Privacy Policy

Who we are

RCS Buyers Advocate Melbourne (“RCS”, “we”, “us”, “our”) provides independent buyers advocacy and vendor advocacy services across Melbourne and Victoria. We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

The information we collect

When you contact us

If you use our contact form, email or call us, we collect:

• your name
• your email address
• your phone number, if you give it
• whatever you tell us in your message or conversation

When you engage us

To act for you, we may also collect:

• the kind of property you want to buy or sell, your preferred areas and your budget
• your finance position, such as the amount and status of any pre-approval
• contact details for people helping you with the transaction, such as your conveyancer, solicitor or mortgage broker
• identification and other details needed for contracts and our engagement agreement, or required by law

When you browse this website

• usage information collected by Google Analytics (see Cookies and analytics)
• standard technical information that our hosting provider records in server logs, such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested

Staying anonymous

You can make a general enquiry without telling us who you are, for example by phone. We need your name and contact details to reply in writing or to act for you.

How we use it

We use your personal information to:

• reply to your enquiry and arrange a consultation
• provide our services, including searching for, assessing and negotiating on property for you, or helping you sell
• meet our legal, regulatory and record-keeping obligations
• understand how this website is used so we can improve it
• protect this website and our contact form from spam and misuse

We won’t add you to a mailing list or send you marketing without asking first. We never sell, rent or trade your personal information.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only when we need to:

• People involved in your purchase or sale, as part of acting for you. For example, selling agents during negotiations, building and pest inspectors, valuers, and your conveyancer, solicitor or broker.
• Service providers who help us run our business and this website: Resend (delivers emails sent from our contact form), Microsoft 365 (our email), Hostinger (hosts this website) and Google Analytics (website statistics).
• Anyone the law requires us to share it with, such as a regulator or a court.

Overseas

Some of these providers store or process information outside Australia, including in the United States. This includes this website’s servers, Resend and Google. We choose established providers with strong security and privacy commitments, and we remain responsible for how your information is handled.

Cookies and analytics

This website uses Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors use it, such as which pages are viewed and how people find the site. Google Analytics uses cookies and collects information like your device type, browser and approximate location (to city level). It doesn’t tell us your name or contact details, and Google Analytics 4 doesn’t log or store IP addresses.

We also record when someone taps our phone number, clicks our email address or sends the contact form successfully, so we can see which parts of the site lead to enquiries.

We don’t use cookies for advertising. You can block cookies in your browser settings or install Google’s Analytics opt-out add-on. The site works normally either way.

How we protect it

• This website uses an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, so the contact form is sent securely.
• The website doesn’t store your enquiry. It’s emailed straight to us, and our email delivery provider keeps a record of the messages it sends.
• To limit spam, the contact form keeps a scrambled (hashed) copy of the sender’s IP address and the times of recent submissions. It isn’t used for anything else.
• We limit access to personal information to people who need it, and take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, loss and unauthorised access or disclosure.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes above, or for as long as the law requires us to keep records. When we no longer need it, we delete it or de-identify it.

Accessing, correcting or deleting your information

You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email info@rcsmelbourne.com.au. There’s no charge to make a request.

We’ll respond within 30 days, and may need to confirm your identity first. If we can’t do what you ask, for example because the law requires us to keep a record, we’ll explain why.

Complaints

If you’re concerned about how we’ve handled your personal information, please contact us first so we can try to put it right. We’ll respond within 30 days.

If you’re not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed.

Contact us

For any privacy question or request, email info@rcsmelbourne.com.au or call 0423 637 488.