Privacy and Other Information

Privacy and Data Protection

Mills Chody LLP (company number: OC335406), provides legal services and we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.  Our registered office is 226-228 Kenton Road, Kenton, Harrow, Middlesex HA3 8BZ. In providing our services, we control and process certain personal information about you.  For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘the Act’) we are a data controller, we determine the purpose and method of processing your personal information. We are also a data processor, we collect, record, organise, structure, store and /or use your personal information. The personal information we collect and use is information from which an individual can be identified or is identifiable. We may collect your personal information when you contact us by completing a submission form on our website, by telephone, in writing and/or email. We may receive personal information about you from third parties which we will add to the personal information we already hold, where necessary in the provision of services to you. Where appropriate and proportionate, we will advise of the source and type of that personal information. Your rights in relation to that personal information are also as set out in this policy. On occasion we use emails to communicate with you and with others. Whilst we utilise virus protection software we cannot guarantee that emails sent by us will be virus free. It is your responsibility to carry out virus checks before opening any email sent by us to you. Emails pass through unregulated service providers and may be subject to interception by governments or others. We do not encrypt emails and they may therefore be vulnerable to these risks. Your acceptance of our terms of business specifically operates as your consent to include confidential information to you and third parties in non-encrypted email. If you do not wish us to communicate with you or third parties in connection with your matter by email you must confirm this instruction to us in writing. We may collect, store and transfer personal information which includes your title, name, address, telephone number, date of birth and email address as well as data which includes information you provide to us when contacting us in relation to the provision of the services to you and website usage data such as your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and navigation paths, and information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your website use. The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system. We may receive special categories of personal information from you when you provide it while using our services. Special categories include information relating to your:

  • racial or ethnic origin;
  • religious or philosophical beliefs;
  • physical or mental health or condition;
  • genetics or biometrics; and
  • sexual life or orientation.

We will only process personal information which is in a special category in direct provision of our services. The purpose and legal bases on which we collect your personal information is as follows:

  • in performance of a contract;
  • as is necessary for our legitimate interest;
  • as is necessary to comply with a legal obligation;
  • in undertaking anti-money laundering and identity checks; and
  • the prevention and detection of crime.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. We may also provide your personal data to third party providers where it is necessary for our legitimate interests in the running and administration of our business, the provision of IT services and the website, for network security and fraud prevention. We may share your personal information with the following third parties throughout our provision of the services to you:

  • other legal professionals;
  • expert witnesses;
  • government and regulatory bodies;
  • providers of IT solutions and systems to us; and
  • law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

Where we share your personal information, we will at all times do so in accordance with our regulatory obligations. We will retain your personal information for the duration of the period that we provide services to you. Following the conclusion of the services, we will retain your personal information for a period of between 6 and 12 years, depending on the type of services provided, after which it will be deleted from our systems. In some instances, your personal information may be retained for a longer period. This includes where it is necessary for us to defend or bring any actual or contemplated legal proceedings. We may use your personal information to send marketing communications to you, including:

  • advertisements for our services and offers in relation to those services; and
  • new developments or changes to the services.

You may opt out or instruct us at any time not to process your personal information for marketing purposes by contacting our data protection manager. We only transfer personal information outside of the European Economic Area for processing if our client or a beneficiary in a matter resides outside of the EEA and the transfer of data is essential in providing our service. Under the data protection act, you have a number of important rights which are exercisable. In summary, these include rights to:

  • Access to your personal information (free of charge for the first copy)  in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, as long as the request is not unreasonable or excessive and have the right to transmit that data to a third party in certain situations;
  • Require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold;
  • Request the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations;
  • Object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you; and
  • Object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information.

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individual’s rights under the Act. If you would like to exercise any of your rights, please email, call or write to our data protection manager, Ranjeet Johal, and provide us with information from which we can identify you for example, a case matter reference or your name or address and provide us with proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill). You will need to inform us as to the information to which your request relates. We will use technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal information. While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information.  You acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal information transferred from you or to you via the internet. If you have any particular concerns about your information, please contact us using our data protection manager using the details below. We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so. Our data protection manager will try to resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information. The Act also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Where you are situated in the UK, the relevant supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner. We may change this privacy policy from time to time, when we do we will provide a notice on our website. If you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, please contact our data protection manager. A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your computer (or other device) when you access our website. We use cookies on our website to:

  • recognise you whenever you visit the website (this speeds up your access to the website)
  • obtain information about your preferences, online movements and use of the internet;
  • carry out research and statistical analysis to help improve our content and to help us better understand your requirements and interests;
  • target our marketing more effectively; and
  • make your online experience more efficient and enjoyable.

In most cases, we will need your consent in order to use cookies on our website. The exception is where the cookie is essential in order for us to provide you with a service on the website that you have requested. We use Google Analytics. Google Inc utilises the data collected to track and examine the use of this website, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services and external social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Use of buttons and widgets on our website allows interaction with the relevant social network. The information obtained through this website are always subject to your privacy settings for each social network. These third-party suppliers are responsible for the cookies they set on our website. If you want further information please see the website and privacy policy for the relevant third party. The website contains links to other websites for ease of access. When you use a link to leave our website, your use of the third-party website shall be governed by that third party’s terms of use and privacy policy. We are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites.

Referral Fees

Many law firms rely on business being referred from other practices or other third parties. Mills Chody LLP is strictly monitored by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to ensure the best interests of the client and ongoing trust in the legal profession is protected. Making such payments is not outside of the SRA rules. We always inform clients at the initial point of contact whether we will be paying any referral fee to another party.

Mills Chody LLP will absorb the cost ourselves out of what we know is already a highly competitive legal fee.

We take the view that clients wish to entrust their legal matter to a firm which is fully open & honest as to costs, and in addition is accessible, with fully qualified and experienced staff.

We will not allow our independence or judgement in providing professional legal services to our clients to be prejudiced by any arrangement or other person. Therefore we will maintain a referral register of all companies and make regular checks to monitor the arrangements and ensure that our clients are treated fairly.

Complaints

We want to give you the best possible service. However, in the unlikely event you become unhappy or concerned about the service, we have provided then you should inform us immediately, so that we can do our best to resolve the problem.

In the first instance you should contact the solicitor who is dealing with your case to discuss your concerns and we will do our best to resolve any issues. If you would like to make a formal complaint, please ask your solicitor to provide you with a copy of our complaints procedure or you can obtain a copy of our complaints procedure here.

What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

If we are unable to resolve your complaint then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers.

They will look at your complaint independently and it will not affect how we handle your case.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first.

The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you.

The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are: –

  • Telephone: 0300 555 0333 / Minicom: 0300 555 1777
  • Website: legalombudsman.org.uk
  • Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ

What to do if you are unhappy with our behaviour

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Disabled Access

We will work tirelessly to ensure that the rights of disabled people are not discriminated against in accessing services and in buying or renting land or property. Our office accommodation was constructed many decades prior to the Disability Discrimination Acts of 1995 and 2005. We are conscious that the stairs to our first-floor Hatch End office in particular may be an obstacle to the less able bodied. All of our offices offer a home visiting service within the local area to the elderly or disabled, or to those who are hospitalised. All we ask is that home visits be arranged by prior appointment on reasonable notice and be within a reasonable distance of our offices. If it is difficult for you to attend our offices, for whatever reason or whatever your circumstances, simply ask if we can arrange a home visit. We have attended hospitals, sheltered accommodation, care homes and private houses to see our clients, whether elderly, infirm or less able bodied.

Anti Money Laundering

We pride ourselves on our integrity and never forget that solicitors are officers of the Supreme Court. We are scrupulous in ensuring compliance with Money Laundering regulations, in order to prevent our clients from being victims of or unwitting accessories to economic crime, and to protect the financial institutions who are also our clients. For this reason you should not be offended if we ask you at a preliminary interview or at the point of taking instructions to supply us with evidence of your identity and proof of residence. Occasionally to comply with Anti Money Laundering regulations, there may be additional checks and documents required if you are a national or resident of certain countries or a Politically Exposed Person. We may also check the details you provide with electronic databases. Just because you are asked for evidence of your identity does not mean that you are under suspicion. It is a requirement of the Land Registry in connection with any registerable transaction relating to land that the applicant supply evidence of identity through his solicitors. We will require supporting evidence of the source of any money involved, for example bank or building society documents, and full details of any third party whom you may instruct to send us funds. No cash amount of over £1,000 can be accepted from any client and any change in your original financial instructions to us may result in a delay in our ability to proceed on your behalf. Our bank and building society clients also impose obligations on us during the course of lending transactions. These vary from one institution to another but a lender will often require that we take steps to verify the source of funds which are being supplied by a borrower towards the purchase price of a property. The reason for this is three fold:

  1. in order to check that these are not the proceeds of crime;
  2. because a borrower who is also raising a second loan from a third party might be encumbering his income beyond his ability to service both debts; and
  3. if a borrower raises money from a third party, that third party might allege that they have a financial interest in the property which is the subject matter of the transaction.

If the third party lender can prove that their financial interest arose prior to the creation of the mortgage in favour of the lender then this may mean that the lender’s mortgage is postponed behind the rights of the third party. This means that the lender does not obtain a first legal charge and will have difficulty in exercising their right to take possession of the property which has been offered as security for the loan in the event of a default

Disclaimer

Do not treat anything on this site as legal advice. The contents are provided for general interest only, and have to be brief, vague and generalised. They may contain errors or be incorrect in the circumstances which apply to you. The law changes frequently, and we do not update articles which were published in the past. Any views of the law or pointers to the need for legal advice apply in general to the law of England and Wales. You must always take specific advice from a lawyer properly qualified in the legal system which applies to you. Accordingly we will not be responsible for any action which you take or refrain from taking in reliance on anything contained in this site. But we will be pleased to offer further advice or information on any of the topics here, and are of course responsible to our clients in the ordinary way for our advice to them and work done for them as solicitors. Links to other sites are provided here. These external sites are not part of our web site, they are the property and the responsibility of those publishing them, and we accept no responsibility for their contents.

Notices

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226-228 Kenton Road
Kenton
Harrow
Middlesex
HA3 8BZ

Tel: +44 (0)20 8909 0400
Fax: +44 (0)20 8907 0128
DX:
E: info@millschody.com

388 Uxbridge Road
Hatch End
Pinner
Middlesex
HA5 4JA

Tel: +44 (0)20 8428 2272
Fax: +44 (0)20 8420 1351
DX:
E: info@millschody.com

25 Manchester Square
Marylebone
London
W1U 3PY

Tel: +44 (0)20 7224 0025
Fax: +44 (0)20 7935 6469
DX:
E: info@millschody.com