1. About this Policy

This Privacy & Cookies Policy explains how HRE Group Ltd ("HRE Group", "we", "us" or "our") collects, uses, shares and protects your personal information, and sets out your rights in relation to that information.

We are the "controller" of your personal information for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

By using our website (including any mobile version), completing one of our forms, or otherwise providing your personal information to us, you acknowledge that we will process your information as described in this Policy.

Personal information (or personal data) means any information from which you can be identified, whether on its own or in combination with other information.

If you have any questions about this Policy or about how we handle your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@hre.group.

This Policy should be read together with our website Terms of Service, available at https://www.hre.group/terms. Our use of cookies is covered in Section 10.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information about you from a number of sources.

Information you give us directly. We collect information when you complete a "Contact Us" or "Register" form, request a quotation or survey, participate in our events or seminars, call or email us, or otherwise deal with us. Depending on the service, this may include:

your name;

your email address (work or personal);

your postal address;

your contact telephone number(s);

the address and details of the property in question;

your signature;

financial information (such as card or bank details) where you make a payment;

where we act on a tenancy or letting, information needed for that purpose (for example proof of identity such as a passport or driving licence, and other details relevant to a tenancy); and

your communication preferences.

Information we collect automatically when you use our website. Using cookies and similar technologies (see Section 10), we may collect your IP address, information about your device, browser and operating system, the pages you view, the links you click, and whether you open our emails.

Information we obtain from other sources. We may receive information about you from publicly available sources (such as HM Land Registry), from social media platforms, or from referral partners. This may include your postal address, email address, telephone number, and information you have made publicly available.

3. How We Use Your Information and Our Lawful Bases

We use your personal information only where we have a lawful basis to do so under the UK GDPR. The bases we rely on are:

Contract — where we need to process your information to provide a service you have requested, or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract (for example, preparing and delivering a survey or quotation, and arranging payment).

Legitimate interests — where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests and is not overridden by your rights. We rely on this basis to respond to your enquiries, to administer and improve our services, to keep records, to prevent fraud, and — as described in Section 4 — to introduce you to an alternative surveying firm when we are at capacity. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have carried out a balancing assessment; you can ask us for more information about this at any time.

Legal obligation — where we must process your information to comply with the law (for example, anti-fraud, accounting and regulatory requirements).

Consent — where we ask for your consent to a specific use of your information, such as sending you marketing by email, or sharing your details with a third party for their own purposes. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time (see Sections 6 and 8).

Typical purposes for which we process your information include: answering your questions and fulfilling your requests; providing and improving our services; managing your account and processing payments; identifying and preventing fraud; sending you service messages; and, where you have agreed, sending you marketing about our services.

4. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes without your consent.

We may share your personal information in the following circumstances:

Within HRE Group. We may share your information between our own service areas so that the right team can help you.

Introductions to alternative surveying firms (capacity referrals). Where our own service lines are at capacity and we are unable to assist you directly, we may introduce you to an alternative, trusted surveying firm so that you can still obtain the service you need. Wherever practicable we will offer you the choice of how this is done — either by providing you with the alternative firm's contact details so that you can decide whether to contact them, or, with your agreement, by passing your enquiry to them. We rely on our legitimate interests (and yours, in still being able to obtain the service) for making such introductions. If you would prefer that we do not make an introduction of this kind, please let us know.

Third-party service providers. We use trusted suppliers to carry out services on our behalf — for example, hosting our website, delivering our emails, processing payments, or carrying out works or research. We give them only the information they need, require them by contract to keep it secure, and do not permit them to use it for their own purposes.

Professional partners you ask us to involve. Where you ask us to, or agree that we may, we may share your details with connected professionals such as solicitors or mortgage advisers. We will tell you who they are.

Legal and business reasons. We may disclose your information where required by law or by a regulator; to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights; or in connection with a sale or reorganisation of our business.

5. How Long We Keep Your Information

We keep your personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy, and to meet our legal, regulatory, accounting and professional-indemnity obligations, after which it is securely deleted or anonymised.

6. Marketing and Your Communication Choices

Where we send you marketing, you can opt out at any time.

Email. Every marketing email contains an unsubscribe link; you can also email dpo@hre.group.

Post. You can ask us to stop sending you promotional post at any time.

SMS and WhatsApp. We use SMS and WhatsApp only to share staff contact details and to help arrange physical surveys for our clients — not for marketing. You can ask us to stop by replying STOP.

Opting out of marketing will not stop service messages that we need to send you in connection with a survey or instruction.

7. Your Rights

Under the UK GDPR you have the following rights in relation to your personal information. To exercise any of them, contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@hre.group. We will respond within one month, and we may ask you to verify your identity first. These rights are free to exercise, although we may charge a reasonable fee, or decline to act, where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

Right of access — to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

Right to rectification — to have inaccurate information corrected and incomplete information completed.

Right to erasure — to ask us to delete your personal information in certain circumstances. Please note that we may not be able to erase information where we are required to keep it for legal, regulatory or professional reasons.

Right to restrict processing — to ask us to limit how we use your information in certain circumstances.

Right to object — to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to object to direct marketing at any time.

Right to data portability — to receive certain information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or to have it transmitted to another organisation. We are not responsible for how a third party uses information once transferred at your request.

Rights relating to automated decision-making — we do not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about you by solely automated means.

8. Withdrawing Consent

Where we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you may withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us at dpo@hre.group. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdrew it. We will stop the relevant processing as soon as reasonably practicable.

9. Complaints

If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@hre.group in the first instance, and we will do our best to put things right.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's supervisory authority for data protection, at www.ico.org.uk, by calling 0303 123 1113, or by writing to: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

10. Cookies and Similar Technologies

A cookie is a small text file that a website places on your device to help the site work, or to work more efficiently, and to provide information to the site's operators.

We use cookies and similar technologies to make our website function, to remember your preferences, to measure how our website is used, and — where you allow us to — to help tailor content to your interests.

Types of cookie we use:

Strictly necessary cookies, which are essential for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

Analytics and performance cookies, which help us understand how visitors use our website so that we can improve it. We use third-party analytics services such as Google Analytics for this purpose. You can learn about Google Analytics and opt out at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Functionality cookies, which remember choices you make to improve your experience.

Except for strictly necessary cookies, we only place cookies on your device with your consent, which we obtain through the cookie banner shown when you first visit our website. You can change or withdraw your consent at any time via the "Cookie settings" link on our website, and you can also manage or delete cookies through your browser settings. Blocking some cookies may affect how the website works. To learn more about cookies generally, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

11. International Transfers

We are based in the United Kingdom and store personal information in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA) wherever we can. Some of our service providers are located outside the UK, and using them may involve transferring your information abroad.

Where we transfer your personal information outside the UK, we make sure it is protected by one of the safeguards recognised under UK data protection law — for example, a transfer to a country the UK Government has decided provides adequate protection, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or the UK Extension to the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified under it. You can ask us for more information about the safeguards we use by contacting dpo@hre.group.

12. How We Protect Your Information

We take the security of your personal information seriously and have put in place appropriate technical, administrative and physical measures to protect it against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration and disclosure. We limit access to those who have a genuine business need.

13. Other Websites

Our website may contain links to other websites and apps that we do not control. This Policy does not apply to those sites, and we are not responsible for their content or privacy practices. We encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

14. Children's Privacy

Our website is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

15. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. We will post any changes here and update the "Last updated" date above. Where the changes are significant, we will take reasonable steps to bring them to your attention.

16. How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Policy, wish to exercise any of your rights, or have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact:

Data Protection Officer HRE Group Ltd Holborn Gate, 330 High Holborn, London WC1V 7QH Email: dpo@hre.group

HRE Group Ltd is registered in England and Wales under company number 10766872. Registered office: Holborn Gate, 330 High Holborn, London WC1V 7QH. Regulated by RICS (RICS Firm Registration Number 862310).



HRE Group® is the trademarked trading name of HRE Group Ltd. Copyright © 2017–2026 HRE Group Ltd. All rights reserved.