Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Brighter Surveyors Ltd is responsible for the personal information described in this policy. We are a company registered in England and Wales (company number 12951891).

You can contact us about this policy or your personal information:

• by email: info@brightersurveyors.co.uk
• by telephone: 01732 832403 or 07825 006016
• by post: Brighter Surveyors Ltd, 42 Stocks Green Road, Hildenborough, Tonbridge, Kent, TN11 9AD

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers visits to this website, messages sent through the contact form, quotation requests, instructions submitted through the instruction form, and enquiries you make by email or telephone before you instruct us.

It does not describe how we handle personal information while carrying out a survey or valuation you have instructed.

3. Information we collect

When you send us a message

The contact form asks for your name, email address, message and, if you choose to give it, your telephone number.

When you request a quotation

The quotation form asks for your name, email address and, if you choose to give it, your telephone number. It also asks about the property: its address and postcode, and optionally its type, approximate age, number of bedrooms, purchase price, whether it is listed or in a conservation area, the services you would like quotations for and anything else you tell us in the free-text box.

When you instruct us online

The instruction form asks for your full name, current address, telephone number, email address, the address of the property and the service you wish to instruct, and asks you to accept the applicable Terms of Engagement. When we receive an instruction through the form, we keep a record of what you submitted, the acceptance wording shown, the Terms of Engagement documents presented with their versions, the date and time of submission and a reference number.

How the forms send your information

When you submit a form, your answers are sent to our website’s server, which is run by our hosting provider, Cloudflare, and checked there. At present the forms do not pass submissions on to us: they show a message asking you to telephone or email us instead, and your answers are not stored.

Please only include information we need to deal with your message, quotation request or instruction.

When you email or telephone us

We receive your contact details and whatever you tell us about the property and the service you need.

When you visit the website

Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes technical information needed to deliver the website to you and to keep it secure, such as your IP address, browser and device details, and the pages you request. The pages of this website contain no analytics, advertising or social media tracking.

4. How we use it and our lawful bases

Why we use personal information, and the lawful basis for each use

What we do	Lawful basis
Reply to your enquiry, ask any questions we need to, advise which service may suit the property and send you a quotation.	Taking steps at your request before entering into a contract. Where you are enquiring on someone else’s behalf, our legitimate interests in responding to enquiries about our services.
Reply to a message sent through the contact form, by email or by telephone.	Our legitimate interests in answering questions about our services.
Receive, record and act on an instruction you submit, and keep a record of the terms you accepted.	Taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, and performing the contract.
Protect the website and the forms from spam, misuse and attack.	Our legitimate interests in keeping the website and our inbox secure.
Keep an enquiry for longer where it is needed to deal with a question, complaint or legal claim about it.	Our legitimate interests in dealing with those matters properly.

We use the information from the website forms only for the purposes described in this policy.

5. Service providers

We use the following providers to run the website and handle enquiries. They act on our instructions.

• Cloudflare: website hosting and security, and the server that checks form submissions.
• Google (Google Workspace): our business email. Messages, quotation requests and instructions you send by email are received and kept in our Google Workspace mailbox.

We may also share information where the law requires it, or where it is needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

6. International transfers

Our providers may process personal information outside the UK, including in the United States. The safeguards each provider states in its published terms are:

• Cloudflare: certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, with the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses in its data processing addendum (Cloudflare GDPR information).
• Google: UK standard contractual clauses in the Google Workspace data processing terms (Google information on standard contractual clauses).

You can contact us for more information about these safeguards.

7. How long we keep information

• Enquiries in our inbox: we keep messages and quotation requests in our business email inbox for as long as we need them to deal with your enquiry, then delete them when they are no longer required.
• Instruction records: an instruction submitted through the website is kept with the records for that instruction, for as long as those records are kept.
• Technical and security information: Cloudflare keeps the technical information it processes for limited periods in line with its own data policies.

This website does not store form submissions in a database of its own.

8. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have rights over your personal information, including the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
• ask us to delete your information;
• ask us to restrict how we use your information;
• object to our use of your information where we rely on our legitimate interests; and
• in some circumstances, ask for your information in a portable format.

Some of these rights apply only in certain circumstances. To make a request, please contact us using the details in section 1. We will normally respond within one month, and we will not usually charge a fee.

9. Raising a concern with the ICO

If you have a concern about how we handle your personal information, please contact us first so that we can try to put it right. You also have the right to raise a concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator:

• website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
• telephone: 0303 123 1113
• post: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

10. Cookies and similar technologies

The pages of this website do not set cookies and do not store information in your browser. They contain no analytics, advertising or social media tracking.

Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, may set the following security cookies. They are used only to protect the website from automated attacks:

Security cookies that Cloudflare may set

Name	Provider and purpose	Duration	When it is set
__cf_bm	Cloudflare. Helps tell people apart from automated traffic.	30 minutes after your last visit to a page	Only if Cloudflare bot protection is switched on for this website.
cf_clearance	Cloudflare. Records that your browser has passed a Cloudflare security check.	The period set in our Cloudflare security settings (30 minutes unless changed)	Only if Cloudflare asks your browser to complete a security check.

Because these technologies are strictly necessary for the security of the website and the service you are asking for, we do not ask for your consent to them, and there is no cookie banner. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, but parts of the website may not work if a security check cannot run. If we ever add technologies that need your consent, we will ask for it first and update this policy.

11. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy if the way we handle personal information changes. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last updated.