Love Homes Conveyancing is a division of New Level Law Pty Ltd ("Love Homes", "we", "us" or "our").
We understand that property transactions require clients to provide personal, financial and sometimes sensitive information. We are committed to handling that information carefully, securely and in accordance with our professional obligations.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information. It also explains how you may access or correct your information or make a privacy complaint.
We manage personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including the Australian Privacy Principles, where applicable, as well as our legal, professional and regulatory obligations.
Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.
- your name, address, email address and telephone number
- your date and place of birth
- copies or details of identity documents
- electronic identity-verification results
- your occupation, residency or citizenship information
- your tax file number or other government identifiers, where lawfully required
- details of properties you own, are buying or are selling
- contracts, strata reports, searches and transaction documents
- banking, loan, deposit and settlement information
- information about your source of funds or source of wealth
- information about companies, trusts, partnerships or other entities with which you are connected
- information about directors, shareholders, trustees, beneficiaries and beneficial owners
- details relating to family members, representatives, attorneys, agents or other parties to a transaction
- communications between you and our team
- information required to perform customer due diligence, sanctions, politically exposed person, adverse-media and other regulatory checks
- technical information collected when you use our website or digital services
Depending on the services we provide, this may include:
Some information we collect may be sensitive information. We will only collect sensitive information where you consent, where it is reasonably necessary for our services, or where its collection is otherwise permitted or required by law.
We generally collect personal information directly from you, including when you:
- submit an enquiry through our website
- request a quotation or open a conveyancing file
- communicate with us by telephone, email, text message, WhatsApp or another communication service
- provide documents or complete forms
- use a client portal, identity-verification service or electronic signing platform
- attend a meeting with us
- instruct another person to communicate with us on your behalf
- subscribe to updates or other communications
We may also collect information from third parties, including:
- real estate agents, mortgage brokers, buyers' agents and selling agents
- banks, lenders and financial institutions
- another solicitor, conveyancer or representative
- strata managers, owners corporations and strata-report providers
- government departments, councils, courts, registries and regulatory bodies
- property, company, title and other search providers
- identity-verification, fraud-prevention and AML/CTF service providers
- publicly available sources
- your authorised representatives
- other parties involved in your property transaction
We collect, hold and use personal information where reasonably necessary to:
- respond to website enquiries
- assess whether we can act for you
- provide quotations and explain our services
- open, administer and manage conveyancing and legal matters
- review contracts, strata reports, searches and other documents
- communicate with you and other participants in a transaction
- conduct electronic settlements
- verify identity and authority
- receive, hold and transfer money in accordance with our instructions and legal obligations
- manage our trust account and financial records
- undertake conflict checks
- comply with professional duties and legal-practice requirements
- conduct customer due diligence and comply with AML/CTF obligations
- detect, prevent and respond to fraud, cybersecurity threats and unlawful activity
- manage complaints, disputes and insurance matters
- improve our services, systems, website and client experience
- maintain business and accounting records
- send service communications and, where permitted, relevant marketing communications
- comply with laws, court orders and requests from authorised regulators or government agencies
Where practical, you may contact us anonymously or using a pseudonym. However, we will generally need to know your identity before providing legal or conveyancing services.
You are not required to provide personal information to us.
However, if we cannot collect information that is reasonably necessary, we may be unable to:
Certain legal and conveyancing services are regulated under Australia's anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) laws.
Where those laws apply, we may be required to:
- verify your identity and, where relevant, the identity of beneficial owners or representatives
- understand the nature and purpose of your transaction
- obtain information about source of funds or source of wealth
- assess money-laundering, terrorism-financing and proliferation-financing risk
- conduct sanctions, politically exposed person and adverse-media screening
- monitor transactions and business relationships
- retain records for prescribed periods
- provide information or reports to AUSTRAC or another authorised body
The law may prevent us from telling you that certain information or a report has been provided to AUSTRAC.
We may disclose personal information where reasonably necessary to provide our services or satisfy our obligations, including to:
- solicitors, conveyancers and other professional advisers
- real estate agents, buyers' agents, mortgage brokers and property professionals
- banks, lenders and financial institutions
- counterparties and their legal representatives
- NSW Land Registry Services and equivalent interstate land registries
- Revenue NSW and equivalent interstate revenue authorities
- PEXA or another electronic-conveyancing platform
- councils, water authorities and other government bodies
- strata managers, owners corporations, inspectors and search providers
- identity-verification and AML/CTF service providers
- barristers, experts, consultants and contractors
- insurers, auditors, accountants and external advisers
- software, document-management, communications, cybersecurity, data-storage and cloud-service providers
- courts, tribunals, law-enforcement agencies, regulators and government authorities
- debt-recovery providers, where appropriate
- another person where you have authorised or instructed us to disclose the information
We may also disclose personal information where required or authorised by law, where necessary to protect a person from serious harm, or in connection with a sale, restructuring or transfer of our business.
We do not sell personal information.
Our handling of client information is also governed by professional duties of confidentiality.
Some communications and documents may be protected by legal professional privilege. This Privacy Policy does not waive that privilege or require us to disclose information where disclosure would breach privilege, confidentiality, another person's rights or our legal obligations.
We use technology and service providers that may store, process or provide support access to information outside Australia.
Personal information may therefore be accessed from or disclosed to recipients in:
- Australia, Philippines, United Kingdom
- other countries where a service provider operates or stores backup data
The countries involved may change as providers and hosting arrangements change.
Where required, we take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients handle personal information consistently with applicable Australian privacy requirements. However, overseas recipients may also be subject to the laws of their own country.
When you visit our website, our systems or those of our service providers may automatically collect information such as:
- your IP address
- browser and device type
- operating system
- approximate location
- pages viewed
- referring website
- dates and times of access
- interactions with website forms or content
We may use cookies, pixels, analytics tools and similar technologies to:
- operate and secure the website
- remember preferences
- understand how visitors use the website
- identify technical problems
- measure the effectiveness of content or advertising
- improve the website and our services
You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling some cookies may affect how the website functions.
Third-party services used by our website may collect information in accordance with their own privacy policies.
Information submitted through our website is used to respond to your enquiry and, where appropriate, to begin the process of opening a file.
Submitting a website form does not, by itself, create a solicitor-client relationship. Please do not provide highly sensitive information through a general enquiry form unless we request it or provide a secure method for doing so.
Electronic communications cannot be guaranteed to be completely secure. You should contact us promptly if you believe an email, payment direction or other communication may be fraudulent.
We may use your contact details to send information about our services, legal or property-related developments, client resources or other communications we reasonably believe may be relevant to you.
We will only do so where permitted by law.
You may opt out at any time by:
Opting out of marketing will not prevent us from sending communications necessary to manage a current matter or comply with legal obligations.
We take reasonable administrative, physical and technical steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
These measures may include:
- access controls and authentication
- secure cloud and document-management systems
- multifactor authentication
- encryption and secure transmission tools
- staff confidentiality and privacy requirements
- cybersecurity controls and monitoring
- secure identity-verification and electronic-conveyancing platforms
- backup and recovery processes
- procedures for responding to suspected data breaches
No system is completely secure. You should independently verify any email or message that changes bank account or payment instructions. We will not change trust-account or payment details without appropriate verification.
We maintain procedures for assessing and responding to suspected data breaches.
Where a breach is likely to result in serious harm and the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme applies, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by law.
We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to:
- provide our services
- complete your transaction
- comply with professional, taxation, trust-account, AML/CTF and other record-keeping obligations
- respond to complaints, disputes or legal claims
- maintain appropriate business records
Legal and conveyancing files are required to be retained for a minimum of seven years after a matter is completed.
When information is no longer required and we are legally permitted to dispose of it, we take reasonable steps to securely destroy or de-identify it.
You may request access to personal information we hold about you.
We may need to verify your identity before providing access. In some circumstances, we may refuse access or provide only partial access where permitted or required by law. This may include circumstances involving:
Where required, we will explain the basis for refusing access.
We will not generally charge for making an access request, although we may charge a reasonable administrative fee where permitted by law and will tell you about that fee in advance.
You may ask us to correct personal information that is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, irrelevant or misleading.
We may take reasonable steps to verify the requested correction. Where appropriate, we may also notify third parties to whom the incorrect information was previously disclosed.
You may contact us if you have a question or complaint about how we have handled your personal information.
Please provide:
- your name and contact details
- a description of your concern
- relevant dates, documents or communications
- the outcome you are seeking
We will acknowledge your complaint and investigate it within a reasonable period.
If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may be entitled to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
Our website may contain links to websites or services operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security or content of those third-party services.
You should review the privacy policy of any third-party service before providing personal information.
We may update this Privacy Policy when our services, technology, practices or legal obligations change.
The current version will be published on our website and identified by the "last updated" date at the beginning of the policy.
For privacy enquiries, access or correction requests, or complaints, contact:
Privacy Officer
Love Homes Conveyancing
A division of New Level Law Pty Ltd
Suite 305, Level 3
3 Hosking Place
Sydney NSW 2000
Telephone: 02 9318 9118
Email: hello@love-homes.com.au
You may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner through its official website.