Privacy policy

This Privacy Statement sets out how Seekers uses and protects any personal data provided to us by our landlords, tenants or enquirers of our services, whether by using our website, by mail or telephone, via email or social media channels, or by visiting us in person.

Seekers is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain data by which you can be identified, you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement and the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (together the Data Protection Legislation).

Seekers does not intend children to view this Privacy Statement and does not knowingly collect data relating to children.

To prevent unauthorised access, use, disclosure or accidental loss, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the personal data we process. We have limited access to your personal data to those who have a business need to know to carry out their function in supporting our business.

We have also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and the Information Commissioner (the UK regulator for data protection matters) should a breach occur, where we are legally required to do so.

This Privacy Statement was last updated on 15 September 2025. There may be times that Seekers review this Privacy Statement and make changes. We advise that you review this policy from time to time.

Personal information

Seekers collects only personal data which the user has chosen to supply through completing a contact form on our website, via email or social media channels, over the phone or in person to our staff. We may also collect information from you at job fairs and other similar events. This personal data will comprise contact information (including email account, postal address and social media account), financial data and transaction information relating to the property/properties you own or in which you are interested. We will also collect information from prospective tenants such as employment references, previous landlord references, bank statements and information about any third parties acting in their capacity as guarantors. We will collect identity information to guard against fraud and information held by credit reference agencies.

Very occasionally, we may collect health data from our tenants and/or property owners to facilitate our business arrangement, where (for example) a property requires wheelchair access, or where an individual has a hearing or visual impairment. Where this occurs, we will seek your explicit written consent. Otherwise, it is not our intention to process sensitive personal data about you and no other sensitive personal data is collected by us.

In response to contact made by you, Seekers may contact you by email, post, SMS or telephone. We may also respond to you on various social media channels including X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Feefo. You can withdraw consent for marketing communications at any time by unsubscribing.

Depending on your query or request, we may contact you for the following reasons:

to provide property details of specific properties or services you have expressed interest in;
to process property details provided by you to facilitate the rental, management or sale of your property by us; and
to provide property details of additional properties and/or services we think you will be interested in based on the criteria provided.

If you engage Seekers’ services to buy, sell, rent, let or manage a property (or any other service) we will hold your data for as long as is reasonably necessary and use it to contact you in order to fulfil our contractual and legal obligations.

It is important that all personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Lawful Basis for processing personal Data

We will only use your personal data when the law permits us to do so. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in one or more of the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests. Seekers has conducted a Legitimate Interest Assessment (LIA) in order to show the purpose, necessity and balance of our marketing activities. We have carefully considered the reasons we process data and concluded that we have a legitimate interest to process data and that we do so in a responsible and ethical manner that does not negatively impact the individuals who provide their personal details to us;
Where we have obtained your explicit and informed consent; and/or
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Marketing

All personal data is securely stored and processed in line with the Data Protection Legislation and use of this data for electronic marketing purposes meets the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). We engage certain third parties which support our business by providing us with property owner lists. We do not perform cold calling or contact you unless you have provided your consent, or where you have actively contacted us or registered with us with the intention of using our services.

Disclosure to Third-Parties

We do not generally share your personal information with third parties as we understand that this information is private. However, in limited circumstances, we may need to provide your personal details to certain third parties where there is a business operational need such as:

service providers to support our business who provide website, communications, IT and system administration services (eg. we use Vebra Alto as our CRM tool) and data analytics providers;
providers of financial transaction and payment products and services, acting as data processors;
professional advisors including bankers, lawyers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide banking, legal, insurance and accounting services;
online advertising related service providers providing social media platforms and advertising networks to deliver, tailor and measure advertising to you;
deposit registration services where requested to do so by landlords including (but not limited to) TDS, DPS and MyDeposits;
public authorities and regulators (including police and local authorities) where we are required to share information regarding your property or in relation to anti-social behaviour, public disorder offences or in relation to the investigation of a crime;
PropertyMark, of which we are members and which acts as a professional body for our business;
The Property Ombudsman of which we are members and which acts as a professional body for any disputes/complaints arising from our business dealings;
universities and other higher and further education organisations;
utility companies and bill management companies (such as The Student Energy Group);
suppliers and contractors on specific instructions where necessary for the maintenance and/or repair of properties.
other companies within our group structure, such as First-Rate Maintenance Limited which provides property maintenance services;
third parties, to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or assets or alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way set out in this Privacy Statement;

Where we give access to our service providers to process your personal data this will only be done in accordance with our strict instructions and where our business practices require such disclosures to be made.

We require all third party service providers and/or professional advisors to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third parties to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Cookies

A cookie is a small data file that certain web sites write to your hard drive when you visit them. The only personal information a cookie can obtain is information a user supplies him or herself. A cookie cannot read data from your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites.

This website uses cookies so that we can serve you better. All user data collected in this manner is anonymous. This site uses visitor tracking software that will use cookies to track information about how visitors come to the website, which pages they visit, and other actions that visitors make whilst on the site. This data is then used to improve the user experience of the web site.

Should you wish to do so, you can refuse cookies by disabling them in your web browser's settings but some features, such as retaining any search preferences, will no longer work.

The following cookies are used within the site;

Tracking Cookies: Seekers uses site-tracking software to monitor visitor traffic patterns and site usage. This software does not enable us to capture any personal information. This service is provided by Google Analytics.
Social Media: Social Media elements of the site may create cookies for their purpose.

International Transfers

Whilst it is unusual for us to transfer your personal data outside the UK and/or European Economic Area (EEA), there may be exceptional circumstances where this is necessary. This will only happen where a landlord resides outside the UK and/or EEA territory and we are required to transfer to them the personal data of the contracting tenant(s). We are required to do this to perform our contract with the landlord(s) and tenant(s) in such cases.

Where possible, we will ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that at least one of the following safeguards are implemented:-

The country in question is deemed by the European Commission to provide an adequate level of protection for transfers of personal data;
Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework which requires them to provide similar levels of protection to that found within the UK and EEA territories;

However, where such safeguards do not exist, we will seek your explicit consent before we allow any personal data about you to cross borders outside of this geographical area.

Please be aware that data transfers to countries outside of the EEA that do not provide the safeguards listed above may not provide adequate levels of protection for personal data. Whilst we will ensure the safeguarding of your personal data here in the UK, and use safeguards where possible, we cannot guarantee that your data will be protected abroad. Accordingly, where we transfer personal data outside the EEA, we will obtain your explicit consent and we will inform you about any specific risks at this time. You may withdraw this consent at any time, however this may mean that we are no longer able to provide our services to you.

Your Legal Rights

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which overrides your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it. 

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated. 

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above including details about personal data held about you, please contact us using any of the details below;

Walton Robinson Ltd (trading as Seekers), 101 Percy Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, NE1 7RY
dataprivacymanager@seekersproperty.co.uk
0191 243 1000
General Contact Form