Privacy notice for tenants, guarantors and people who live with them
Last updated 27 September 2026.
This notice explains what we do with personal information about you when you apply to rent one of our homes, when you rent from us, when you act as a guarantor, or when you live in one of our homes with a tenant. It also covers you after the tenancy ends.
At a glance
- We are your landlord, and we are responsible for your information.
- We use it to let and look after your home, to collect rent, to keep you safe and to do what the law requires of landlords.
- We share only what is needed, for example with our referencing company, the deposit scheme, tradespeople who come to repair your home, and public bodies where the law requires it.
- We never sell your information, and we do not use it for marketing.
- You have rights over your information, including to see a copy of it. Just ask.
1. Who we are
R. Lancaster & Sons (Cleveleys) Limited is the controller of your information. We are registered with the ICO, the UK data protection regulator, registration number ZA356388.
| Company | R. Lancaster & Sons (Cleveleys) Limited, company number 00476530 |
| Address | Floor 1, Capital House, 8 Pittman Court, Pittman Way, Fulwood, Preston, PR2 9ZG |
| admin@rlancaster.co.uk | |
| Telephone | 07398 042 999 |
| Data protection lead | Richard Lancaster, Director and Estates Manager |
We are not required to appoint a data protection officer and have not done so. Please contact Richard with any question about your information.
2. The information we hold
Depending on your circumstances, we may hold:
- Identity and contact details: your name, date of birth, addresses, email, phone numbers and signature.
- Right to rent: your identity or immigration documents, or a share code, and the result of our check. The law requires this before a tenancy starts.
- Referencing and affordability: your employment, income, savings, bank statements, previous landlords, credit history and references. For guarantors, the same, so we can check you can support the tenancy.
- Your household: the names of the people who will live in the home, and the ages of any children, so we know who lives there and that the home suits you. We also keep the name and number of an emergency contact if you give us one.
- Your tenancy: your tenancy agreement, deposit, rent account, payments and any arrears, notices, and letters and messages between us.
- Your home: repair requests, inspection notes and photographs, safety certificates, meter readings and records of visits. Inspection photographs are of the property, but can sometimes show your belongings.
- Benefits: if you receive help with housing costs, details of the payments, including any paid to us directly.
- Information you choose to tell us: for example about a health condition or disability, so that we can make an adjustment or respond in an emergency. This is more sensitive information and we treat it with extra care (see section 4).
- Unspent convictions, for Harrow homes only: the council's licence conditions require us to ask applicants whether they have any unspent convictions. We never ask about spent convictions. We handle this under a written policy that sets strict limits on how the answer is used and how long it is kept.
3. Where the information comes from
Most of it comes from you. We also receive information from:
- the online letting platforms we advertise on, when you enquire about or book a viewing through them;
- our tenant referencing company, which checks credit reference agencies and contacts your employer, previous landlord and guarantor;
- the Home Office, when we check your right to rent online;
- the people who give you a reference, and your guarantor;
- councils and the Department for Work and Pensions, for example about council tax or housing costs;
- the government approved scheme that protects your deposit;
- tradespeople and inspectors who visit your home;
- neighbours, other residents or the police, if they contact us about the home.
If you give us details of someone else, such as a household member, a referee or an emergency contact, please let them know and point them to this notice.
4. Why we use it, and the law that allows it
The law requires us to have a lawful basis for each use of your information. These are ours.
| What we do | Our lawful basis (UK GDPR Article 6) |
|---|---|
| Consider your application, reference you and decide whether to offer a tenancy | Steps you ask us to take before entering a contract, 6(1)(b), and our legitimate interest in letting to people who can afford the rent and look after the home, 6(1)(f) |
| Run the tenancy: rent, repairs, visits, notices, ending the tenancy and returning your deposit | Performing our contract with you, 6(1)(b) |
| Check your right to rent, protect your deposit, carry out safety checks, meet licence conditions, keep tax and accounting records, and respond to lawful requests from councils, courts and other public bodies | Legal obligation, 6(1)(c) |
| Check a guarantor's ability to support the tenancy, and hold their details under the guarantee | Our contract with the guarantor, 6(1)(b), and our legitimate interest in securing the rent, 6(1)(f) |
| Recover money owed, defend or bring legal claims, deal with insurers, and deal with antisocial behaviour | Legitimate interests, 6(1)(f) |
| Answer a request from a council or other public body that says it needs the information for its public tasks; share information with the police to prevent or detect crime; or act to safeguard a child or an adult at risk | Recognised legitimate interests, 6(1)(ea), under paragraphs 1, 5 and 6 to 8 of Annex 1 to the UK GDPR |
| Tell councils and utility suppliers when a tenancy starts or ends | Legal obligation where the council asks, 6(1)(c), otherwise legitimate interests, 6(1)(f) |
| Contact your emergency contact, or share information in an emergency | Vital interests, 6(1)(d), and recognised legitimate interests (emergencies), 6(1)(ea) and Annex 1 paragraphs 3 and 4 |
Our legitimate interests are running a safe, fair and well managed lettings business, getting paid, and protecting our homes and the people in them. We weigh these against your interests and rights, and you can object (see "Your right to object").
Health and disability information is special category data. We use it only with your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a)), or to protect someone's vital interests where they cannot consent (Article 9(2)(c)). You can withdraw consent at any time. If you do, we stop using the information, but we may keep a record of any adjustment we made and why, so that we can show we met our duties under the Equality Act 2010 if a claim is made (Article 9(2)(f), legal claims).
Unspent convictions (Harrow applicants only) are processed under Article 10 of the UK GDPR and paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018, under our appropriate policy document, which you can ask to see.
What you must provide. We cannot grant a tenancy without the information needed to check your right to rent, which the law requires, and without enough information to reference you. Other information, such as an emergency contact or health information, is optional.
5. Who we share it with
We share only what each organisation needs:
- Our tenant referencing company, and the online letting platforms we advertise on. Each has its own privacy notice, and you will see its name when it contacts you.
- The government approved deposit scheme that protects your deposit, as the law requires. We give you its details when we take your deposit.
- The Home Office, for right to rent checks.
- Tradespeople, contractors and safety inspectors, who need your name, address and phone number to arrange a visit. We require them to use your details only for that job.
- Councils, for council tax, housing licensing, housing costs and environmental health, and the Department for Work and Pensions.
- Utility and water suppliers, when a tenancy starts or ends.
- Our insurers and insurance broker, if there is a claim.
- Our professional advisers, including solicitors, accountants and surveyors.
- Courts, tribunals, rent officers and redress schemes, where a case or application involves your tenancy.
- The police and other public bodies, where the law requires it or to prevent or detect crime.
- A buyer, new landlord or lender, if we sell your home or it is used as security. Your tenancy continues, and they must look after your information under the same law.
Our systems and service providers. We keep our records on systems run for us by IT and software providers, for example for email, document storage, property records, accounts, electronic signatures, hosting and internal messaging. They act only on our instructions. Our own server is hosted in the UK. Our bank handles rent payments.
Our AI assistant. We use an AI assistant, which runs on our own server, to help our team read and organise emails and documents, keep our records and prepare drafts. It sends the minimum text needed to an AI service provider that acts only on our instructions under a data processing agreement, keeps the information for a limited time and does not use it to train its models. Our team makes every decision about you. We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone.
Messaging. If you choose to message us through a messaging app, the app's provider handles those messages under its own terms.
6. Transfers outside the UK
Some of our providers may handle information outside the UK, for example in the United States. Where information leaves the UK, it is protected as UK law requires, either because the UK has approved the protection in that country or by contract terms approved in the UK, such as the International Data Transfer Addendum. You can ask us for details.
7. How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Applications that do not lead to a tenancy | 12 months after our decision |
| Unspent conviction answers (Harrow) | 6 months after the decision if no tenancy follows; otherwise the tenancy plus 2 years |
| Right to rent documents | For the tenancy and at least 1 year after it ends, as the law requires, then securely destroyed once no longer needed for that purpose |
| Your tenancy file, rent account, deposit records and letters | At least 6 years after the tenancy ends, and longer where we still need them, for example for a claim, a protected tenancy or a deed |
| Repair, inspection and safety records for the home | For as long as we own the home, because they are the history of the building |
| Accounting records | At least 6 years from the end of the financial year they relate to |
| Health information | Only while it is needed for the reason you gave it |
We review what we hold and securely delete information once we no longer need it for these reasons.
8. Your rights
You have the right to:
- access: ask for a copy of the information we hold about you;
- rectification: ask us to correct anything wrong or incomplete;
- erasure: ask us to delete your information, where we no longer need it;
- restriction: ask us to limit how we use it, for example while a correction is checked;
- objection: object to our use of it where we rely on legitimate interests;
- portability: ask for information you gave us in a format you can reuse elsewhere;
- withdraw consent: at any time, where we rely on your consent;
- complain to us, and to the regulator (see below).
Some of these rights have limits, for example where the law requires us to keep a record. We will explain if that applies. Asking is free. We will reply within one month. For a complex request we may extend this by up to two further months and will tell you why, and the time pauses if we need to ask you which information you are looking for.
Your right to object
You can object at any time to our use of your information where we rely on legitimate interests or recognised legitimate interests. Tell us why, and we will stop unless we have compelling grounds to continue or need the information for a legal claim. Email admin@rlancaster.co.uk or write to us.
9. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first, by email to admin@rlancaster.co.uk or by phone or post. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and deal with it without undue delay.
You can also complain to the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which becomes the Information Commission on 30 September 2026, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. You can go to them at any time, but we would welcome the chance to put things right first.
10. Keeping your information safe, and changes
Access is limited to the people who need it for their work, who are bound by confidentiality. If something goes wrong, we will tell you and the regulator where the law requires. We will tell you about any important change to this notice.