Privacy notice — what we keep, and why.
How Family Tree looks after the details you give us when you get in touch, and when we work on your garden. In plain English. Last updated 5 October 2026.
Who we are
Family Tree Grounds Maintenance & Construction (“Family Tree”, “we”, “us”) is a family business based in Wallingford, Oxfordshire (OX10).
We are the “controller” of the personal information described here: we decide how it is used, and we are responsible for looking after it. For any question about it, email familytreegmc@gmail.com or call 07736 650477.
What we collect
- Our enquiry form: your name and phone number, plus your email address, postcode, the type of work and your message if you choose to add them.
- The “Send on WhatsApp” box on our home page doesn’t send anything through this website. It opens WhatsApp with your message filled in, and you send it from there.
- Emails, calls, texts and WhatsApp messages: your contact details, what you tell us, and any photos or videos you send us of your garden or property.
- If we quote for or do work for you: the address of the job, what we agreed, quotes, invoices and a record of what has been paid.
- When you visit this website: like any website, the server it runs on automatically logs basic technical details of each visit — your IP address, browser type, the page asked for and the date and time. We don’t use these to identify anyone.
How we use it
Data protection law only lets us use your information when we have a lawful reason. Ours are:
- To reply to your enquiry, come and look, and give you a quote — because you asked us to (steps before a contract).
- To do the work, arrange visits, invoice and take payment — to carry out our contract with you.
- To keep business and tax records — because the law requires it.
- To keep this website secure and working, and to deal with any later questions about a job — our legitimate interest in running the business, balanced against your rights.
- To show our work: we like to photograph finished gardens and may use the photos on this website and our Facebook page. We never publish your name or address with them. If you’d rather your garden wasn’t shown, just tell us (legitimate interests).
We don’t add you to marketing lists, we never sell your information, and we don’t make automated decisions about you.
How long we keep it
- Enquiries that don’t go ahead: deleted around 12 months after we last hear from you.
- Customer records (job details, quotes, invoices, payments): 6 years from the end of the financial year they relate to — the period the law requires companies to keep accounting records.
- Photos and messages you send us: kept with the enquiry or job they belong to, and deleted on the same timetable.
- Server logs: kept by Hostinger for a limited period under its own policy. We don’t copy or keep them.
While we hold your information it sits in a password-protected email account and on our own phones, and this website and its enquiry form use an encrypted (HTTPS) connection.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
- give you a copy of the information we hold about you;
- correct anything that’s wrong or incomplete;
- delete it — though we may have to keep some records the law requires, such as invoices;
- stop or limit using it, or object to how we use it — for example, not showing photos of your garden;
- send the information you gave us to you, or to someone else, in a format you can reuse.
Just email or call us. It’s free, and we’ll reply within one month. We may need to check it’s really you first.
Contact & complaints
Questions, requests or concerns: email familytreegmc@gmail.com or call 07736 650477.
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.
We’ll update this page if anything changes; the date at the top shows when it was last revised.