1.Who We Are
Housing Disrepair Solicitors is a trading name of SLS Solicitors Limited. We're a company registered in England and Wales (number 13043393), authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under SRA number 813100. Our registered office is at Chambers Business Centre, Chapel Road, Hollinwood, Manchester, Greater Manchester, OL8 4QQ.
In data protection terms, SLS Solicitors Limited is the "controller" of your information. We decide how it's used, and protecting it is our responsibility.
We're registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under number ZB056798, and we follow the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
2.Contacting Us About Your Data
If you have a question about this policy or about your information, get in touch with our Data Protection Manager, Ashley Leung.
- info@slssolicitors.co.uk
- Telephone
- 0161 697 5959
- Post
- Data Protection Manager, SLS Solicitors Limited, Chambers Business Centre, Chapel Road, Hollinwood, Manchester, Greater Manchester, OL8 4QQ
For anything to do with a problem in your home, call us on 0333 050 5381 instead.
3.The Information We Collect
The information we hold depends on how you deal with us. It can include:
- Enquiry details – your name, phone number and email address, along with what you tell us about your landlord and the disrepair in your home.
- Case information – your tenancy and property details, repair history and correspondence with your landlord, together with photos, proof of identity and evidence of any damage or money you've lost.
- Health information – any medical details that are relevant to your claim, either because you've shared them or because your case needs them.
- Website information – how you use our site, which we only collect through analytics cookies if you agree to them.
- Communications – call recordings, emails and letters.
You give us most of this yourself. Once we're acting for you, more will come from other people involved in the case, such as your landlord or their representatives, surveyors, experts and the courts.
You don't have to share anything with us. If we don't have the details we need, though, we may not be able to look into your enquiry or take on your case.
4.Why We Use Your Information
We can only use your personal information if the law gives us a valid reason, known as a "lawful basis". Here are the main reasons we use it and the basis for each.
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Responding to your enquiry and assessing whether we can help | Steps taken at your request before entering into a contract, and legitimate interests where appropriate |
| Providing legal services and managing your case | Performance of our contract with you, where applicable |
| Meeting our legal and professional obligations | Legal obligation and, where applicable, legitimate interests |
| Keeping records and handling complaints | Legitimate interests, and legal obligation where applicable |
| Recording telephone calls | Legitimate interests |
| Analytics cookies on our website | Consent |
| Sending you information about our services | Consent |
When we rely on legitimate interests, it's because we need to reply properly to people who contact us and keep accurate records. It also lets us keep our service to a good standard, train and protect our staff, and run the firm well. Before relying on these interests, we check that they don't override your own rights.
Health information
The law treats health information as "special category" data and gives it extra protection. To use it, we need a lawful basis plus an additional legal condition. In housing disrepair matters, that condition is usually that the information is needed to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim. We won't use your health information for anything else unless the law allows it, and where it's appropriate we'll ask for your explicit consent first.
5.When You Make an Enquiry
Whether you contact us online, by phone or by email, we use your details to reply and to find out whether we can help.
We never sell personal information. Some service providers help us run our website and handle enquiries, and they process information on our behalf. Other than that, we'll only pass your details on if you ask us to, if we need to in order to give you legal advice, or if the law says we must.
If you decide not to go ahead, we'll normally keep a note of your enquiry for 12 months. That way we can pick things up if you get back in touch, and answer any questions later about how we dealt with you. After 12 months it's deleted or securely destroyed, unless part of it has to be kept for legal or regulatory reasons.
6.When We Act for You
Once you instruct us, your information is what we use to run your case. We'll need it to write to your landlord, arrange inspections and expert reports, negotiate repairs and compensation, and go to court if it comes to that. We also use it for our accounts and to meet our legal and regulatory duties, including any requests from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Most of the time we'll write to you by email or letter, with a phone call when that's quicker. Just let us know if you prefer one way over another. Our emails aren't routinely encrypted, so tell us if you'd like sensitive documents sent another way.
Protecting yourself from fraud
Fraudsters sometimes pretend to be law firms so they can redirect payments. If you get an unexpected message saying our bank details have changed, or anything else from "us" that looks wrong, don't send any money. Phone us first on the number shown on this website.
7.Information About Other People in a Case
When we act for a client, we often hold information about other people connected to the case. That might be the landlord, a housing officer, a contractor, someone else in the household, or the solicitors on the other side.
The information can include names and contact details, tenancy and property details, repair records, letters, statements and photos. If it's relevant to the claim, health information may be included too. Usually our client gives it to us, but it can also come from the other side, their representatives, surveyors, experts, the courts or public bodies.
We only use this information to provide legal services to our client, and only on a lawful basis that data protection law allows. Health details and other special category information need an additional legal condition before we can use them. We keep the information for as long as the case needs it and for any period the law or our professional rules require. Your data protection rights may be limited where the information is covered by legal professional privilege, or where releasing it would harm a legal claim.
8.Telephone Calls
Calls to and from our office are recorded. We use the recordings to check the quality of our service and train our staff. They also help when we look into complaints or disputes, or if a caller becomes abusive towards a member of our team.
Our telephone provider stores the recordings securely, and they're normally deleted after six months. Occasionally we may need to keep one for longer because of a complaint, dispute or other legal reason. We'll only share a recording to resolve a dispute, report abusive behaviour, or where the law requires it.
9.How We Use Cookies
Cookies are small text files that a website saves on your device. They help a site work properly and show its owner how people are using it.
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies, including:
- Strictly necessary cookies – the site needs these to work properly, so they don't require your consent.
- Analytics cookies – these come from Google Analytics and show us how visitors use the site, so we can make it easier to use. We only set them if you agree, and you can change your mind at any time.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. To learn more about managing cookies, visit www.aboutcookies.org.
Google may process analytics information outside the UK. Section 11 explains how information sent abroad is protected.
10.Marketing
You'll only receive information from us about our services if you've said you want it. You can change your mind whenever you like by using the unsubscribe option in any of our messages or by contacting us. After that, we'll stop using your details for marketing.
11.Who We Share Your Information With
Running a case means sharing some information with the people involved in it. Depending on your case, that can include barristers, surveyors, medical experts, costs specialists and other lawyers, your landlord or their solicitors, and the courts. We only share what's needed for your case or to meet our legal and professional obligations.
We also rely on outside providers for things like our IT and telephone systems. Any provider handling personal information for us can only act on our instructions and must keep it secure, and we take steps to check that they meet data protection requirements.
If the law or our professional rules require it, we may also give information to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the police or other public bodies.
Some providers, Google among them, may store or process information outside the UK. Whenever personal information leaves the UK, we make sure the transfer uses a mechanism permitted by UK data protection law, with suitable safeguards in place.
12.How Long We Keep Your Information
We don't keep personal information for longer than we need it. Once we no longer need it, it's deleted or securely destroyed.
| Information | Normal retention period |
|---|---|
| Enquiries that don't go ahead | 12 months |
| Client and case files | Normally 6 years after the matter closes |
| Call recordings | 6 months |
| Marketing details | Until you withdraw your consent |
Some records may be kept for longer where the law, our regulator, our professional rules or our insurers require it, or where the information is needed for a legal claim.
13.Keeping Your Information Secure
Your information is protected by security measures covering both our systems and the way we work. Only the people working on your case can see your file, along with senior staff who supervise their work, check quality or handle complaints.
If there's ever a data breach, we'll move quickly to contain it and work out the risk to you. We'll also meet our legal duties, which include telling you about it where the law requires.
14.Your Rights
You have the following rights over your personal information, though some only apply in certain situations:
- Access – ask for a copy of the information we hold about you.
- Correction – have anything wrong or incomplete put right.
- Deletion – ask us to erase your information.
- Restriction – ask us to limit how we use it.
- Objection – object to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests. If it's direct marketing, we'll always stop.
- Portability – in some cases, receive your information in a common, machine-readable format, or have us send it to another organisation.
- Withdrawing consent – where we're relying on your consent, take it back at any time.
We don't make decisions about you based only on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
To use any of these rights, contact our Data Protection Manager (see section 2). It's usually free, although we may ask you to confirm who you are. We'll reply within one month. A complex request can take up to two months longer, and if so we'll tell you within the first month. If we can't do what you've asked, for instance because the law says we must keep certain records, we'll explain why, unless the law stops us from doing so.
15.Complaints
About your personal information
If you're not happy with how we've handled your personal information, contact our Data Protection Manager (see section 2). We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it without undue delay and let you know the outcome.
If you're still unhappy after that, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. You can do this online at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, by phone on 0303 123 1113, or by post to Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
About our legal services
Complaints about the legal service you've received are dealt with separately, under our complaints procedure, which we'll send you on request. If we can't resolve your complaint, you may be able to take it to the Legal Ombudsman. The ICO doesn't handle complaints about the quality of legal work.
16.Job Applicants, Employees and Office Visitors
Job applicants and employees receive separate privacy information from us. The CCTV outside our office belongs to the building's landlord, not to SLS Solicitors Limited. If you have a question about it, contact us and we'll pass it on to the right person.
17.Other Websites and Changes to This Policy
Our website links to other sites, such as GOV.UK and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. This policy doesn't cover them, so check their own privacy policies.
We review this policy regularly and update it when the law or our working practices change.
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