Privacy
policy

WEST END STUDENT PROPERTIES LIMITED (trading as WESP Student Properties) is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, store, and share your personal data when you use our website and lettings services, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

WEST END STUDENT PROPERTIES LIMITED is the data controller responsible for your personal data. We are registered with the Information Commission (formerly the Information Commissioner’s Office), registration number ZA516163. If you have any questions about this policy or our data practices, please contact us at:

WEST END STUDENT PROPERTIES LIMITED (trading as WESP Student Properties)
Registered office: Suite 1, Aireside House, Royd Ings Avenue, Keighley, West Yorkshire, BD21 4BZ
Office: 12 Newland, Lincoln LN1 1XD
Email: office@wesplincoln.co.uk
Telephone: 01522 589970

The personal data we hold falls into these categories:

• Contact information: name, email address, telephone number, and postal address provided when you register, make an enquiry, or instruct us to act on your behalf.
• Property search data: search criteria, saved properties, property alert preferences, and browsing activity on our website.
• Tenancy data: information about the tenancies we arrange or manage, including applications, references, guarantor details, and rent and deposit payments.
• Identity verification: copies of identification documents such as passports and visas, which the law requires us to check before a tenancy starts (Right to Rent).
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, operating system, and device information collected automatically when you visit our website.

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

• Providing our services: to advertise our houses and rooms, arrange viewings, process applications, and manage tenancies.
• Property alerts: to send you notifications about properties matching your saved search criteria, where you have opted in to this service.
• Communication: to respond to your enquiries, provide property updates, and send service-related communications.
• Legal obligations: to carry out Right to Rent checks, protect tenancy deposits, meet tax obligations, and comply with the other legal requirements that apply to letting agents.
• Website improvement: to analyse how our website is used and to improve its functionality, content, and user experience.
• Marketing: to send you information about our services, market updates, and property news, where you have consented to receive such communications. You can opt out at any time.

We process your personal data on the following legal bases:

• Consent: where you have given clear consent for us to process your data for a specific purpose, such as property alerts or marketing emails.
• Contract: where processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, such as arranging or managing a tenancy agreement.
• Legal obligation: where processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation, such as Right to Rent checks and deposit protection.
• Legitimate interests: where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as improving our website and services, provided these interests are not overridden by your rights.

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your browsing experience. These include:

• Essential cookies: the ones the site cannot run without, covering things like keeping you signed in and protecting the forms from abuse.
• Functional cookies: used to remember your preferences such as search criteria, theme settings, and saved properties.
• Analytics cookies: used, only if you accept them, to understand how visitors interact with our website, helping us to improve its performance and content.
• Advertising cookies: Google Ads, used only if you accept marketing cookies, to measure which of our adverts lead to enquiries. When you send an enquiry, your email address and phone number are scrambled (hashed) in your browser before they are passed to Google, so that it can match the enquiry to an advert you clicked.
• Third-party services: our website integrates with Google Maps (for property location mapping), Google Analytics, Google Ads and Google reCAPTCHA (which checks that our forms are sent by a person), which may set their own cookies. These are governed by Google's privacy policy. Full details are in our Cookies Policy.

You can change your choice at any time with the cookie settings link at the foot of every page, or through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website, including map displays and property search features.

We may share your personal data with the following parties:

• Advertising: where a landlord instructs us to let a property, its details may be advertised on this website and on third-party property portals.
• Service providers involved in a tenancy: referencing agencies, the tenancy deposit protection scheme, contractors carrying out repairs, utility and broadband suppliers for all-inclusive rent, and solicitors, where necessary to arrange or manage your tenancy.
• Regulatory bodies: where required by law, such as HMRC for tax purposes or the Home Office in connection with Right to Rent checks.
• Technology providers: trusted third-party service providers who assist in operating our website and delivering our services, under appropriate data processing agreements.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected. Specific retention periods include:

• Enquiry data: retained for up to 2 years after your last interaction with us, unless you request earlier deletion.
• Tenancy records: retained for 6 years after the tenancy ends, for tax purposes and to deal with any legal claims.
• Right to Rent documents: retained for the length of the tenancy and for one year after it ends, as the Home Office requires.
• Marketing preferences: retained until you withdraw your consent or unsubscribe from our communications.

Under the UK GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access: you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification: you may request correction of any inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to erasure: you may request deletion of your personal data, subject to our legal obligations to retain certain information.
• Right to restrict processing: you may request that we limit the processing of your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability: you may request a copy of your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Right to object: you may object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to withdraw consent: where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details provided above. We will respond to your request within one month.

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. This includes encrypted data transmission, secure servers, and access controls limiting data access to authorised personnel only.

Your personal data is primarily stored and processed within the United Kingdom. Where data is transferred outside the UK, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with the UK GDPR, such as standard contractual clauses or adequacy decisions.

Our website and services are not directed at individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe we have inadvertently collected data from a child, please contact us and we will take steps to delete it promptly.

We may update this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or applicable legislation. The version on this page, with its revision date, is always the current one, so it is worth looking back at now and then.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commission, the UK data protection regulator (formerly the Information Commissioner’s Office):

Information Commission
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Website: ico.org.uk
Telephone: 0303 123 1113