Privacy Policy

Sterling Chase Surveys Limited is the data controller for the personal information described in this notice. We are a residential surveying practice regulated by RICS.

We are a small practice and are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer. Please use the contact details above for any data protection question.

• Contact and enquiry details — your name, email address, telephone number, the service you are interested in and anything you tell us in your message.
• Property information — the property address, a listing link, the marketed price, the estate agent, and any photographs or documents you send us.
• Survey and job records — instructions, our terms, site notes, inspection photographs and video, measurements, correspondence and the reports we produce.
• Account records — quotations, invoices, payment status and related accounting information.
• Website information — if you allow analytics cookies, information about how the site is used (see “Cookies and analytics” below). Our hosting and email providers also process technical information such as IP addresses and delivery logs in order to run the service securely.

We do not ask for special category data (such as health information). Please only send us what is relevant to your enquiry or survey.

Sometimes we receive information about you from someone else rather than from you directly — for example from an estate agent, solicitor or conveyancer, a lender, a family member arranging a survey on your behalf, or a property owner, occupier or vendor arranging access for an inspection. This is usually your name and contact details, the property address and access arrangements. We use it for the purposes set out above and this notice explains what we do with it.

We do not sell your personal information and we do not use it for marketing. We share it only where necessary, with:

• our website hosting, cloud database and secure file storage providers, which hold website enquiries and any photographs you upload;
• our email delivery provider, which sends the notification of your enquiry to our mailbox;
• our client and enquiry management system, which records enquiries so we can follow them up;
• our accountants, professional advisers and insurers;
• other professionals involved in your transaction, where you ask us to send them a copy of a report or correspond with them;
• RICS, regulators, ombudsman schemes or legal authorities where we are required or permitted to do so.

Our suppliers act on our instructions under written terms that require them to keep your information secure and to use it only for the services they provide to us.

Sterling Chase Surveys operates within the UK. Some technology suppliers we use may process or support personal information from locations outside the UK. Where this occurs, appropriate data-protection safeguards are required under UK data-protection law.

You can ask us for more detail about the safeguards that apply.

• Completed survey and job files (including instructions, our terms, correspondence, site notes, photographs, video and reports) — up to 15 years from the date we last provided a professional service or advice, reflecting RICS record-retention guidance and the long-stop period for professional liability.
• Enquiries and quotations that do not become instructions — 24 months from our last meaningful contact with you, unless we need to keep them longer for a legal dispute or obligation.
• Accounting and tax records — 6 years where applicable.
• Cookies and analytics — see “Cookies and analytics” below; these are governed by the cookie lifetimes and data-retention settings of our analytics provider.

When information is no longer needed it is securely deleted or anonymised. Copies may remain in our secure backups for a limited period after deletion as part of normal backup and recovery processes, after which they are overwritten.

Our website sets a small number of essential items in your browser so that it works properly and so we can remember your cookie choice. These do not need your consent.

With your consent, we also use Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-HNSTHP5T9K), provided by Google, to understand how many people visit the site and which pages they use. The Google Analytics script is not loaded at all until you select “Accept analytics” on our cookie banner. If you decline, or later withdraw consent, the script is not loaded, further analytics collection is switched off, and any Google Analytics cookies already set on your device are deleted.

Google Analytics cookies are set by Google and expire according to Google’s settings, typically up to two years for the main visitor cookie. The information collected is held in Google Analytics subject to the data-retention period configured in that account. Your cookie choice itself is stored in your browser’s local storage on your device and stays there until you change it or clear your browser data.

You can change or withdraw your choice at any time, as easily as you gave it: open cookie settings. The same “Cookie settings” link appears in the footer of every page. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings.

Enquiries sent through our website are transmitted over an encrypted connection. Photographs you upload are stored in private cloud storage that is not publicly accessible, and links to them are time-limited. Access to our systems is restricted to the surveyor and, where necessary, our suppliers acting under contract, using individual accounts and passwords. No system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we keep our arrangements under review.

We do not use your personal information to make automated decisions that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you, and we do not carry out profiling. Our advice and reports are the professional judgement of a qualified surveyor.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• ask us to delete information, in certain circumstances;
• ask us to restrict how we use it, in certain circumstances;
• object to our use of it where we rely on legitimate interests;
• ask us to transfer information you gave us to another organisation, where that right applies;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example analytics cookies), without affecting anything done beforehand.

These rights are not absolute. We may need to keep certain records to meet our legal, regulatory, insurance or accounting obligations, and we will explain if that applies.

To exercise any of these rights, email enquiries@sterlingchasesurveys.co.uk, telephone 01959 477123 or write to us at the registered office address above. We may ask you to confirm your identity. There is normally no charge, and we will respond within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at www.ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

We may update this notice from time to time to reflect changes to our services, our suppliers or the law. The date below shows when it was last updated, and the current version is always available on this page.