Privacy Policy

Heritage Property Maintenance operates this website and provides the handyman and property maintenance services described on it. The business is run by Josh as a sole trader, working from Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, and covers Bexhill-on-Sea, Hastings, St Leonards, Battle and the surrounding area.

Where personal information is involved, Heritage Property Maintenance is the data controller — meaning we are responsible for deciding how it is used and for looking after it. The quickest ways to reach us are hpsbexhill@gmail.com and 07432 097216.

When you use the enquiry form, you can give us the following:

• Your name
• Your telephone number
• Your email address
• Your postcode, if you choose to add it
• A description of the job, including anything typed into the "What needs doing?" box
• The visit type and preferred timeframe you select from the menus
• Any photographs you choose to attach or send

We may also receive:

• Anything you send by phone call, text message, WhatsApp or email, including messages about access, dates and quotes
• Details of work quoted, carried out and paid for, so we can keep proper business records
• Feedback or a review, if you choose to leave one

We do not ask for payment card details, bank details or information about your health, and please do not send any.

The enquiry form on this website does not store your details anywhere and nothing is sent to us automatically. When you press the send button, WhatsApp opens with your name, number, email, postcode, visit type, timeframe and job list already typed out, and you press send there.

That means your enquiry travels through WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, rather than through this website. Their own privacy terms apply to that message. If you would rather not use WhatsApp, you can email hpsbexhill@gmail.com, use the "Email Us" button or call 07432 097216 instead — the same details reach us either way.

Photographs are never uploaded by this website. You attach them to the WhatsApp message yourself, so they go straight to us on the chat.

We use your information to:

• Reply to your enquiry and give you a quote
• Arrange access, dates and times for a visit
• Carry out the work you have asked for and keep a record of it
• Keep accounting and tax records of quotes, jobs and payments
• Deal with a complaint, a query or a dispute about work
• Defend or bring a legal claim if that ever becomes necessary

The legal grounds we rely on are your consent (the box you tick to say you are happy for us to contact you), taking steps at your request before and during a piece of work, and our legitimate interest in running a properly recorded business. We do not use your information for advertising, marketing lists or profiling.

We contact you using whichever number or email address you give us — usually a phone call or a WhatsApp message, and by email if that suits you better.

Contact is about the enquiry you sent: confirming what needs doing, agreeing a price, arranging the visit, letting you know if we are running late, and checking afterwards that the job is right. You should expect contact only while your enquiry or job is live.

We do not send marketing newsletters, we do not pass your details to anyone who would market to you, and you can ask us to stop contacting you at any time — just say so by email or phone.

Photographs help us quote accurately and turn up with the right parts, so they are the quickest way to a price. We use them to understand the job, and for nothing else.

• We will not publish a photograph of your property, your job or your family without asking you first.
• If we would like to use a photo on the website or in our marketing, we will ask for your permission and you can say no.
• If a photo would make your home recognisable, we will treat that as needing your specific agreement.
• You can ask us to delete photos you have sent at any time.

• Enquiries that do not turn into work — kept for around twelve months, so you can pick the job back up if you come back to us, then deleted.
• Jobs carried out — your contact details and a record of the work are kept while the job is live and afterwards for our business records.
• Accounting and tax records — kept for as long as HM Revenue and Customs requires, which is generally around six years.
• Messages and photos — these sit in the WhatsApp chat and mailbox until they are deleted. Tell us and we will delete your thread and any photos in it.

Where we have no good reason to keep something, we delete it rather than hold on to it indefinitely.

We do not sell, rent or swap your information, and we do not share it with advertisers. In practice your enquiry passes through a small number of services that help us receive it:

• WhatsApp (Meta) when a message is sent through the send button or the chat
• Google when you email us at hpsbexhill@gmail.com
• Your telephone network for calls and text messages

Each of those processes your message under its own privacy policy. We may also have to disclose information if the law or a court requires it, but we would never do so to help someone market to you.

Under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) you can ask us to:

• Tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy
• Correct anything that is wrong or incomplete
• Delete your information
• Limit the way we use it, or stop using it for a particular purpose
• Give your information to you, or to someone else, in a usable format
• Withdraw the consent you gave us, at any time

To make a request, email hpsbexhill@gmail.com or call 07432 097216. There is no charge and we will normally reply within one month. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 928 6200.

We keep your information on password-protected devices and in the chat or mailbox it arrived in, and we do not post it anywhere public. WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted by WhatsApp. Email is not encrypted while it travels, so keep anything sensitive out of emails and send it by phone instead. We will never ask you for card or bank details through this website.

This website sets no advertising or tracking cookies, runs no analytics service and does not follow you around the internet, so there is nothing to opt out of and no cookie banner is needed.

The website's fonts are stored on our own site, so opening a page does not send any request to Google Fonts or any other font service.

Our services are aimed at householders, landlords and businesses, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under eighteen. If you believe a child has sent us information, get in touch and we will remove it.

We may update this policy as the business or the law changes. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised, and this page always shows the current version. Material changes will not be applied retroactively to information you have already sent us.

Any question about this policy — or a request to correct or delete your information — should go to Josh at Heritage Property Maintenance, by email at hpsbexhill@gmail.com or by phone on 07432 097216. Please give your name and the number or email address you used so we can find your enquiry.