Customer Privacy Notice

This privacy notice applies to the Cala Group, comprising of sister companies, Cala Homes and Legal & General Homes. It is provided to inform you of our policy and practices and of the choices you can make about the way your information is used and safeguarded.

If you have any questions please email dataprotection@cala.co.uk and we’ll be happy to help.

Who are we?

We are CALA Group (Holdings) Limited, a company registered in England & Wales, Company Number 08428265, Registered Office - Cala House, 54 The Causeway, Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey TW18 3AX and its subsidiary companies (the “Cala Group”).

In this notice, “we” and “us” refer to all of those companies.

The Cala Homes and Legal & General Homes websites are operated by CALA Management Limited, registered in Scotland under company number SC013655 and has its registered office at Adam House, 5 Mid New Cultins, Edinburgh, EH11 4DU.

1. Information we collect

Cala Group collects information in three main ways, which are outlined below. Some of this information could identify a living individual (personal information)

1. With your permission, we may collect and store personal information you provide to us
   
   This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our website, or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you enquire about homes we are advertising or register an account on our website. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address, phone number, as well as details of your home search and any comments you provide to us.
   
   If you go on to reserve or purchase with us this will also include any information you provide as part of the reservation process such as your current and new address, date of birth, credit card details, photographic identification i.e. passport / driving license, copies of bank / mortgage statements, lender details, occupational details, current property valuation, medical details (as appropriate). We will also collect and record information throughout the duration of your contract with us.
   
   
2. We will collect information when you read or download information from our website (anonymised IP addresses and cookies)
   
   We will collect information generated by your visit to the website. This may include your anonymised IP Address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Internet); the type of browser, operating system and device used to access the website; the date and time you access our website; the pages you visit; and if you visited our website from another website, the address of that other website.
   
   Some of this information may be stored on your computer in the form of a cookie. This information helps the web server track such things as your preferences and any data you submit while browsing our website. For example, the cookie can store login details and information relating to your account and user preferences.
   To find out more about cookies, please read our Cookie Policy.
   
   
3. We may monitor, record, store and use any telephone, email or other communication with you
   
   We will combine this information with information you give to us and the other information we collect about you. We will use this combined information for the purposes set out below (depending on the types of information we receive).

2. How do we use your information?

Cala Group will use your information for the following purposes:

• to provide you with services you have requested;
• to administer the website and for internal operations, including data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
• to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to send relevant advertising about our homes and services to you;
• to keep you informed about relevant new homes and news; and
• if you go on to reserve or purchase a home from us, in order to fulfil our contractual obligations with you regarding the purchase of your home and any required remedial works

More specifically Cala Group will use your personal information as follows:

1. When you read or download information from our website (IP addresses and cookies)
   
   We will collect and store information collected from cookies for statistical purposes. We may use this information to provide you with a more personal service and to assist in analysing website traffic and usage. This information does not identify you personally unless you register or make an enquiry with us, at which point Cala Group will combine it with the other information collected about you and use it for the purposes noted above.
   
   
2. When you give Cala Group your details
   
   The personal details collected from you are stored electronically and can be accessed by Cala Group. We will use the information in order to respond to your request or otherwise reply to the subject of the enquiry or email.
   
   Remember that email is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication is very sensitive you might want to send it by postal mail instead.
   
   We may also use your contact information to let you know about Cala Group products, services, future developments, news, events or special offers which may be of interest to you. Please see paragraph 8 (Your Rights) below for details about how to unsubscribe from these communications.
   
   
3. When you register on our website
   
   By registering on our website, you will gain access to an account. This is your own personal webpage which stores the geographic Areas and/ or Developments/homes you have expressed an interest in. The personal details collected from you are stored electronically and can be accessed by Cala Group.
   
   ‘Areas’ are defined as the city or county in which Cala Group is building or selling properties, for example Oxford is an Area, as is Oxfordshire. By noting your interest in an Area, we will keep you informed about developments or properties which become available within that ‘Area’.
   
   If you opt in to receive communications about nearby developments which may be of interest to you, we may share with you only immediate neighbouring properties or Developments to your selected Developments and/ or Areas. Your account also gives you control over your contact preferences and allows you to change your home search details.
   
   
4. When you telephone us, or when you request a call back
   
   We use call tracking for numbers that are displayed on our website and on our marketing materials. This allows us to find out which marketing has attracted your phone call.
   
   You will be notified when you dial the number if the call is going through call tracking. We may monitor, record, store and use these phone calls in order to check any instructions given to us, for training purposes, for compliance purposes, for crime prevention and to improve the quality of our service. Recorded phone calls are held securely by our call tracking partner and will be deleted after 30 days unless we are required to retain the recording for legal or regulatory reasons. We may combine this information with other information collected about you (cookie data, for example) and use this combined information for the purposes noted above.
   
   By calling us or by requesting a call back, you acknowledge that Cala Group may contact you by telephone on the number you have called us from for the purposes of discussing homes you have expressed an interest in with you. If you wish to make your telephone number private, please contact your telephone provider.
   
   
5. If you go on to purchase a home from us
   
   In order to fulfil our contractual obligations with you regarding the purchase of your home and any required remedial works, we are required to keep and process your personal information.
   
   Our customer service call handling system has the capability to recognise your provided contact details and collate our telephone interactions with you against your customer file. This allows our teams to provide you with the most efficient service when you contact us. We may monitor, record, store and use our telephone calls with you to check any instructions given to us, for training purposes, for compliance purposes, for crime prevention and to improve the quality of our service. Recorded phone calls are held securely by our call handling service provider (Natterbox) and will be deleted after 12 months unless we are required to retain the recording for legal or regulatory reasons.

3. Communications and Announcements from the Site

1. Transactional communications
   
   Transactional communications are those which we need in order to provide you with the services you have requested. Some examples are:
   
   • Contacting you by phone or personal email to provide information on the specific properties/ developments you have expressed an interest in.
   • Letting you know about important changes to your account.
   • Communications letting you know about the build stage of your new home and to help you through your purchase.
   
   These communications are usually in the form of phone calls SMS or emails from Cala Group employees or automatic email notifications sent by our systems.
   
   
2. Promotional communications (opt-in)
   
   If you opt-in to receive promotional communications from Cala Group, we will send you information on the specific Areas, Developments and/or properties you have expressed an interest in, as well as other Cala Group products, services, future developments, news, events or special offers which match the criteria specified by you and which therefore may be of interest to you.
   
   We will contact you with promotional communication by SMS, email or post only if you have given your permission for these forms of communication.

You can change your marketing preferences or unsubscribe at any time by accessing your account on the website, by accessing the preference centre link on emails from us, by speaking to one of our sales representatives or by emailing us at unsubscribe@cala.co.uk

Promotional communications include invitations to site launches, special offers and new home releases.

4. Using your information in accordance with data protection law

Data protection laws require that we meet certain conditions before we are allowed to use your data in the manner described in this privacy notice. We take our responsibilities under data protection laws seriously. To use your personal information, we will rely on one or more of the following conditions, depending on the activities we are carrying out:

1. Legitimate interests
   
   To use your personal data for the purposes described in this privacy policy and in order to process your data to provide you with the information you have asked for and to send you additional marketing information in relation to the developments that you have enquired about or other similar developments, we will rely on a condition known as “legitimate interests”. It is in our legitimate interests to collect your personal data as it provides us with the information that we need to provide our services (namely to provide you with information on houses which we are building or are for sale) to you more effectively.
   
   We will always act reasonably and give full and proper consideration to your interests when balancing them against our legitimate interest, and will only process the minimum data required in order to achieve this legitimate interest.
   
   
2. Consent
   
   We will only contact you in the ways that you have consented to. You can use your account to change your consent at any time.
   
   
3. Compliance with a Legal Obligation
   
   When you use our website, we will process your personal information to the extent that this is necessary for the performance of our obligations under the Terms and Conditions. We may also rely on this condition if you reserve or purchase with us.
   
   
4. Necessary for the performance of a contract
   
   If you reserve or purchase with us we may rely on this condition to process your data in connection with that reservation or purchase.

5. Security and where we store your information

Cala Group follows strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information that you have given us. Cala Group has implemented security polices, rules and technical measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control. The security measures are designed to prevent unauthorised access, improper use and disclosure, unauthorised modification and unlawful destruction or accidental loss.

Please remember that no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is completely secure and reliable. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Where you have registered for an account and we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access that account, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.

We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

The information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our third-party suppliers. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

6. Third Parties

We may appoint suppliers, sub-contractors or agents to assist us in using your data (i.e. carrying out the administrative and advertising activities set out in paragraph 2) and in order to provide you with other service(s) that you request.

Examples of such services include following up on enquiries made by you, providing further information on our homes and carrying out viewings, or in connection with reservation/purchase of your new home and completing remedial works .

Accordingly, we may pass on your personal information to any of Cala Group’s approved suppliers, sub-contractors or agents for these purposes. There may also be occasions when we are required by law to pass on your information, for example when we notify the local authority about a purchase for council tax purposes. Where you do purchase a home from us, we may also pass your personal information to utility providers to set up services for you in accordance with your instructions.

Where you have given us any information relating to your health, please note that this information may be passed to our suppliers, subcontractors and agents for the purpose of building your home to your specification and to complete remedial works.

Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:

• Technology suppliers who support our website and other business systems (including the “MyHomeFiles” Classic Folios and “Spaciable” if you go on to purchase a home from us).
• Direct marketing companies and media buyers who help us manage our electronic and printed communications with you
• Google (and its larger network) /social media platforms (such as Facebook/ Trustpilot) to show you products that might interest you while you’re browsing
  the internet/ to market our products
• Demographic data suppliers who help us to understand the populations of areas in which we are operating
• External Estate agents or Solicitors who may be acting on behalf of Cala Group to sell homes on our behalf
• Estate agents or surveying companies in order to value your current home for a part exchange against a new home (where you have asked us to do so)
• Independent Financial Advisors (for limited pre- reservation purposes)
• The National House-Building Council (NHBC), our warranty and insurance provider (if you purchase a home from us)
• Third Party Anti-Money Laundering, HMT Sanctions and Politically Exposed Persons checking providers (as part of our reservation procedures).
• Cala Group employs third party suppliers to provide services including utilising the services of a credit reference agency

If you contact Cala Group through Facebook Messenger, your data will be used to provide you with the services you have requested. The data will be stored within Facebook Messenger. Unless you ask us to, we will not store or use the information you send through Facebook Messenger in any other way.

7. Data Retention

1. If you submit your details for the purposes of enquiring about a specific property or development
   
   The personal information that you provide when you contact us will be held while there are unsold homes on that development . When the final home sells, you will be sent a transactional email to let you know and you will be given the opportunity to change your preferences or have your details deleted from our system. Please note that at certain times, this may take up to 72 hours to complete.
   
   If you do not take any action, your details will then be held on our system for 120 days, after which they will be deleted from our system unless we have a legitimate reason to retain it (for example if you are actively engaging with us about a different development or you have purchased from us).
   
   
2. If you go on to purchase a home from Cala Group
   
   We will retain your information for a period of 10 years from the date of the final legal completion at the development you have purchased.

8. Your Rights

1. You have a number of rights under data protection law in relation to the way we process your personal data. These are set out below. You may contact us to exercise any of these rights, and we will respond to any request received from you within one month from the date of the request.

Our contact address for data protection matters is dataprotection@cala.co.uk

Please address any questions, comments and requests regarding our data processing practices there in the first instance.

1. Access to your personal data and data portability
   
   You have a right of subject access. This means that you are entitled to request a copy of your personal data and we will grant you access or provide you with all personal data that we hold about you, subject to some limited exemptions (for example, you will not necessarily be entitled to access third party personal information).
   
   Also, you have a right of data portability. Under this right for information which you have provided to us, you are entitled to request that this is provided to you (or to another organisation) in a portable, machine readable, electronic format.
   
   
2. Unsubscribe
   
   You have the right to withdraw your consent for us to provide you with further information about specific properties or developments. You can do this by following the unsubscribe option attached to all of our promotional and transactional emails. For SMS messages, you can text reply “STOP” at any time. You can also unsubscribe or manage your communication preferences and interest via your account, accessed via all of our promotional or transactional emails, or by emailing us at unsubscribe@cala.co.uk
   
   
3. Rectify your personal data
   
   You have the right to require us to rectify any inaccurate personal data held by us about you. If there is any inaccuracy in the data that we hold about you, you can log in to your account to make changes, contact your sales office or as a final resort, email us.
   
   
4. Erase your personal data
   
   You have the right to require us to erase personal data held by us about you.
   
   
5. Object to our use of your personal data
   
   You have a right to object to our processing of personal data held by us about you (for example, if you would not like to be subject to any profiling).
   
   If you have any concerns regarding our processing of your personal data, we would be happy to address your query in the first instance. However, if you are not satisfied with our handling of data, any request by you in relation to your rights, you also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Their contact details can be found at ico.org.uk. 

9. Changes to Privacy Notice

Any changes we make to our privacy notice in the future will be posted on this webpage. You should check this webpage regularly in order to be aware of these changes, as they may affect you.

10. Hyperlinks

In our commitment to providing the best service and information to you, we may provide links to third party websites. If you access those links, you will leave the website. Cala Group does not control those websites or their privacy practices, which may differ from Cala Group’s. Cala Group does not endorse or make any representations about third party websites.

The Cala Group Privacy Notice does not cover the personal information that you choose to give to unrelated third parties. We encourage you to review the Privacy Notice of any company or other entity operating a website before submitting your personal information. Some third party companies may choose to share their personal information with Cala Group; that sharing is governed by the third party company’s privacy policy.