Gardeners Monken Hadley Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Monken Hadley collects, uses, stores and protects your personal data. It applies to all Gardeners Monken Hadley customers in the local service area, including prospective, current and past customers whose information we hold in connection with our gardening and related services.

We are committed to complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018 and to handling your information lawfully, fairly and transparently.

Personal data we collect

We collect and process personal data that is necessary to provide our services, manage our business and meet our legal obligations. The types of personal data we may collect include:

Contact details such as your name, home address, garden or property address, and where provided, your postal address. Identification and communication details such as your title or role where relevant and the communication preferences you choose to share with us. Service related details such as information about your garden or outdoor space, access instructions, service history, photographs of areas of your garden strictly for planning, estimating and record keeping purposes, and notes relating to your preferences for work carried out. Transaction data such as details of services provided, invoices issued and payments received. Correspondence such as emails, letters, messages and notes of conversations about our services, quotes, feedback or complaints.

We do not intentionally collect special category data such as health information or data relating to children. If you voluntarily share such information with us, we will handle it with additional care and only use it where necessary for the agreed service or where required by law.

How we collect your data

We generally collect personal data directly from you when you contact us, request a quote, enter into a service agreement, communicate with us about an existing service or provide feedback. We may also receive data from third parties where you have asked someone else to contact us on your behalf, for example a family member, landlord, letting agent or property manager to arrange gardening work at your property.

We may update or supplement your information from publicly available sources such as property information or the electoral register, but only where this is necessary to verify your identity, confirm an address, or pursue unpaid invoices.

Purposes and lawful bases for processing

We process your personal data for specific, explicit and legitimate purposes and only where we have a lawful basis under data protection law. The main purposes and lawful bases are:

To provide quotations and deliver gardening services. We process your contact details, service requirements and property information to prepare quotes, schedule visits, carry out the work and respond to your queries. The lawful basis is performance of a contract or steps taken at your request before entering into a contract.

To manage our relationship with you. This includes handling queries, rescheduling appointments, collecting payments, providing receipts and dealing with feedback or complaints. The lawful basis is performance of a contract and our legitimate interests in running and improving our business.

To maintain financial and service records. We keep records of services provided, invoices and payments for accounting, tax and business management purposes. The lawful bases are our legitimate interests in managing our business and compliance with legal obligations relating to tax and business records.

To send you service related messages. We may contact you with reminders about booked visits, essential changes to services, or important information about safety or access. The lawful basis is performance of a contract and our legitimate interests in ensuring services are delivered safely and efficiently.

To send you limited marketing communications. We may occasionally inform you about new or related services that may be of interest to you, such as seasonal garden maintenance. Where required, we rely on your consent to send such communications, and you can withdraw your consent at any time. Where consent is not required, we rely on our legitimate interests in promoting our services to existing customers, and you can opt out at any time.

To protect our business and enforce our rights. We may process your information where necessary to prevent or detect fraud or misuse of our services, to recover unpaid sums or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. The lawful basis is our legitimate interests and, where applicable, compliance with legal obligations.

Data sharing and processors

We do not sell your personal data and we limit sharing to what is necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

We may share your data with third party service providers acting as data processors who support our business operations, including providers of administration or scheduling tools, bookkeeping or accounting support, secure data storage or backup services, and professional advisers such as accountants. These processors are only permitted to process your personal data in accordance with our instructions, under a written contract, and must implement appropriate security measures.

In limited circumstances we may share your data with third parties acting as independent controllers, where they determine their own purposes and means of processing. Examples include banks or payment service providers when you make a payment, insurers or legal advisers where needed for claims or disputes, and public authorities where we are legally required to disclose information.

Where any processing involves transfers outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as adequacy regulations or standard contractual clauses, to protect your personal data.

Data retention

We keep your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and to meet our legal and regulatory obligations.

In general, contact details and service records are retained for as long as you remain a customer and for a period after your last interaction with us, so that we can respond to queries and maintain continuity if you return to us. Financial records such as invoices and payment history are usually retained for at least six years after the end of the relevant tax year, to comply with tax and accounting requirements.

Photographs or service notes used for planning work are retained only while relevant to current or reasonably anticipated future services, unless they form part of records that must be kept for legal, insurance or dispute resolution purposes.

When personal data is no longer required, we will delete it or anonymise it so that it can no longer be linked to you.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data, subject to certain conditions and exemptions. These include:

The right of access. You can request confirmation of whether we process your personal data and obtain a copy of the personal data we hold about you, along with certain additional information.

The right to rectification. You can ask us to correct or complete personal data that is inaccurate or incomplete.

The right to erasure. You can ask us to delete your personal data in certain circumstances, for example where it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or where you withdraw consent and there is no other lawful basis for processing.

The right to restriction of processing. You can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, such as while we are verifying its accuracy or considering an objection you have raised.

The right to object. You can object at any time to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests, including for direct marketing. We will stop processing for these purposes unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds or where required for legal claims.

The right to data portability. Where our processing is based on your consent or on a contract and is carried out by automated means, you may request that we provide your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format, or transmit it to another controller where technically feasible.

The right to withdraw consent. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, our practices or applicable law. Any updated version will apply from the date it is made available and will govern how we handle personal data from that point onwards.