Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Helping Tenants is a trading style of HDTR LTD, a claims management company registered in Scotland under company number SC723970, with its registered office at 2/3 Clyde Offices, 48 West George Street, Glasgow, G2 1BP.

HDTR LTD is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in respect of regulated claims management activities, firm reference number 1009370. You can check this on the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZB332051.

HDTR LTD is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide how and why your information is used, and we are responsible for looking after it.

2. Information we collect

Depending on how you deal with us, we may collect:

• Identity and contact details — your name, address, postcode, telephone number and email address.
• Tenancy details — the property concerned, who your landlord is, and information about your tenancy.
• Details of the disrepair — what is wrong with the property, when it started, what you have reported and when, together with photographs, videos, letters, emails, repair reference numbers and surveyor or inspection reports.
• Health information — where you tell us that the condition of the property has affected your health or the health of people living with you.
• Household information — the number of people living in the property, including children, where this is relevant to your enquiry.
• Correspondence — records of your contact with us, including notes of calls, emails, messages and recordings of telephone calls.
• Marketing preferences — whether you have consented to receive marketing, and any later withdrawal of that consent.
• Technical information — IP address, device and browser type, and how you use our website, collected through cookies and similar technologies.

You do not have to give us any of this information, but if you choose not to, we may not be able to review your enquiry.

3. Where we get your information

Most of the information we hold comes directly from you, when you complete our enquiry form, call us, email us or send us documents. We may also receive information from a family member or representative acting for you with your authority, from a panel solicitor dealing with your case, from surveyors or medical experts instructed in connection with a case, and from publicly available sources where we need to verify something.

4. Why we use your information, and our lawful bases

Under the UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for using your personal information. Ours are set out below.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether those interests are outweighed by your rights and freedoms. You can ask us for details of that assessment.

5. Health and other special category data

Information about your health is treated as special category data and receives extra protection. We only collect it where it is relevant to your enquiry, for example where damp or mould has affected your breathing or that of a child in the household.

We rely on your explicit consent to use health information, or on the fact that it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. You can withdraw your consent at any time, although this may mean we can no longer progress your enquiry.

6. Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing. We may share it with:

• Solicitors on our panel, regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, where your case is referred to them. We receive a fee from the firm for the introduction, and we explain this to you before any agreement is entered into.
• Surveyors, medical experts and other professionals instructed in connection with a case.
• Service providers acting on our behalf, such as IT, hosting, telephony, call recording and customer database providers, who process data only on our instructions.
• Regulators and public bodies, including the Financial Conduct Authority, the Information Commissioner's Office, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Housing Ombudsman, where we are required or permitted to do so.
• Professional advisers such as our auditors and lawyers, and law enforcement or courts where the law requires it.

If our business is sold or reorganised, your information may be transferred to the new owner, who would be required to protect it in the same way.

7. Marketing and your choices

We only send marketing by email, SMS or telephone where you have given us your consent to do so. Consent is optional: you do not have to agree to marketing for us to review your enquiry.

Where you have consented, we may contact you from time to time about our other services, news and updates, and about how we may be able to help you in future, including after your original enquiry has been closed. We will only ever market our own services in this way, and we will not pass your details to anyone else for their marketing.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any email, replying STOP to a text message, or contacting us using the details below. Withdrawing consent does not affect messages we need to send you about an enquiry or case that is already underway.

We do not make unsolicited marketing calls to numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service unless you have told us we may contact you.

8. Call recording

Calls to and from Helping Tenants may be recorded, and recordings may be transcribed or summarised using artificial intelligence tools. We do this to confirm what was discussed and agreed, to train and monitor our staff, to handle complaints, and to meet our obligations to the FCA. Recordings are stored securely and kept in line with the retention periods below.

9. Artificial intelligence and automated decisions

We use artificial intelligence tools in parts of our service. This may include drafting or sending messages to you by email, SMS or online chat, transcribing and summarising telephone calls, and helping our advisors organise the information you give us. Where you are communicating with an AI tool rather than a person, we will make that clear, and you can always ask to speak to a member of our team instead.

Any personal information processed by these tools is handled under the same protections set out in this policy. Our AI providers act as processors on our instructions, they are bound by written contracts, and they are not permitted to use your information to train their own models.

We do not make decisions about your enquiry by automated means alone, and we do not carry out profiling that produces legal effects for you. AI may help us prepare or organise information, but a member of our team reviews every enquiry and takes every decision.

10. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it:

• Enquiries that do not proceed — up to 12 months from your last contact with us, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
• Cases referred to a panel solicitor — six years from the date the case concludes, in line with FCA record keeping requirements and limitation periods.
• Call recordings — normally 12 months, or longer where they relate to a live case or complaint.
• Complaints — six years from the date the complaint is closed.
• Marketing consents and objections — for as long as needed to honour your preferences.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it securely or anonymise it.

11. How we protect your information

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including access controls, encryption in transit, secure hosting, staff training and confidentiality obligations, and written agreements with our suppliers. If a personal data breach is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will report it to the Information Commissioner's Office within 72 hours and, where the risk is high, tell you as well.

12. Transfers outside the UK

Your information is normally stored and processed within the United Kingdom. Where a supplier processes data outside the UK, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as UK adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum approved for use in the UK. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards that apply.

13. Your rights

Under data protection law you have the right to:

• Be told how your information is used, which is the purpose of this policy.
• Ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected.
• Ask us to delete your information where there is no good reason for us to keep it.
• Ask us to restrict how we use your information while a query is resolved.
• Object to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests, and to object to direct marketing at any time.
• Ask us to transfer certain information to you or another organisation in a portable format.
• Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details below. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge, and we may ask you to confirm your identity first.

14. Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Strictly necessary cookies, which make the site work, are always on. Analytics, advertising and other non-essential cookies are only set where you have given consent through our cookie banner, and you can change your choices at any time.

Strictly necessary cookies are always active because the site cannot work without them. Functional, analytics and marketing cookies are only set if you accept them in our cookie banner. You can change or withdraw your choices at any time by reopening the banner from the link in the footer, or by clearing cookies in your browser settings.

Some of these providers may process data outside the UK. Where that happens, the safeguards described in section 12 apply. Blocking non-essential cookies will not stop you using the site or making an enquiry.

15. Customers in vulnerable circumstances

We recognise that anyone can find themselves in vulnerable circumstances, whether through ill health, a life event, low resilience or difficulty engaging with a process. If you tell us about a need, we will record it so that we can support you appropriately, for example by adjusting how or when we contact you. We handle this information sensitively and only share it where necessary. Our Vulnerable Customer Policy is available on request.

16. Children

Our services are for adults. We may hold information about children living in a property where that is relevant to a disrepair enquiry, provided to us by their parent or guardian, and we treat it with particular care.

17. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator for data protection, at ico.org.uk, by calling 0303 123 1113, or by writing to Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Complaints about our claims management service are handled under our complaints procedure, and may be referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you remain dissatisfied with our final response.

18. Changes to this policy

We review this policy regularly and will update it when our practices change or the law requires it. The date at the top shows when it was last updated. Where changes are significant, we will bring them to your attention.

19. How to contact us