Middleton Ross Privacy Notice For Clients

What we need

Middleton Ross will be a "controller" of the personal information that you provide to us when you instruct us to act on your behalf.

When you become a client of Middleton Ross, we will collect, store and use the personal information that you provide to us in your instructions and during the course of our solicitor/client relationship.  We may ask you for additional personal information during the course of our client/solicitor relationship, which shall be collected, stored and used in accordance with this privacy notice and guidance provided by the Law Society of Scotland.

The personal information may be collected from you directly or through our third-party online Identification verification system called Amiqus. The type of information we require to collect may include but is not limited to, contact details, photographic identification, National Insurance Number, family and financial details, employment details, and date of birth.

Why we need your personal information – contractual purposes

We need to collect our clients' personal information so that we can perform our agreed legal service with you.  We will use our client's personal information to:

  • verify your identity and verify where the funds that you have submitted to us have come from
  • provide you with legal advice including communicating with you by email, letter and/or telephone, etc.;
  • Preparing documents on your behalf, seeking advice and reports from third parties including home reports, searches, legal reports, etc
  • represent you as your solicitors in connection with the legal service in which you have engaged us; and
  • respond to and communicate with clients regarding your questions, comments, support needs or complaints

Why we need your personal information – legitimate purposes

We also process our clients' personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests to:

  • promote our services by sending clients communications with information for upcoming events and legal updates; and
  • invite our clients as guests to our events, when they are held.

Why we need your personal information – legal obligations

We are under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our clients for the purposes of complying with our obligations under:

  • the Law Society of Scotland requirements for solicitors;
  • Anti-Money Laundering Regulations; and
  • HM Revenue & Customs purposes.

Who we share your personal information with

We may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations to comply with statutory obligations.  Such organisations include the Law Society of Scotland, HM Revenue & Customs, Revenue Scotland, Registers of Scotland and The Crofting Commission  

We may also share personal data with our professional advisors for the purposes of taking advice.

Middleton Ross employs third party suppliers to provide services, including IT, payroll and conveyancing searches.  These suppliers may process personal data on our behalf as "processors" and are subject to written contractual conditions to only process that personal data under our instructions and protect it.

In the event that we do share personal data with external third parties, we will only share such personal data strictly required for the specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients shall only process the disclosed personal data in accordance with those purposes.

How we protect your personal information

Your personal information is stored on our electronic filing system and our servers based in the UK, andis accessed by our staff for the purposes set out above.

How long we keep your personal information

We follow guidance from the Law Society of Scotland regarding how long we keep our clients’ personal data, please see below for specific examples.

  • Conveyancing Purchase – 10 years after completion of transaction
  • Conveyancing Sale – 1 year after completion of transaction
  • Executry – Twenty years after the date of the approval of the "final" accounts of the executry

However, we may require to retain certain files or documents for longer than these periods, such as original Wills.

We have a data retention policy that sets out the periods for retaining and reviewing all information that we hold.  This sets out different retention periods and you can request a copy by contacting us.

Your rights

You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at Middleton Ross, Mansefield House, 7 High Street, Dingwall, Ross-Shire IV15 9HJ.

Your rights in relation to your personal information are:

  • you have a right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by making a "subject access request";
  • if you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you have a right to request that we correct or complete your personal information;
  • you have a right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information for specific purposes; and
  • if you wish us to delete your personal information, you may request that we do so.

Further information

Please check our website for updates to our policies, as we regularly review these and may make changes if guidance changes.

More detailed information about your data rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website: www.ico.org.uk.

Contact us

If you have any queries relating to the information in this policy please do not hesitate to contact us at Middleton Ross, Mansefield House, 7 High Street, Dingwall, IV15 9HJ or email mail@middletonross.co.uk.

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