Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Our use of your personal data will be governed by this Privacy Notice.

SVA Estates is a controller for the personal information that it collects and uses about you. We will treat your personal information as confidential and in accordance with applicable data protection legislation and your personal information will only be shared with others in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

This Privacy Notice explains:

  • What personal information is
  • How we collect your personal information
  • The types of personal information we collect
  • How we use your personal information
  • The legal basis for processing your personal information
  • How we share your personal information
  • How long we keep your personal information
  • How we keep your personal information secure
  • Overseas transfers of your personal information
  • Your rights in relation to your personal information
  • How to make complaints and how to contact us

If there are any changes to the way in which your personal information is used, this Privacy Notice will be updated.

2. What is personal data?

Personal information is any information that tells us something about you. This could include information such as name, contact details, date of birth, bank account details or any information about your needs or circumstances which would allow us to identify you.

Some personal information is classified as "special category" data under data protection legislation. This includes information relating to health, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or political opinions and sexual orientation. This information is more sensitive, and we need to have further justifications for collecting, storing and using this type of personal data. There are also additional restrictions on the circumstances in which we are permitted to collect and use criminal conviction data.

3. What personal information do we collect?

We will collect your full name and contact details (such as phone number, email address and postal address) from you whenever you engage with us.

In addition, if we are providing a service to you, or on your behalf, where we are required to do so by law, we will collect information relating to your identity, which will be at least one form of photographic identification (such as a passport, a driving licence or an identification card) and one form of documentation with proof of your place of residence (such as a recent utility bill).

Depending on the service that we provide to you (or on your behalf) we may also collect additional personal information as detailed below;

Buy, Sell, Let, Rent

If you are buying, selling, renting or letting a property through us; 

  • We will collect a contact telephone number to get in touch with you about organising viewings and updating you on any offers received or rental applications for your property.
  • Where you are not the legal owner of the property we will request details from you as to your ability to sell or let the property.
  • Where you engage with SVA Estates, we may collect information required to identify you to meet anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing requirements.
  • If we are dealing with an entity such as a company, trust or charity, we may need to obtain personal information for the beneficiaries of the entity and those in a position of control. This will include, but is not limited to, identity and address documents. We may also need to collect information on other individuals who have an interest in the property who are not considered to be our customers.
  • We will collect your bank account details to arrange onward payment of rent due to you.
  • If you wish to rent a property we are listing we will collect Your bank / building / similar account details to allow us to manage an approved tenancy deposit account for you and to set up your rental payments.
  • Where we are working alongside third parties such as solicitors, developers, joint or multi agents, we may need to share these documents.
  • If you wish to purchase or rent a property we are listing for sale we will collect personal information relating to any specific access requirements you may have in relation to a property so that we can find a property that is suitable for your needs. We will also collect personal information required to source a property for you and, where required, negotiate the purchase of a property on your behalf.
  • We may also need to collect specific identity documents from you for the purpose of preventing and detecting crime, fraud or money laundering.

Investment

  • Where you engage us for portfolio management services we will share your personal information with third party lenders as is necessary to allow us to fulfil our obligations to you, to raise finance for you and to properly manage and advise you on your property investments.
  • Where you engage with SVA Estates, we will collect and hold your personal data to maintain a register of investment holdings in order to comply with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Marketing

  • If you subscribe to receive news or other market updates from us, then in addition to the above we will collect details about the sector in which you work and the type of content that you would like to receive.

Other

  • We will share personal information with our regulators, governmental or quasi-governmental organisations, law enforcement authorities and with courts, tribunals and arbitrators as may be required from time to time in order to comply with our regulatory and legal obligations.
  • Where we use third party services providers who process personal information on our behalf in order to provide services to us. This includes IT systems providers and IT contractors as well as third party referencing or screening agencies for the purposes of the prevention and detection of crime.

4. How we get the personal information and why we have it

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one or more of the following services:

  • Buy
  • Sell
  • Let
  • Rent
  • Invest

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are: 

(a) Your consent. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by using the contact information at the top of this policy

(b) We have a contractual obligation.

(c) We have a legitimate interest.

5. What happens if you do not provide information that we request?

We need some of your personal information to perform the services you have requested from us. For example:

  • where we are selling a property on your behalf, we need to know your contact information so that we can update you with information on viewings, offers and the progress of the sale; and
  • where you have asked us to find you a property which meets certain access requirements, we may need to know some further details about your circumstances so that we can find you a suitable property.

We also need some information so that we can comply with our legal obligations. For example, we may need identity documents from you to meet our obligations to prevent fraud and money laundering.

If you do not provide the information required for these purposes, we will not be able to perform our contract with you and may not be able to provide services to you or continue to provide certain services to you. We will explain when this is the case at the point where we collect information from you.

6. How we store your personal information?

The security of information is very important to us and we have measures in place which are designed to prevent unauthorised access to your personal information including but not limited to:

Our client files are stored on our secure client management systems. Access is restricted on our client systems to those within the business who are required to have access to your information for legitimate business purposes.

Hard copy documentation is stored in locked cabinets.

All data is hosted in datacentres which have systems and protections in place to protect against both unauthorised access, and other external factors that could cause damage to, your personal data. There are strict access requirements in place and access is restricted to those absolutely necessary.

We ensure access to personal information is restricted to SVA Estates employees and workers or other persons working within the company on a need to know basis. Training is provided to any of those SVA Estates employees and workers who need access to personal information.

7. How long will we keep your personal information?

The period for which we will keep your personal information will depend on the type of service you have requested from us. The retention period may be longer than the period for which we are providing services to you where we have statutory or regulatory obligations to retain personal information for a longer period, or where we may need to retain the information in case of a legal claim.

We keep your contact information for 5 years. We will then dispose your information.

We are required to keep your financial information for 5 years. We will then dispose your information.

8. International transfers of your personal information

Your personal information will not be shared or stored outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).

9. Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that is downloaded onto your computer when you visit certain websites and allows a website to recognise a user's computer. Cookies are used to help users navigate websites more efficiently and to perform certain functions, as well as to provide information to the owners of the website.

Below is a list of the cookies this website collects:

  • _atuvc: Updates the counter of a websites social sharing features
  • _atuvs: Ensures updated counter is displayed to the user if a page is shared via a social networking site
  • _at.cww: Used by the social sharing platforms
  • At-lojson-cache-#: Used by the social sharing platforms
  • At-rand: Used by the social sharing platforms

Below is a list of the third-party cookies on this website:

Google Analytics:

Cookies: _ga, _gid, _gat, ads/ga-audiences

The SVA Estates Website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google. This sets a cookie in order to evaluate your use of our website and compile reports for us on activity of our website.

How to reject or delete this cookie - http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html

Facebook:

Cookies: _fbp, fr, common/cavalry_endpoint.php, tr

Facebook, may use cookies, web beacons, and other storage technologies to collect or receive specific types of information and SVA Estates may use that information to provide targeted ads.

For more information: https://en-gb.facebook.com/help/568137493302217

Twitter:

Cookies: _widgetsettings, i/jot

The SVA Estates Website uses Twitter ads to remarket or use similar audiences to display adverts on Twitter.

https://help.twitter.com/en/safety-and-security/privacy-controls-for-tailored-ads

10. Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. 

Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete. 

Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances. 

Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances. 

Your right to object to processing - You have the the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us using the contact details at the top of this policy if you wish to make a request.

11. How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us using the contact details at the top of this privacy policy.

You can also complain to the supervisory authority if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The Office if the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection address:            

Office address:
Iasonos 1, 1082 Nicosia, Cyprus

Postal address
P.O.Box 23378, 1682 Nicosia, Cyprus

Tel: +357 22818456
Fax: +357 22304565

Email: commissionerdataprotection.gov.cy 

website: http://www.dataprotection.gov.cy