Your data, kept private by design.

1. Who we are

Homeflit (homeflit.com) is the controller of the personal data described in this notice. You can contact us about anything in it at hello@homeflit.com. Homeflit is in public beta, and this notice will be reviewed by our legal adviser during the beta.

2. What we collect

• Your account: name, email address, a securely hashed password, whether you have confirmed your email, your code name and your settings (such as email preferences).
• Homes you claim: the address and postcode you enter, property details, the price you would consider, your level of interest, and photos you upload.
• Proof of ownership: documents you upload so we can check a claim. These are stored privately and are never shown to other users.
• Identity and money checks (Homeflit full service only): if you use the full service at homeflit.co.uk, photo ID, proof of address and, for buyers, proof of funds (such as a mortgage agreement in principle or a bank statement) with the amount it shows. These are stored privately, seen only by our checking team, and never shown to the other side. The other side only sees whether your checks are approved and, for a buyer, the approved amount.
• Full service sales (homeflit.co.uk): your instruction of Homeflit and when you accepted or cancelled it, where your own move has got to in the chain, the legal steps ticked by you, the other side, either solicitor or our staff, notes the solicitors send, and our own internal notes on how the sale is progressing.
• Material information: details owners give about their home, such as council tax band, energy rating, heating, parking and known risks. These are shown to buyers on the listing.
• Requests to join the full service beta: your name, email address, whether you are buying or selling, an optional postcode and message, and whether we invited you. We use them only to reply to you.
• Buyer activity: homes you save, your search areas (a circle or a shape you draw) with budget and preferences, offers you make (including, if you choose to say, your position and how you are paying, which the owner sees) and messages you send.
• Viewings: times suggested and agreed in a conversation, and the address if an owner chooses to share it with you.
• Reports: reports you make about a listing or photo.
• Visits to the site: which pages are used, the postcode district searched, the type of device, the country, and how you arrived (for example a search engine). We count visits without cookies, using a code that changes every day and cannot be used to identify you.
• Instant alerts: if you turn on alerts on a device, the address your browser gives us for sending them, so we can tell you about offers and messages. Turn them off in Settings at any time.
• Security records: sign in sessions and limited technical logs used to keep the service secure and prevent misuse.

3. Why we use it

• To provide Homeflit (performing our agreement with you): running your account, showing homes on the map, checking claims, delivering offers and messages, sending the emails you rely on, and helping owners and buyers arrange viewings.
• To keep Homeflit safe and fair (our legitimate interests): checking ownership, preventing fraud and misuse, handling reports, and securing accounts.
• To improve Homeflit (our legitimate interests): understanding, in aggregate, which areas people search and how the site is used. This never identifies individuals.
• To meet legal obligations where the law requires us to keep or disclose information. For the full service this includes the identity, address and source of funds checks an estate agent must carry out under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017.

Alert emails about offers, messages and matching homes can be switched off at any time in your account settings or with the unsubscribe link in each email. Emails that confirm your address or reset your password are always sent because the service needs them.

4. What other users see

• Your code name, never your real name or email.
• For a claimed home: its postcode area, the property details and photos you choose to add, and the price you set. The exact address stays private unless you, as the owner, share it with a particular buyer in a conversation.
• Buyers’ budgets and search areas are private. The buyer interest map only shows shading over squares about 5 km wide, never an individual search. When we show how many buyers are looking near a postcode or a home, it is a count, and a typical budget is only shown when at least three buyers are looking, rounded to the nearest £25,000.
• Owners see how many times their home was viewed. We count views without recording who looked.
• If you are a buyer and choose to add proof of funds for the Funds checked badge, owners you make offers to see the badge and the amount we checked. They never see the document.

5. Who we share it with

We do not sell personal data. We share it only with the services that run Homeflit on our behalf, under contracts that require them to protect it:

• Cloudflare: hosting, database and private file storage.
• Resend: sending our emails.
• Hostinger: our email inbox, for messages you send to hello@homeflit.com.
• HM Land Registry: we look up recent sales near a postcode in its public price paid data. Only the postcode is sent, never anything about you.
• OpenFreeMap: supplies the map images; your device requests them directly, so they receive your IP address as any website would.
• A private server we rent, which supplies map positions for homes. It receives map areas, not your personal details.

Solicitors, on the Homeflit full service only. Once a sale is agreed at homeflit.co.uk and both of you have shared your solicitor’s details, we send both solicitors a memorandum of sale. It gives the seller’s and the buyer’s names, email addresses and any phone number and correspondence address they add for it, each side’s position (for example a first time buyer, or buying another home), the property address, the agreed price, fixtures and fittings, any special conditions, the buyer’s checked funds, whether identity checks are complete and the target completion date. Both solicitors also get a private link to the property documents the owner chooses to share for that sale. The buyer and the owner still see each other only by code name, and never see each other’s phone number or address.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or to protect people from harm or fraud. If you choose to follow a link to another service (for example street view), that service’s own privacy policy applies.

6. Where it is stored

Our providers may process data outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or approved safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

7. How long we keep it

• Account, claim, message and search area data: for as long as your account exists, and then deleted unless we need to keep something for a legal reason or an open dispute.
• Proof of ownership documents: for as long as the claim exists. Ask us and we will delete them.
• Proof of funds uploaded on homeflit.com for the Funds checked badge: for as long as your account exists. Ask us and we will delete it.
• Identity and money check documents (full service): five years after the sale completes or our business relationship with you ends, as the Money Laundering Regulations require. Because the law requires this, they cannot be deleted sooner, even if you close your account. After five years they are deleted.
• Detailed visit records: 90 days, after which only daily totals are kept.
• Database backups: kept for 30 days, then deleted automatically.

8. Cookies and similar storage

We use one essential cookie to keep you signed in. Your browser also remembers small preferences on your device, such as tips you have closed. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, so we do not ask for cookie consent.

9. Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a portable format. You can download your data and close your account yourself in Settings in your account; for anything else, email hello@homeflit.com and we will reply within one month. When you close your account we delete your homes, files, photos, saved homes, search areas and sign in, withdraw your offers and replace the messages you sent with a note; identity check documents from the full service are kept for five years, as the law requires. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, although we would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

10. Keeping it safe

Data is encrypted in transit, passwords are hashed, proof documents and private files are only available to the account owner and our reviewers, and access to administration is limited to confirmed accounts we authorise.

11. Changes

If we change how we use personal data we will update this notice and the date above, and tell you in advance of any significant change.