This privacy policy has been compiled to serve better those who are concerned with how their ‘Personally identifiable information’ (PII) used online. PII, as used in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be utilized on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. Please read our privacy policy carefully to get a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with our website.
WHO WE ARE
The Site is a service website which has the following description: Real Estate Services, including but not limited to: Real Estate Brokerage, Residential and Commercial Real Estate Services, including leasing and sales and general information.
Any and all visitors to our site shall be deemed as “users” of the herein contained Service.
Furthermore, the user understands, acknowledges and agrees that the Services offered shall be provided “AS IS” and as such Picket Fence Realty shall not assume any responsibility or obligation for the timeliness, missed delivery, deletion and/or any failure to store user content, communication or personalization settings.
Our website addresses are: https://buypalestine.com and http://www.rentpalestine.com
What personal information do we collect?
Possible Personal Information Collected
This website functionality requires/requests users to provide contact information (such as their email address) and personal information (such as their names, address phone numbers, and property details). The user’s contact and personal information is used to contact said user when necessary and requested, but is primarily used to collect personal information necessary to effectively market and to sell or lease the property of sellers and/or landlords, to locate, assess and qualify properties for buyers and to process rental applications for potential tenants and otherwise provide professional services to clients and customers.
When subscribing to a newsletter, blog alerts, property search alerts or filling out a form, as appropriate, we collect the information you enter, including but not limited to, your name, email address, mailing address, phone number or other details to help you with your experience.
We may use the information we collect from you when you register, purchase products, enter a contest or promotion, respond to a survey or marketing communication, surf the website, or use certain other site features in the following ways: To personalize your site experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested. To allow us to better service you in responding to your customer service requests. To quickly process your transactions. To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature. If you have opted-in to receive our e-mail newsletter, property search alerts or blog updates, we may send you periodic e-mails. If you would no longer like to receive promotional e-mail from us, please refer to the “How can you opt-out, remove or modify information you have provided to us?” section below. If you have not opted-in to receive e-mail newsletters, you will not receive these e-mails. Visitors who register or participate in other site features such as marketing programs and blog content will be given a choice whether they would like to be on our e-mail list and receive e-mail communications from us.
Personal information is:
- information in a consumer report; or
- an individual’s first name or initial and last name in combination with any of the following:
- birth date;
- social security number or other government-issued identification number;
- mother’s maiden name;
- unique electronic identification number or routing code;
- telecommunication access devices including debit or credit card information; or
- financial institution account or information.
- e-mail address
A consumer report is a report related to a person’s credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living prepared by or obtained from an agency that collects such information such as a credit reporting agency.
When do we collect information?
Our websites obtain personal information in the following ways: in consumer reports from reporting agencies to which this company subscribes in connection with lease applications, loan applications, or for other reasons that the consumer may authorize this company to obtain; in lease applications a prospective tenant completes; in other real estate related forms the customer or client completes in or related to a transaction; and in tax reporting forms that the customer or client is required to complete and which are given to this company; We collect information from you when you fill out a form or enter information on our site.
When completing the forms required above, the customer or client may send the information to this company by mail, fax, personal delivery, or by e-mail.
How do we use your information?
Personal Information from Rental Applications/Prospective Tenants: The personal information that prospective tenants provide to this company is primarily used to obtain consumer reports (credit checks). It may also be used to perform background checks and rental history searches. The information in the consumer reports may be discussed with landlords for whom this company manages the property. This company also reports information to credit reporting agencies and uses personal information to complete those reports.
Personal Information from Owners of Properties Managed by the Company: When this company acts as a property manager for a property owner; the company uses the property owner’s personal information only: (a) to deliver the required management services; (b) to file any required reports with governmental agencies (for example, the IRS); (c) to establish ACH deposits, or (d) for other purposes the property owner may authorize.
Personal Information from Clients: When this company represents a person (buyer, seller, landlord or tenant) in a transaction the agent servicing the client may, on the client’s behalf and at the client’s instruction, convey personal information he or she provides to the agent to service providers (for example, mortgage lenders and title companies) as those service providers may require for the products or services the client needs or requests. If this company represents a prospective tenant in a lease transaction, the personal information may, on the tenant’s behalf and with the tenant’s knowledge, be discussed with and provided to landlords or their agents. This company and its agents exercise reasonable discretion when discussing any personal information with others.
How do we protect visitor information?
Written files in this company are kept under lock and key.
Electronic records are protected by an access name and password assigned to persons in this company.
This company and its agents exercise reasonable discretion when discussing any personal information with others and release personal information to others only as described by this policy.
This company does not permit its employees or agents to make copies of consumer reports or records of insurance claims. The consumer reports retained in the company’s files are not to be accessed in the future as a convenience to customers or clients.
The individual agents that work with this company are independent contractors and the agent with whom a customer or client works with may maintain a separate transaction file.
The company instructs its agents to not permit other persons to access the personal information in files the agents maintain. The company instructs its agents to protect the personal information in the agent’s’ files in the same manner as described in this policy.
Who has access to the personal information?
The following persons have access to personal information in this company’s files:
(1) the agent or broker who is servicing or coordinating the transaction; (2) the broker of record of the company; (3) the office manager to whom the agent reports; and (4) the owner of the company.
Property owners for whom the company manages properties do not have access to personal information in the company’s files. However, the company and its agents may discuss the information in a tenant’s consumer report or lease application with a property owner.
Copies of such information are provided to the landlord only: (1) with the tenant’s consent; or (2) if the company ceases to be the property manager and the landlord requests that the files be sent to the landlord, the landlord’s attorney, or the new property manager.
Personal information from a buyer, seller, landlord, or tenant may be discussed with others (such as mortgage lenders or prospective landlords) only as is reasonably necessary to negotiate or close the transaction or to provide the services the customer or client seeks
from this company. This company may, at the customer’s or client’s request, provide personal information to service providers in a transaction such as a title company or mortgage company if it is necessary to expedite or complete a transaction.
If the company is required by law to allow others to access the personal information in the company’s files, the company will comply with the law (for example, compliance with court orders, subpoenas, or governmental investigations). The company will also allow law
enforcement agencies access to personal information in order to cooperate with such investigations.
Media and Comments
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website. When visitors leave comments and/or use contact forms on the site we collect the data shown in the comments/contact forms, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment. Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Third Party Disclosure
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information unless we provide you with advance notice, except as described below. The term “outside parties” does not include our company, agents, affiliates or employees. It also does not include website hosting partners and other parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety.
Third party links
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party links, products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
Articles and pages on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, maps, articles, MLS listings from our company and local MLS subscribers etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. Please review the terms of use or privacy policies of these services/content sources for rights and restrictions.
Do we use ‘cookies’?
Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.
We use cookies to: Compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions to offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may also use trusted third party services that track this information on our behalf. You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser (like Internet Explorer) settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser’s Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you disable cookies, some features will be disabled It won’t affect the user’s experience that makes your site experience more efficient and some of our services will not function properly.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for up to one year. If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed. If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
How is the personal information disposed?
This company uses reasonable measures to dispose of personal information. Personal information is usually disposed of by shredding or burning documents, erasing electronic files by means that make the files unreadable or undecipherable, or by eradicating personal information from documents or electronic files in ways that make the personal information unreadable.
Erroneous Records
If this company erroneously reports information to a consumer reporting agency, the company will act to correct the information in the company’s records and request the reporting agency to correct the information in its records promptly after the company has learned and determined that the report was in error. If this company maintains an erroneous record that a consumer has issued a dishonored check, the company will promptly delete the record after the company and consumer agree that the information is in error or after the consumer provides the company with a law enforcement agency report stating that the dishonored check was not authorized.
COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)
When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under 13, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online. We do not specifically market to children under 13.
Contacting Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below.
Picket Fence Realty, Inc
710 W. Main St
Palestine, TX 75801
Last Update March 1, 2024