First Homes privacy notice - Privacy notices

The purpose of this privacy notice is to tell you about how we collect and use personal data in connection with our First Homes service. We may update this privacy notice from time to time. When we do this, we will communicate any changes to you and publish the revised privacy notice here.

To provide this service, we will collect and use some or all of the personal information below:

• Contact information – name, current property address, contact details
• Personal identification – this could include drivers’ licence, passport
• Citizenship information (where applicable)
•  Previous address history (if needed for eligibility information)
• Financial/employment circumstances information, including income and mortgage offer
• Any further local connection information which, could include family members addresses, proof of work, armed services information
• Anonymised equal opportunities information, including citizenship, ethnicity and disability information where provided.

We get most of this information from the homebuilder/developer of the First Home, but we may also get some information about you from your mortgage advisor and solicitor in order to assess and make a decision on your First Home application.

We use this information for one or more of the following reasons:

• Assess and make a decision on your First Homes application
• To confirm eligibility to purchase a First Home in order for the Council to issue the Authority to Proceed and Authority to Exchange (which includes the compliance certificate). This is needed to buy a First Home.
• Where not all information has been provided for us to issue the Authority to Proceed and / or Authority to Exchange, further information will be requested about the purchaser, from the appropriate person, in order to approve or refuse the application.
• The Council will need to give approval in order for the homeowner to sell or let out a First Home information which is bullet pointed above will be kept on the homeowner and their property in order to do this.

The collection of your personal information is necessary to enable the Council to approve the sale of the First Home.

Our legal basis for using your personal information is to meet our legal obligations. Local authorities should secure the discounts on First Homes in perpetuity through agreements under the powers of section 106 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 as indicated in the Written Ministerial Statement.

We will collect anonymous equal opportunity information where the purchaser has provided it. Our additional legal basis for using your special category information helps us to meet our statutory duties under the Equality Act 2010. This data will be collected and used as anonymous data for our equalities and diversity reporting.

No personal information is routinely sent or held outside the UK. Should the transfer of personal information outside the UK become necessary, it will only take place if permitted by law, and then only where there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect the data.

Sometimes we may need to share your information, but we will only do so where we have a valid legal basis to share data. We will only share the minimum information for each circumstance. We will share some of your personal information with one or more of the following:

• Homebuilder / developer who is selling the First Home
• Mortgage advisor
• Solicitor

This is in order to complete and share the completed Authority to Proceed form and Authority to Exchange (and Compliance Certificate).

We will hold this information for as long as it is needed, or if we are required to do so by law. In practice this means that your personal information may be retained for the relevant period listed below:

• Physical extra evidence which includes personal information related to the purchaser’s eligibility of the First Home will be retained for 7 years after the First Home is sold. This includes evidence which shows the purchaser(s) either live, work, have family in Herefordshire/Parish or part of the armed services for the time period specified in the Section 106.
• Application forms will be kept up to the point until the First Home is sold, or it no longer remains a First Homes, or if the application if rejected.
• Personal information on the contact’s name, address and phone number/email of the First Home purchaser(s) will be stored until the property is sold to a new purchaser, to make sure it continues to comply with First Homes requirement around letting and selling.

We will hold the information above in order to comply with the First Homes monitoring process. After this, your personal information will be deleted.

You have a number of rights under the data protection law, including the right to request your information and to request that the information is amended or erased if incorrect.

To request your records, you will need to provide proof of identification and write to the Information Governance Team, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford, HR4 0LE or email informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk

You also have the right to make a complaint about our handling of your personal data to the Information Commissioner's Office

You can exercise any of these rights, ask questions about how we use your personal data or complain by contacting us at informationgovernance@herefordshire.gov.uk or by writing to our data protection officer at:

Data Protection Officer, Information Governance, Herefordshire Council, Plough Lane, Hereford HR4 0LE

Assessing affordability and housing tenures