Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

This Privacy Policy applies to Chappell Estates, a licensed real estate agency operating under RLA 357778 (South Australia), and to the PropLedge property management platform operated on its behalf.

For privacy enquiries, corrections, access requests, or complaints, please contact us at: admin@chappellestates.com.au

2. What information we collect

We may collect and hold the following categories of personal information:

Contact & identity information

• Names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses
• Identity details of property owners, landlords, tenants, buyers, vendors, and contractors
• Portal account credentials (email and hashed passwords — plaintext passwords are not retained)

Property & tenancy records

• Property addresses, descriptions, and ownership records
• Tenancy details including rent amounts, lease periods, rent schedules, and payment records
• Inspection records, maintenance requests, and work orders
• Sales, vendor, and buyer records
• Documents uploaded to the platform including leases, inspection reports, and correspondence

Financial information

• Bank account details where provided for payment or disbursement purposes
• Bank CSV transaction data uploaded by authorised staff for reconciliation purposes
• Trust accounting records including receipts and ledger entries (subject to live activation controls)
• Rent schedule data and payment history

Communications

• Email communications sent through or logged in the platform
• Portal messages and notifications
• Communication templates and merge fields

Technical & audit information

• Audit log records of significant platform actions
• IP addresses and user agent strings where collected at account activation
• Session and access logs maintained by hosting and infrastructure providers

3. How we collect information

We collect personal information through:

• Online forms in the PropLedge platform (sign-up, tenant and landlord portal activation)
• Staff data entry in the course of property management and sales administration
• Documents uploaded by staff, owners, tenants, or contractors
• Bank CSV imports processed by authorised staff
• Email and portal communications
• Technical and audit logs generated automatically by the platform

4. Why we use your information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• Property management and sales administration
• Tenancy management including rent schedules, inspection records, and compliance
• Providing landlord and tenant portal access
• Processing rent payments and maintaining trust accounting records (subject to live activation controls and regulatory requirements)
• Sending communications relevant to your property, tenancy, or transaction
• Maintaining compliance and audit records as required by law and by our regulatory obligations
• Administering staff and contractor access to the platform
• Security monitoring and fraud prevention
• Meeting legal, regulatory, and accounting obligations

5. Disclosure of information

We may disclose personal information to:

• Authorised staff and users within our organisation
• Property owners, landlords, and tenants where relevant to their property or tenancy
• Contractors, tradespeople, and maintenance providers where necessary
• Conveyancers, solicitors, accountants, and auditors engaged in a relevant transaction or audit
• Regulators including Consumer and Business Services (CBS), the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (SACAT), courts, or law enforcement where required by law
• Hosting, infrastructure, email, and storage service providers who process data on our behalf
• Payment or banking providers, if payment functionality is activated

We do not sell personal information. We take reasonable steps to ensure third-party service providers handle information consistently with this policy and applicable law.

6. Overseas and cloud storage

The PropLedge platform uses cloud hosting and infrastructure services. Depending on provider configuration, your information may be stored or processed on servers located outside Australia. We take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas providers handle personal information in a manner consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles. We do not transfer personal information internationally for any purpose other than necessary platform operation.

7. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access. These steps include:

• Role-based access controls limiting information access to authorised users
• Audit logging of significant platform actions
• Regular database backups
• Encryption in transit for platform communications
• Password hashing — plaintext passwords are not stored

No system can guarantee complete security. You should also take steps to keep your account credentials secure and notify us immediately if you suspect unauthorised access to your account.

8. Access and correction

You have the right to request access to personal information we hold about you and to request correction of information that is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date. To make a request, please contact us at admin@chappellestates.com.au. We will respond within a reasonable time. We may decline access in limited circumstances permitted by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

9. Privacy complaints

If you have a complaint about how we handle personal information, please contact us at admin@chappellestates.com.au. We will investigate and respond within a reasonable time. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au.

10. Data breaches

If the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme apply to our operations, we will take appropriate steps to assess and, where required, notify affected individuals and the OAIC of eligible data breaches as required by that scheme.

11. Retention of records

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy and to meet our legal and regulatory obligations. This includes retention periods required for property management records, trust accounting records, tax obligations, audit purposes, and other legal and regulatory requirements applicable to real estate agents in South Australia.

12. Updates to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The version number and effective date shown at the top of this page indicate the current version. Where changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to notify affected users.