Privacy Policy

Buy Property Searches is a trading name of Property Searches Direct Limited, registered in England & Wales with company number 15060591. Our registered office is Waters Edge Riverside Close, Oundle, Northamptonshire PE8 4DN. We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

We store the following personally identifiable information:

• Customer names, email and postal addresses, and phone numbers. Used to provide our services to you. We return searches and invoices by email or post, and may contact you by phone about any difficulties in completing your searches.
• Website visitor IP addresses, identification "cookies", and logs of which pages are accessed. Used to track which user you're logged in as, for diagnostic purposes when problems occur, and to distinguish individual visitors so that we can monitor interest in different products and services.
• Names and addresses of properties against which customers order searches, and any other information specific to the type of search ordered. Some searches may require additional information — for example, indemnity insurance may require the value of the property. We hold that in the same way as the names and addresses associated with the order.
• Names, email addresses and phone numbers of people who have registered to receive marketing information from us.

In general, we only retain the information required to provide our services to you. This means we keep data differently for different purposes; for example, we keep records of any searches provided — and the names and addresses associated with them — indefinitely, as we offer a lifetime warranty on many of our searches and need to retain details of exactly what was originally ordered to provide this.

We retain the following information indefinitely:

• Customer contact details — to keep records of who originally ordered a search, to contact customers about their order, to provide warranties, and to meet our audit requirements for the Council of Property Search Organisations (who require that we provide samples of searches sold).
• Names and addresses associated with searches — so that we can provide copies of previous searches and investigate customer concerns with our products (e.g. warranty claims).
• Contact details of customers who have chosen to receive marketing information — you can ask us to remove these at any time.

We retain the following information for a period of three months:

• Website visitor IP addresses and session details, used for diagnostic purposes and to track visitor interest.
• Customer details for anti-money-laundering searches, including passport or driving licence information and previous addresses. We retain this information just long enough to allow you to query the results, and delete it after a reasonable period because it is sensitive.

As part of how we provide our services, we share some of your data with third parties who supply information to us or provide services to us as Search Providers. These include (non-exhaustive):

Aviva, Albion Water, Anglian Water, Argyll Environmental, BT, CAA, CLS, Cable & Wireless, Canal & River Trust, Coal Authority, Forestry Commission, FormEvo, Future Climate Info, GBG, Geodesys, Groundsure, Highways Agency, Land Registry, Landmark, Lawyer Checker, the relevant Local Authority, Network Rail, Northcott Beaton, Northumbrian Water, Ordnance Survey, Palladium Insurance, Port of London Authority, Royal Mail, SDLT.co.uk, Scottish & Southern Energy, Severn Trent Water, South West Water, Southern Water, Stewart Title, Terrafirma, Thames Water, TM Group, Transport for London, United Utilities, Veolia Water, Virgin Media, Welsh Water, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water.

We also use services provided by Google to track visitor interaction with our website. If you wish for further information about these companies or how they use and store your data, please get in touch with us. You can opt out of data collection by Google at privacy.google.com.

We provide third parties with the smallest possible set of your information required to perform the work required. For Search Providers, this generally means your contact details and the address associated with the products you've ordered. For insurance products, the names of the insured parties are generally also required. For identity and anti-money-laundering products, further details about the data subject are required.

We use third-party payment providers compliant with PCI-DSS to process card payments. Card details are never stored on our servers.

We may contact you to notify you regarding your account, to troubleshoot problems, to resolve disputes, to send updates about our company, or as otherwise necessary to enforce our Terms. You can opt out of marketing communications at any time by emailing customer services.

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies. When you first visit the site you'll see a cookie banner where you can accept, reject, or choose individual categories. You can change your choice at any time using the "Cookie preferences" link in the footer.

• Strictly necessary — required for the site to function (login session, checkout, security). These are always on and do not require consent under PECR.
• Analytics — Google Analytics 4, used to understand which pages are popular and how the site performs. IP addresses are anonymised. Loaded only after you opt in.
• Third-party widgets & marketing — the Trustpilot review widget in our footer, and any future marketing tags. Loaded only after you opt in; if you decline, you'll see a plain text link to our Trustpilot page instead.

You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking strictly-necessary cookies may stop parts of the site working.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes take effect immediately on posting. If we make material changes, we will notify you here that it has been updated.

If you wish to change or remove any information we hold about you, please contact our customer services team on 0333 090 9187 or customersupport@propertysearchesdirect.co.uk.

If you have further concerns, our Data Protection Officer can be reached at dpo@propertysearchesdirect.co.uk. Any requests for information under the data protection regulations should also be submitted to this address. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.