Privacy Policy.

What is the purpose of this document?
Montrose Brown Law is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This Privacy Notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). It applies to all visitors of the website.

This privacy policy gives you information about how Brown and Co collects and uses your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide when you register with us, or enquire about a service. This website is not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Brown and Co Property Lawyers Limited (Trading as Montrose Brown Law) (the “Company”) is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “Montrose Brown Law”, “we”, “us”, or “our” in this privacy policy). We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (“DPO”) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the information set out in the contact details section.

The types of personal data we collect about you. 
Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes [first name, last name, any previous names, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender].

  • Contact Data includes [billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers].

  • Financial Data includes [bank account and payment card details].

  • Transaction Data includes [details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us].

  • Technical Data includes [internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this website].

  • Profile Data includes [your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses]. 

  • Usage Data includes [information about how you interact with and use our website, products and services].

  • Marketing and Communications Data includes [your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences].

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data which is not personal data as it does not directly (or indirectly) reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate individuals' Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature in order to analyse general trends in how users are interacting with our website to help improve the website and our service offering.

How is your personal data collected?
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Your interactions with us. You may give us your personal data by filling in online forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

  • apply for our products or services;

  • create an account on our website;

  • subscribe to our service or publications;

  • request marketing to be sent to you;

  • enter a competition, promotion or survey; or

  • give us feedback or contact us.

How we use your personal data
Legal basis - The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

  • Performance of a contract with you: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.

  • Legitimate interests: We may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure customer experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

  • Legal obligation: We may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis.

  • Consent: We rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to an email newsletter.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We set out below a description of how we use the various categories of your personal data, the legal bases on which we rely, and the applicable retention periods.

  1. Registering you as a new customer
    We collect your identity and contact information in order to register you as a client. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract with you, including the provision of legal services in relation to property conveyancing, litigation, and private client matters. In order to provide an estimate for such services, we will collect your name and email address as points of contact. This personal data is retained for a period of six years.

  2. Managing our relationship with you
    This includes activities such as notifying you of changes to our terms or privacy policy and addressing your requests, complaints, and queries. We process identity, contact, profile, and marketing and communications data. The legal bases for this processing are:

  • performance of a contract with you;

  • compliance with a legal obligation; and

  • our legitimate interests in keeping our records updated and managing our client relationships.
    We retain this data for six years.

  1. Administering and protecting our business and website
    We process identity, contact, and technical data for purposes including troubleshooting, data analysis, system maintenance, IT support, reporting, and hosting. This processing is based on our legitimate interests in operating our business and IT systems securely and efficiently, and to comply with legal obligations. The retention period for this data is six years.

  2. Delivering relevant website content and advertising
    We use identity, contact, profile, usage, marketing and communications, and technical data to present appropriate website content and advertising, and to evaluate their effectiveness. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests in understanding how our clients interact with our services, so we can develop and promote our offerings effectively. This data is retained for six years.

  3. Using data analytics to improve our website and services
    Technical and usage data may be used to improve user experience, understand customer preferences, and refine our marketing strategies. This is processed on the basis of our legitimate interests in ensuring our website remains relevant and effective. We retain this data for six years.

  4. Sending marketing communications and personalised recommendations
    We may process identity, contact, technical, usage, profile, and marketing and communications data to send you relevant marketing material and make suggestions about our services that may be of interest to you. This processing is based on our legitimate interests in growing our business and providing personalised communications, or, where required by law, your prior consent. This data is retained for six years.

  5. Conducting market research and surveys
    Where you voluntarily participate in surveys, we process your responses as part of our efforts to improve and develop our services. This processing is based on our legitimate interests in better understanding customer needs. Survey data is retained for six years

Direct marketing - We may also analyse your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view which products, services and offers may be of interest to you so that we can then send you relevant marketing communications.

Third-party marketing - We will get your express consent before we share your personal data with any third party for their own direct marketing purposes.

Opting out of marketing - You can ask to stop sending you marketing communications at any time by by following the opt-out links within any marketing communication sent to you or by contacting us by emailing ask@montrosebrownlaw.co.uk. If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, you will still receive service-related communications that are essential for administrative or customer service purposes for example relating to the service, appointment reminders, updates to our Terms and Conditions, checking that your contact details are correct.

Disclosures of your personal data
We may share your personal data where necessary with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above.

  • Internal Third Parties including:

  • External Third Parties as set out below:

FRV Technologies
We use FRV Technology as part of our client onboarding and cost estimation process. This service is provided by FRV Technologies Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 15330527 with its registered office at 15 Rye Hill Road, Harlow, CM18 7JE. Tsuro is a trading style of FRV Technologies Limited.

This system processes personal data including your name, contact information, identification documents, and property-related details to generate initial estimates and assist with document verification. FRV Technologies Limited acts as our data processor and operates strictly under our instructions. Any automated outputs are subject to human review by our team before being used in any formal or financial context. You may request additional information about the use of this technology or seek a manual review of any decision that significantly affects you.

The Squid Group
The Squid Group provides services to Montrose Brown, including specialist Risk and Compliance advice, Marketing, and Information Technology support. The Squid Group is registered as Squid Group Holdings Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 13581029 with its office registered at 15 Rye Hill Road, Harlow, England, CM18 7JE.

Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International transfers
Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law, we always ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that the following safeguards are implemented: Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and location security controls to reduce any data shared through non-UK or EU data servers.

We may transfer your personal data to service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK law.

Data security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

  • We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for legal, insurance and regulatory purposes.]

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see [paragraph 9] below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your legal rights
You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

  • Request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

  • Object to processing of your personal data Please note that objection to the processing of your personal data may make it impossible to provide our services to you and in some cases we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object.

  • You also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.

  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:

    • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy;

    • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;

    • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or

    • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above please contact the DPO, as outlined under the contact details section.

No fee usually required: You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you: We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond: We try to respond to all legitimate requests within 28 days. Occasionally it could take us longer than this if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Contact details
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact our DPO in the following ways:

By post:
126a Station Road
Burnham on Crouch
Essex
CM0 8HQ

By email:
martin.cudmore@montrosebrownlaw.co.uk

If you have a complaint in relation to the way in which your data has been handled that the Data Protection Officer has been unable to resolve, you may contact the Information Commissioners Officer using the details below: 

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Please note that the ICO will request a copy of the complaint that you had made to the DPO.

Last Updated: June 2025