Our website developer, who may have access to the website to maintain and support it.
• Professional advisers, such as an accountant, where needed for our business and tax records.
• Authorities, such as HMRC or the police, where we are legally required to.

Anyone we share information with is only allowed to use it for the purpose we have given it to them for.

WhatsApp. Our website has a button that opens a WhatsApp chat with us. If you choose to message us on WhatsApp, your phone number, name and messages are handled by WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, as well as by us. WhatsApp's use of your information is covered by its own privacy policy at whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy. The button does not send any information until you choose to start a chat.

Fonts. Our website uses the Barlow typeface from Google Fonts. Where fonts are loaded from Google's servers, your browser shares your IP address with Google so the fonts can be displayed. Google's use of this information is covered by its own privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.

6. How long we keep your information

• Enquiries that do not lead to work: we keep these for up to 12 months, in case you get back in touch, then delete them.
• Customer and job records: we keep these for up to six years after the work is finished, to meet tax and accounting rules and deal with any questions about the work.
• Spam protection data: the IP address check on our quote form is automatically cleared within 10 minutes.

7. Cookies and website data

Cookies are small files stored on your device by websites. Our website does not use advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not use analytics to follow your activity across other websites.

Our website runs on WordPress, which may set strictly necessary cookies needed for the site to work, for example when the website owner is logged in. These cookies are not used to identify or track visitors. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings at any time.

If we start using any cookies that are not strictly necessary, we will update this policy and ask for your consent first.

Our website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites, so please read their own policies.

8. Keeping your information secure

We take sensible steps to protect your information. Our website uses an SSL certificate, so information sent through our quote form is encrypted, and access to our website and email accounts is password protected. No system can be completely secure, but we work to keep your information safe and only let people access it where they need to.

9. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Correct information that is wrong or incomplete
• Ask us to delete your information
• Ask us to restrict how we use your information
• Object to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests
• Ask for your information to be transferred to you or another organisation

Some of these rights only apply in certain situations. For example, we may need to keep some records to meet our legal obligations even if you ask us to delete them. To use any of these rights, email info@carmarthenshirepropertymaintenance.co.uk or call 07985 165149. There is normally no charge, and we will respond within one month.

10. Making a complaint

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please contact us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator:

• Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
• Helpline: 0303 123 1113

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, for example if we add new services or features to our website. The latest version will always be on this page, with the date it was last updated shown at the top.