MacDonald and Company Logo1607 Great Western Road, Glasgow 0141 959 1999
Estate Agency and Solicitors in the west end of Glasgow

Privacy Notice

What we need

MacDonald & Co. will be a "controller" of the personal information that you provide to us when you provide us with your details through this website or by other means.

When you become a client of MacDonald & Co. we will collect, store and use the personal information that you provide to us in your instructions and during the course of our solicitor / client relationship. We may ask you for additional personal information during the course of our client / solicitor relationship, which shall be collected, stored and used in accordance with this privacy notice.

Why we need your personal information – contractual purposes

We need to collect our clients' personal information so that we can perform our service agreement with you. We will use our clients' personal information to:

  • provide you with legal advice, including by communicating with you by email, letter and telephone;
  • represent you as your solicitors and estate agents in connection with the matters in which you instruct us to act;
  • respond to and communicate with you regarding your questions, comments, support needs or complaints, concerns or allegations in relation to any complaints and disciplinary procedures, for example, we will use your personal information to investigate your complaint, take disciplinary action, etc.; and
  • enter you into legally binding contracts with other parties, upon your instruction.

If you do not provide us with all of the personal information that we need to collect then this may affect our ability to provide you with legal advice and / or represent you as your solicitors.

Why we need your personal information – legitimate purposes

We also process our clients' personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests to:

  • promote our services by sending clients communications with information for upcoming events and legal updates;
  • invite our clients as guests to our events;
  • advise our clients of additional services that we may be able to provide them with; and
  • advise our clients that they may wish to review any documentation that they have in place (to include Wills and Powers of Attorney).

Where we process your personal information in pursuit of our legitimate interests, you have the right to object to us using your personal information for the above purposes. If you wish to object to any of the above processing, please contact us by telephone on 0141 959 1999 or by e-mail at [email protected]. If we comply with your objection, this may affect our ability to undertake the tasks above for the benefit of you as a client.

Why we need your personal information – legal obligations

We are under a legal obligation to process certain personal information relating to our clients for the purposes of complying with our obligations under:

  • the Law Society of Scotland requirements for solicitors; and
  • the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations.

Other uses of your personal information

We may ask you if we can process your personal information for additional purposes. Where we do so, we will provide you with an additional privacy notice with information on how we will use your information for these additional purposes.

Who we share your personal information with

We may be required to share personal information with statutory or regulatory authorities and organisations to comply with statutory obligations. Such organisations include the Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, HMRC and Revenue Scotland for the purposes of complying with our statutory and regulatory obligations.

We may also share personal data with our professional advisors for the purposes of taking advice.

MacDonald & Co. employs third party suppliers to provide services including IT, Property and Personal Searches, ID and source of funds verification, document shredding, document scanning, fee audits, Property Marketing and court representation. We also utilise the services of a credit reference agency (https://www.transunion.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-privacy-notice). These suppliers may process personal data on our behalf as "processors" and are subject to written contractual conditions to only process that personal data under our instructions and protect it.

In the event that we do share personal data with external third parties, we will only share such personal data strictly required for the specific purposes and take reasonable steps to ensure that recipients shall only process the disclosed personal data in accordance with those purposes.

How we protect your personal information

Your personal information is stored on our electronic filing system and our servers based in the EU and is accessed by our staff for the purposes set out above.

How long we keep your personal information

We keep our clients' personal data for the periods recommended by the Law Society of Scotland. We will review and possibly delete your personal information following the said recommended periods.

The said recommended periods are currently as follows:

Simple Debt Collection

On completion i.e. after the time for appeal has elapsed.

Divorce and consistorial matters

Five years after final completion, e.g. after maintenance, residence and contact orders, etc., have ceased to have effect, or children have reached majority.

Civil court cases

Ten years after completion.

Criminal cases

Indefinitely for Murder and other cases involving disposal by way of life imprisonment.

Solemn cases

Three years or the duration of the sentence if more than three years.

Summary cases

Three years. A copy of the complaint or indictment and a copy of the legal aid certificate will be kept indefinitely.

Executries

Ten years after completion - although an executry may never be complete. Relevant documents and papers might be sent to the Executor for safekeeping since prior rights and legal rights only prescribe if not claimed in 20 years after becoming enforceable.

Continuing trusts

Ten years after the termination of the Trust.

Conveyancing transactions

Purchase: Ten years after completion.

Sale: One year later after completion (i.e. after implementing Letter of Obligation; dealing with any funds retained; and after Missives have ceased to have effect).

Re-mortgages: Ten years after completion.

Commercial Leases: Ten years after completion.

Miscellaneous Conveyancing (to include transfers of title, residential Leases and discharges of Standard Securities): One year later after completion.

Company work

Ten years after completion.

Legal Aid

Legal Aid Files will be destroyed after 10 years of completion of a transaction.

Endowment and investment business

Until such time as the policy in question has matured.

Other correspondence files

Five years after completion of the business.

Financial records

A period equal to the remainder of the financial year for our firm (1st May to 30th April) plus a further six financial years.

Money laundering - customer due diligence records

A period equal to the remainder of the financial year for our firm (1st May to 30th April) plus a further six financial years

In all cases, important papers such as confirmations, decrees, etc., will be retained indefinitely.

Your rights

You can exercise any of the following rights by writing to us at 1607 Great Western Road, Glasgow, G13 1LT or by e-mail at [email protected].

Your rights in relation to your personal information are:

  • you have a right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you by making a "subject access request";
  • if you believe that any of your personal information is inaccurate or incomplete, you have a right to request that we correct or complete your personal information;
  • you have a right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information for specific purposes; and
  • if you wish us to delete your personal information, you may request that we do so.
Any requests received by MacDonald & Co. will be considered under applicable data protection legislation. If you remain dissatisfied, you have a right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office at www.ico.org.uk