Privacy & Disputes
James Group Limited is committed to adhering to the principles of the Privacy Act 2020 and recognises the importance of protecting the privacy and rights of individuals in relation to personal information. The following document is to assist you in understanding how we collect, use and safeguard your personal information.
Please take the time to read it and contact us if you have any questions or requests relating to your personal information.
Definitions used in this policy
“Agreement” means agency agreement, management authority, or any other agreement that you have entered into with us;
“James Group”, “we”, “us” and “our” refers to either the James Group Real Estate Limited entity or the James Group Property Management Ltd entity with which you have entered into an Agreement, which has provided you with services (Services) or to whom you have otherwise provided your personal information, and being:
- James Group (JG) or a subsidiary or related company of JG; or
- a licensee or authorised representative of a party listed at a. above;
“personal information” means information about an identifiable individual, as defined in the Privacy Act;
“Privacy Act” means the Privacy Act 2020 and includes regulations and other instruments under it and consolidations, amendments, re-enactments or replacements of the Privacy Act, regulations or other instruments.
“You”, “Your” includes any authorised representative who represents you (such as a solicitor, trustee, director), or where you are the authorised representative, the individual you are representing. If you provide us with any personal information of a another party, you confirm that you have collected that information in accordance with the Privacy Act (including complying with Information Privacy Principle 3) and are authorised by that person to disclose the information to us.
Application of this policy
This privacy policy applies to any collection of your personal information by us and should be read together with the terms of the Agreement. In the event of a conflict between this policy and the Agreement, the terms of the Agreement take precedence.
By providing us with your personal information or by signing an Agreement with us you consent to the collection, storage, use, disclosure and processing of your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy.
We may update our privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law and our business practices.
Why we collect your personal information
We may collect any necessary personal information about you and anyone who represents you for the following purposes (“Purposes”):
to enable us to provide services to you including;
- sale and purchase of commercial and industrial real estate, including recording attendance at a property, interest in a listing, facilitating an Agreement (including an agreement for sale and purchase), providing appraisals, and providing itemised chattels, photos, and records or interaction with a person or their property.
- Marketing and promoting current and future properties, including advertising, direct marketing, other promotions and social media engagement, and for maintaining a relationship through the provision of market information, news and or/ events. Direct marketing communications may be sent in various forms including mail, SMS and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. In addition, at any time you may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by contacting us (see the details below) or by using opt-out facilities provided in the marketing communications and we will then ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.
- Conducting market research and surveys. Contact information may be used to make initial contact and invite participation in market research and survey activities. Where the individual opts-in to participating, the information may be used to provide insights into real estate market activities;
- analysing website and sales data;
- to carry out our internal business functions and activities in order to monitor, measure and improve our own business practices. This includes checking our processes are being followed, managing, training and developing our personnel, and improving or customising our products and services
- to comply with our legal obligations (such as those under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) or the Overseas Investment Act 2005), to maintain records for real estate agent code of conduct regulation and tax purposes, and to comply with any lawfully issued notice to provide information to a regulatory agency including the New Zealand Police and the Serious Fraud Office;
- for credit assessment purposes, to invoice you for services provided to you and collect any debt owed to us by you (which may involve disclosing your personal information to debt collectors); and
- any other lawful purpose connected with the function or activity of our business that we tell you about or you authorise (including in any Agreement).
How we collect your personal information
We collect your personal information directly from you and from your authorised representatives. We collect your personal information when you interact with us – for example when you instruct us to represent you, your business or other entity.
We may also collect personal information about you indirectly as permitted in the Privacy Act, such as where that information is publicly available and such collection would not be prejudicial to you.
You authorise us to collect your personal information from other James Group owned entities, from credit reporting or identification verification agencies or other third parties, for credit assessment purposes or to fulfil our obligations under the AML/CFT Act.
We also collect personal information about you through cookies and other technologies. James Group Real Estate and our third-party service providers use a variety of technologies to assess how our websites are used, to personalise your experience and to deliver you marketing, including online content, tailored to your interests.
Some technologies we may use include the following:
Cookies
Cookies are small files issued to your device when you visit a James Group site that can be understood by the site and collect information. We use that information to remember who you are (it may be to log you in), your preferences, to advertise, to tailor offers or other content to your interests and to assess how our sites are used.
You can accept or decline cookies through your browser settings however without cookies you may not be able to use all of the features of our Sites or other websites and online services. To learn more, please look at the cookie settings available in your specific web browser(s).
Other technologies
Other technologies we use to collect information from you are:
Our web servers, which may log information such as your device type, operating system type, browser type, domain, and other system settings, as well as the language your system uses and the country and time zone where your device is located. We also may record information such as the address of the web page that referred you to our Sites and the IP address of the device you use to connect to our Sites. We may log information about your interaction with the Sites, such as which pages you visit.
Web beacons. Web beacons are small files that link web pages to particular web servers and their cookies. These control which of our web servers collect information.
Javascript or other computer languages. These may be used to gather information and details about your interaction with our Sites.
Third-Party plug-ins
We may use third-party web analytics services on our Sites, such as Google Analytics. These help us analyse how you use the Sites. The information obtained for this purpose (including your IP address and other information collected by automated means) will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers.
The providers of third-party plug-ins and widgets on our Sites, such as embedded videos and social media sharing tools, may use automated means to collect information regarding your use of the Sites and your interactions with the plug-ins and widgets. We may also receive information you have made available to those third party services, including the geographic location of your mobile device and other information about you (such as name, email address, gender, locale, time zone, languages, social media profile URL, personal website URL, biographical information, birthday, photo, list of devices, education history, work history, hometown, interests, current city, political views, favourite athlete and teams, relationship status and information, religion, name of significant other, and certain security settings information) and your contacts on those services. This information is subject to the privacy policies or notices of the third-party providers of the plug-ins and widgets.
Retention and storage of your personal information
We will only retain your personal information for the length of time that we believe is reasonably necessary for the Purpose for which it was collected.
We will ensure that there are reasonable safeguards in place against loss, misuse or unauthorised disclosure or destruction of your personal information.
Accessing and correcting your personal information
Under the Privacy Act, you have the right to access and request correction of your personal information.
You may request access to any personal information we hold about you at any time by contacting us (see the details below). Where we hold information that you are entitled to access, we will try to provide you with suitable means of accessing it (for example, by mailing or emailing it to you). We may charge you a fee to cover our administrative and other reasonable costs in providing the information to you and, if so, the fees will be disclosed on our website. We will not charge for simply making the request and will not charge for making any corrections to your personal information.
There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to the personal information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others or if it would result in a breach of confidentiality. If that happens, we will give you reasons for any refusal.
If you believe that personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you may request us to amend it. We will consider if the information requires amendment. If we do not agree that there are grounds for amendment then we will add a note to the personal information stating that you disagree with it.
Disclosing personal information
We may disclose personal information (but only if we need to for the Purposes) to:
- James Group employees;
- related Body Corporates;
- other James Group entities (James Group Real Estate Ltd & James Group Property Management Ltd);
- contractors or service providers for the purpose of operation of our websites or out business;
- fulfilling requests by you, and to otherwise provide products and services to you including, without limitation, web hosting providers, IT systems administrators, registry providers, mailing houses, couriers, payment processors, data entry service providers, electronic network administrators;
- your professional advisers, such as lawyers, accountants, business advisors and consultants;
- credit reporting agencies;
- debt collection agencies;
- requirement of law; such as to facilitate court proceedings, enforce our terms and conditions or to protect James Group, our clients or others;
- regulators and government agencies with statutory powers able to request any personal information includes the Police, IRD and the Ministry of Economic development. Additionally anyone else who we are legally required or authorised to share your personal information with, such as under AML/CFT Act; or
- any other third parties we tell you about or to whom you specifically authorise us disclose such information, these recipients will be advised of the privacy association with such information;
We may also use or disclose your information where that use or disclosure is permitted under the Privacy Act or any other applicable law, such as where the information disclosed is publicly available or where it would not be unfair or unreasonable to use or disclose the information. We may also disclose information when it is not in a form which identifies you.
Disclosing personal information outside New Zealand
If required for a Purpose above, we may transfer your personal information to a party outside New Zealand and you consent to this transfer.
Where we transfer personal information outside New Zealand we have arrangements in place to ensure that such personal information will be transferred and used in a manner that is consistent with the requirements of the Privacy Act and any other applicable privacy laws in the jurisdiction or jurisdictions to which the information is transferred.
Communication of Information
Email communication is an important component of James Group’ service both in our Property Management and Real Estate agency work. In general emails are used to communicate market opportunities with you, but on request it is our policy to remove any registered user from our mailing list. Such email correspondence will contain clear instructions for how the user can remove himself or herself from the mailing list.
You may request access to any information we hold about you at any time by contacting us. If you believe any of the personal information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or inaccurate, then you can contact us by the means of your choice advising that you would like us to amend the information.
Security
As our website is linked to the internet, we cannot provide assurance of the security of information you transmit to us online or that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet.
Any personal information or other information which you transmit to us online is transmitted at your own risk.
Links to other websites and apps
Our website may contain links to third party websites and for your convenience and information. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third-party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third-party website. Third party websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices.
Complaints About Breach
If you believe that your privacy has been breached, please contact us and provide as much detail as possible about your concern so that we can fully investigate it. Any complaints or If your concerns are not resolved during any correspondence with us we suggest you contact the Privacy Commissioner on 0800 803 909 or visit https://www.privacy.org.nz/
Changes to our Privacy Policy
From time to time we may make changes to this privacy policy. Any amended policy will be posted to our website.
In House Complaints and Dispute Resolution Procedure
James Group Real Estate Limited has designed a simple and personalised process for you as a client, prospective client, or customer to register a formal complaint or dispute based on the services rendered to you by this real estate agency.
Step 1: Contact our manager (contact may be made via phone or in writing – note any complaints or disputes in writing should be addressed to “The Manager”) and advise them who it is you wish to make a complaint or dispute about, and the grounds for the complaint and/or dispute. Advise the manager during this correspondence of the action you would like to take.
Step 2: The manager may ask for you to formalise your complaint by putting it in writing (if you have not already done so) so that he/she has a full account of the client’s, prospective client’s, or customer’s version of events that resulted in this complaint and/or dispute being made. The manager will look to meet with the team member/s involved in the complaint or dispute to gather as much information about the series of events that led to the complaint or dispute being made. Following this, the manager will contact you within 5 working days acknowledging your complaint or dispute. As part of that response, and if necessary, the manager may seek an appointment with you and the relevant team member/s to discuss the complaint or dispute and seek to reach an agreement together.
Step 3: If an agreement has not yet been met following the initial communication from the manager, and where necessary the subsequent team meeting, or if you do not wish to meet with the Manager, then the manager will provide you with a written proposal to try resolve your complaint.
Step 4: If you choose not to accept the written proposal please advise us within 5 working days that the complaint or dispute is yet to be resolved. In these circumstances we encourage you to propose alternative solutions to help remedy the complaint or dispute efficiently.
Step 5: If James Group accepts your proposal to remedy the complaint or dispute we will advise you in writing and seek to action this as quickly as possible. If we decline your offer, we may invite you to mediate the dispute or propose an alternative solution to what has already been put forward.
Step 6: If we agree to mediate the complaint or dispute, but do not manage to settle this during the mediation, or parties cannot agree on a suitable remedy, this is the end of our in-house complaints and dispute resolution process. Under these circumstances if you wish to proceed with the complaint or dispute resolution process, you will need to register your complaint with the Real Estate Agents Authority.
James Group prides itself on customer service and customer satisfaction. If for whatever reason you are not satisfied with the services rendered by James Group, we encourage you to raise the issue with us directly. We value your custom and will endeavour to resolve matters in a timely and sufficient manner to ensure strong relationships are maintained at all times.
Please note you can make a complaint to the Real Estate Authority at any time. Initiating an in-house complaint or dispute resolution process does not in any way preclude your right to contact the Real Estate Authority (REA) directly. The REA can be contacted by the following means; C/- PO BOX 25371, Featherston Street, Wellington 6146 or by phone on 0800 367 7322 or (04) 471 8930.